• New challenge North Korea launches ballistic missile into Sea of Japan that activates missile alert on the island of Hokkaido
  • Arsenal North Korea says it has retested its drone to generate radioactive tsunamis

It was in February, during the 75th anniversary of the North Korean armed forces, when Kim Jong-un took out his best explosive toys to walk the streets of Pyongyang. A parade to show military muscle where the king of the party was the famous Hwasong-17, a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of up to 15,000 kilometers and that is capable of hitting the coasts of the United States loaded with a nuclear warhead. But savvy analysts in neighboring South Korea noticed that the parade featured what could be a new, more powerful missile, a new solid-fuel ICBM, more stable and agile than the liquid-fueled Hwasong-1, like the vast majority of large ballistic missiles. If the latter were to become operational, experts warned, it would give the Kim regime a more mobile and harder-to-detect nuclear missile.

A couple of months later, the new ICBM is not only already operational, but has been the protagonist of Pyongyang's latest launch. The technical name it has received is Hwasong-18 and on Thursday it traveled 1,000 kilometers before falling into the waters of the Sea of Japan. Precisely, yesterday's news in the region was that the Japanese government activated evacuation alarms on its northern island of Hokkaido, because it believed that the missile could fall near the territory.

On Friday morning, along with confirmation that the missile launched the previous day was the first airborne test of a solid-fuel ICBM, North Korean media outlet KCNA published a photo op of leader Kim Jong-un with his family overseeing the launch. Along with his wife and sister, he could not miss little Ju-ae, the daughter of the dictator and last media phenomenon of the regime.

Since making her debut in front of the spotlight last November, when North Korean newspapers published a surreal photo shoot of father and daughter walking hand in hand next to the 26-meter-high Hwasong-17, the youngest, believed to be 11 years old, has not stopped accompanying her father in all kinds of military events. For many of the analysts who have spent years studying every image that comes out of the secretive North Korean regime, Ju-ae seems to be the one chosen to follow the saga of the Kims on the throne of Pyongyang.

The girl, along with her father, is again the other protagonist of the images that accompany the launch of the Hwasong-18, a missile that, in the words of Kim himself, is intended to "make enemies suffer fear and anxiety." A message addressed to the United States, South Korea and Japan, the tripartite of allied democracies that has been conducting joint military maneuvers in the region all year, in response to the permanent North Korean threat.

"The Hwasong-18 will defend North Korea, suppress invasions and protect the nation's security," said Kim, who already warned at the end of last year, after the record of missile launches, that this 2023 his country would develop a new type of ICBM much more stealthy. "We will strike with lethal force and respond aggressively until the enemy gives up his idle strategy and stupid behavior, and suffers endless fear," the leader said.

"The development of the new type of Hwasong-18 ICBM will comprehensively reform the strategic deterrence components, radically promote the effectiveness of the nuclear counterattack posture, and bring about a change in the practicality of offensive military strategy," reads a KCNA note, adding that the purpose of the launch was to confirm "the performance of high-power solid-fuel multistage engines, stage separation technology and reliability of control systems with different functions, as well as assessing the military capability and effectiveness of the new strategic weapon system."

Washington also pointed out that this year Pyongyang would execute its seventh nuclear test, the first since 2017. In March, the North Korean military conducted tactical nuclear attack simulation exercises with a ballistic missile that, equipped with a simulated nuclear warhead, flew 800 kilometers before hitting a target. Kim, who also oversaw that test, said the exercises improved the armed forces' "real warfare capability" and stressed the need for his troops to prepare for any "immediate and overwhelming nuclear counterattack."

  • Japan
  • North Korea
  • Kim Jong Un

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