19th March 2023 – (Hong Kong) The Japanese Ministry of Defence announced on Sunday (19th) that North Korea had launched a ballistic missile. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the other hand, stated that North Korea had launched a ballistic missile into the eastern waters of the Korean Peninsula.
According to a report from the state media on Friday, the strategic forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) carried out an intercontinental ballistic missile launch drill as a warning gesture against the ongoing U.S.-South Korea war drills.
On Thursday, a Hwasongpho-17 was launched from the Pyongyang International Airport and reached a maximum altitude of 6,045 km, flying a distance of around 1,000 km before accurately landing on a pre-set area in the open waters off the eastern coast. The DPRK’s top leader, Kim Jong Un, presided over the event and applauded the operating systems of the country’s nuclear strategic forces, as reported by the DPRK’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
During the event, Kim reiterated the DPRK’s “resolute will to respond with a nuke for nuke and an all-out confrontation for an all-out confrontation,” while asking the strategic forces to maintain rapid response capability in the event of any armed conflict and war.