North Korea tests ballistic missile capable of carrying super-large warheads

North Korea He assured that this Monday he successfully tested a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying a large warhead, firing two such missiles. However, that claim raised some doubts, because South Korea said that one of the two missiles appeared to explode in the air.

North Korea’s official news agency KCNA said the Hwasong-11Da-4.5 missile was successfully launched and is capable of carrying a 4.5-ton warhead.

“The test-firing was carried out with a missile carrying a simulated heavy warhead to verify its flight stability and accuracy at the maximum range of 500 kilometers and the minimum range of 90 km,” North Korean state media reported.

A Super-large warhead on list of advanced weapons were presented in 2021 by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as priorities for development. The list also includes a military spy satellite and a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.

The missile’s “Da” designation indicates that it is a third version of the Hwasong-11, a short-range missile first unveiled in 2019 and based on the Russian Iskander that, like this projectile, is capable of flying on a quasi-ballistic trajectory.

According to KCNA, the launches were carried out using two different ranges to “verify flight stability and impact accuracy” with a maximum range of 500 kilometers and a minimum of 90 kilometers.

The text also anticipated that a second launch will take place this July “to verify the flight characteristics, precision and explosive power of a large warhead with an average range of 250 kilometers.”

On the contrary, the armed forces of South Korea They previously reported that Monday’s launches corresponded to two short-range ballistic missiles and? One of them exploded in mid-flight.

They also said that Pyongyang launched them in a northeasterly direction from South Hwanghae province in the southwest of the country and that the first one flew about 600 kilometers. The second, however, traveled only about 120 kilometers before disappearing from radar, so it could have landed on land, according to spokesmen for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Is he North Korea’s second launch apparently failed in just one weeksince on June 26 Pyongyang fired another missile that appeared to explode in the initial phase of flight, according to videos captured and published by the southern military.

On that occasion, the regime, which usually shares abundant graphic material when a weapons test is successful, published only one photo that seemed to correspond to an old launch.

Monday’s launches came after Kim denounced recent military exercises by South Korea, the United States and Japan as an “Asian version of NATO” and warned they would have “fatal consequences.”

In the KCNA report, the weapon was “described as a ‘super-large warhead,’ deliberately omitting the word ‘nuclear,'” said Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

“Since it is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, it can be considered a nuclear weapon,” Hong Min said.

Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point in years, with the North stepping up weapons tests while launching balloons laden with garbage at the South.

Pyongyang says the balloons are retaliation for balloons loaded with anti-regime propaganda sent by activists from South Korea.