SEOUL – North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles, Seoul’s military said on May 17, hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong denied widespread allegations that Pyongyang is shipping weapons to Russia.

The launches are the latest in a string of ever more sophisticated tests by North Korea, which has fired off cruise missiles, tactical rockets and hypersonic weapons in recent months, in what the nuclear-armed country says is a drive to upgrade its defences.

Seoul and Washington have accused North Korea of sending arms to Russia, which would violate rafts of UN sanctions on both countries, with experts saying the recent spate of testing may be of weapons destined for use on battlefields in Ukraine.

Seoul’s military said on May 17 it had detected the launch of what it described as “several flying objects presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles” from North Korea’s eastern Wonsan area into waters off its coast.

The missiles travelled around 300km, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that the military had “strengthened vigilance and surveillance in preparation for additional launches” and was sharing information with allies Washington and Tokyo.

The launch came hours after Ms Kim accused Seoul and Washington of “misleading the public opinion” on the issue with their repeated accusations that Pyongyang is sending weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

She said North Korea’s “tactical weapons, including multiple rocket launchers and missiles shown by us recently, are produced to discharge the only one mission... to prevent Seoul from inventing any idle thinking”.

The launch is the latest since North Korea fired a volley of what Seoul said were short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on April 22.

They also came as Russian President Vladimir Putin was in China on May 17, the final day of a visit aiming to promote crucial trade with Beijing – North Korea’s most important ally – and win greater support for his war effort in Ukraine.

North Korea is barred by rafts of UN sanctions from any tests using ballistic technology, but its key ally Russia used its UN Security Council veto in March to effectively end UN monitoring of violations, for which Pyongyang has specifically thanked Moscow.

The UN panel of experts was investigating allegations that North Korea was transferring weapons to Moscow, with Seoul claiming in March that some 7,000 containers of arms had been sent to Russia for use in Ukraine since around July 2023.

Washington and experts have said Pyongyang is seeking a range of military assistance from Russia in return, such as satellite technology and upgrading its Soviet-era military equipment.

North Korea said last week it would equip its military with a new 240mm multiple rocket launcher in 2024, adding that a “significant change” for the army’s artillery combat capabilities was underway.

Reaction to drills?

Mr Kim inspected a new tactical missile weapons system on May 14 and called for an “epochal change” in war preparations by achieving arsenal production targets.

Analysts say the nuclear-armed North Korea could be ramping up production and testing of artillery and cruise missiles before sending them to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The launch also comes a day after advanced South Korean and US stealth fighters, including Washington’s F-22 Raptors, staged joint air combat drills.

Such drills infuriate North Korea, which views them as rehearsals for invasion.

North Korea has appeared especially sensitive to air drills in the past, with experts noting its air force is the weakest link in its military.

“It appears that this is a counter-military demonstration in response to recent South Korea-US air exercises,” Professor Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

“It also appears to contain a warning message regarding the large-scale South Korea-US joint exercises scheduled for August,” he said.

Inter-Korean relations are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang declaring South Korea its “principal enemy”.

It has jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and threatened war over “even 0.001mm” of territorial infringement.

Likely hypersonic missile

The unusual wording of the South Korean military’s statement implies the May 17 test was “likely a hypersonic missile”, said Mr Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

“Hypersonic missiles are not yet stabilised weapons in North Korea,” he told AFP, adding this tallied with the launch site in coastal Wonsan.

Despite the short flight trajectory, the launch could have been of “mid-range or longer-class missiles that were fired with an adjusted range for experimental purposes”, he said.

“There is practically no weapon other than a hypersonic missile that can be described as both ballistic and a ‘flying object’,” he said.

The military typically describes missiles as “projectiles”.

North Korea has long sought to master more advanced hypersonic and solid-fuel technologies, to make its missiles more capable of neutralising South Korea-US missile defence systems and threaten the US regional military bases.

Hypersonic missiles are faster and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept, while solid-fuel missiles do not need to be fuelled before launch, making them harder to find and destroy, as well as quicker to use. AFP