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US-South Korea drills deter North Korea, Pentagon claims hours after North Korea launches ICBM – Fox News
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North Korea’s Kim oversees ICBM test, vows more nuclear weapons
SEOUL, Nov 19 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to counter U.S. nuclear threats with nuclear weapons as he inspected a test of the country’s new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), state media KCNA said on Saturday.
The isolated country tested the Hwasong-17 ICBM on Friday a day after warning of “fiercer military responses” to Washington beefing up its regional security presence including nuclear assets.
Attending the site with his daughter for the first time, Kim said threats from the United States and its allies pursing a hostile policy prompted his country to “substantially accelerate the bolstering of its overwhelming nuclear deterrence.”
“Kim Jong Un solemnly declared that if the enemies continue to pose threats … our party and government will resolutely react to nukes with nuclear weapons and to total confrontation with all-out confrontation,” the official KCNA news agency said.
The launch of the Hwasong-17 was part of the North’s “top-priority defence-building strategy” aimed at establishing “the most powerful and absolute nuclear deterrence,” KCNA said, calling it “the strongest strategic weapon in the world.”
The missile flew nearly 1,000 km (621 miles) for about 69 minutes and reached a maximum altitude of 6,041 km, KCNA said. Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the weapon could travel as far as 15,000 km (9,320 miles), enough to reach the continental United States.
South Korea’s military said its F-35A fighters and U.S. F-16 jets escorted American B-1B bombers as they conducted joint drills on Saturday, designed to improve their ability to quickly deploy U.S. extended deterrence assets.
On Thursday, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, denounced a trilateral summit on Sunday of the United States, South Korea and Japan, during which the leaders criticised Pyongyang’s ongoing weapons tests and pledged greater security cooperation.
Choe singled out a recent series of their joint military drills and efforts to reinforce American extended deterrence, including its nuclear forces to deter attacks on the two key Asian allies.
Kim said the test confirmed “another reliable and maximum capacity to contain any nuclear threat” at a time when he needed to warn Washington and its allies that military moves against Pyongyang would lead to their “self-destruction.”
“Our party and government should clearly demonstrate their strongest will to retaliate the hysteric aggression war drills by the enemies,” he said.
“The more the U.S. imperialists make a military bluffing … while being engrossed in ‘strengthened offer of extended deterrence’ to their allies and war exercises, the more offensive the DPRK’s military counteraction will be.”
Kim referred to his country by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
He ordered swifter development of strategic weapons, and more intensive training for the ICBM and tactical nuclear weapons units to ensure they flawlessly perform their duty “in any situation and at any moment,” KCNA said.
Unveiled at a military parade in October 2020 and first tested last March, the latest test of the Hwasong-17 demonstrated the capabilities of a weapon potentially able to deliver a nuclear warhead to anywhere in the United States.
Some analysts have speculated it would be designed to carry multiple warheads and decoys to better penetrate missile defences.
The U.N. Security Council will gather on Monday discuss North Korea at the request of the United States, which together with South Korea and Japan strongly condemned the latest launch.
China and Russia had backed tighter sanctions following Pyongyang’s last nuclear test in 2017, but in May both vetoed a U.S.-led push for more U.N. penalties over its renewed missile launches.
ICBMs are North Korea’s longest-range weapon, and Friday’s launch is its eighth ICBM test this year, based on a tally from the U.S. State Department.
South Korean and U.S. officials have reported a number of North Korean ICBM failures, including a Nov. 3 launch that appeared to have failed at high altitude.
Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Sandra Maler and Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
North Korea launches ICBM with range to hit anywhere in U.S., Japan says
North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese waters Friday in its second major weapons test this month, South Korea and Japan said. The missile had the potential to reach all of the U.S. mainland, according to Japan’s defense minister.
The United States quickly condemned the launch and vowed to take “all necessary measures” to guarantee the safety of its own mainland and of allies South Korea and Japan.
At the regional APEC summit in Bangkok, Thailand, Vice President Kamala Harris called Friday’s launch a “brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security resolutions” that “destabilizes security in the region, and unnecessarily raises tensions. We strongly condemn these actions and we again call for North Korea to stop further unlawful, destabilizing acts. On behalf of the United States, I reaffirm our ironclad commitment to our Indo-Pacific alliances.
Haiyun Jiang/Pool/Reuters
“Together, the countries represented here will continue to urge North Korea to commit to serious and sustained diplomacy,” she continued.
Later Friday, South Korea’s military said its F-35 fighter jets conducted drills simulating aerial strikes on North Korean mobile missile launchers. The drill took place at a firing range near its land border with the North. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said eight South Korean and U.S. fighter jets separately performed flight training off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast.
The exercises “showed we have a strong resolve to sternly deal with an ICBM launch and any other provocations and threats posed by North Korea, and the allies’ overwhelming capacity and readiness to launch precision strikes on the enemy,” the Joint Chiefs said in a statement.
South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff/Handout
Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergei Ryabkov, on the other hand, was quoted by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency as saying that that while Moscow prefers a diplomatic approach toward the Korean peninsula, “it’s been particularly evident recently that the United States and its allies in the region prefer a different path. It’s as if Pyongyang’s patience is being tested.” Agence France-Presse reported on Moscow’s reaction.
Pyongyang’s ongoing torrid run of weapons tests seeks to advance its nuclear arsenal and win greater concessions in eventual diplomacy, and the launches come as China and Russia have opposed U.S. moves to toughen sanctions aimed at curbing the North’s nuclear program.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the ICBM launch from North Korea’s capital region around 10:15 a.m. and the weapon flew toward the North’s eastern coast across the country. Japan said the ICBM appeared to have flown on a high trajectory and landed west of Hokkaido.
Reuters/KRT
According to South Korean and Japanese estimates, the North Korean missile flew about 3,600-3,790 miles at a maximum altitude of 620 miles.
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters the altitude suggests the missile was launched on a high angle. He said depending on the weight of a warhead placed on the missile, the weapon has a range exceeding 9,320 miles, “in which case it could cover the entire mainland United States.”
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the launch “needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing” regional security while showing the North’s prioritizing of unlawful weapons programs over the well-being of its people. She said President Biden was briefed over the launch.
“Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement,” Watson said.
Ahn Young-joon / AP
Hamada, the Japanese defense minister, called the launch “a reckless act that threatens Japan as well as the region and the international community.”
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launch “a grave provocation and serious threat” that undermines international and regional peace and security. It said South Korea maintains readiness to make “an overwhelming response to any North Korean provocation” amid close coordination with the United States.
After being briefed on the launch, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered officials to boost security cooperation with the United States and Japan and to implement unspecified deterrence steps that were previously agreed upon with the United States. Yoon also ordered officials to push for strong international condemnations and sanctions on North Korea, according to his office.
North Korea also launched an ICBM on Nov. 3, but experts said that weapon failed to fly its intended route and fell into the ocean after a stage separation. That test was believed to have involved a developmental ICBM called Hwasong-17.
North Korea has two other types of ICBMs – Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 – and their test-launches in 2017 proved they could potentially reach parts of the U.S. homeland.
The Hwasong-17 has a longer potential range than the others, and its huge size suggests it’s designed to carry multiple nuclear warheads to defeat missile defense systems. Some experts say the Nov. 3 test showed some technological progress in the development of the Hwasong-17, given that in its earlier test in March, the missile exploded soon after liftoff.
It wasn’t immediately known if North Korea launched a Hwasong-17 missile again on Friday or something else.
In recent months, North Korea has performed dozens of shorter-range missile tests that it called simulations of nuclear attacks on South Korean and U.S. targets. But it had halted weapons launches for about a week before it fired a short-range ballistic missile on Thursday.
Before Thursday’s launch, the North’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, threatened to launch “fiercer” military responses to the U.S. bolstering its security commitment to its allies South Korea and Japan.
Choe was referring to Mr. Biden’s recent trilateral summit with Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Cambodia. In their joint statement, the three leaders strongly condemned North Korea’s recent missile tests and agreed to work together to strengthen deterrence. Mr. Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea and Japan with a full range of capabilities, including its nuclear arms.
Choe didn’t say what steps North Korea could take but said that “the U.S. will be well aware that it is gambling, for which it will certainly regret.”
Pyongyang sees the U.S. military presence in the region as proof of its hostility toward North Korea. It has said its recent series of weapons launches were its response to what it called provocative military drills between the United States and South Korea.
North Korea has been under multiple rounds of United Nations sanctions over its previous nuclear and missile tests. But no fresh sanctions have been applied this year though it has conducted dozens of ballistic missile launches, which are banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
That’s possibly because China and Russia, two of the U.N. council’s veto-wielding members, oppose new U.N. sanctions. Washington is locked in a strategic competition with Beijing and in a confrontation with Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
There have been concerns that North Korea might conduct its first nuclear test in five years as its next major step toward bolstering its military capability against the United States and its allies.
In late October, U.S. and South Korean officials confirmed to CBS News that Pyongyang is preparing to test an atomic weapon soon, in what would be its first nuclear test since 2017.
The North has argued a U.S. military presence in the region as proof of its hostility toward the country. It has said its recent series of weapons launches were response to what it called provocative military drills between the United States and South Korea.
North Korea fires ICBM into sea off Japan in ‘brazen violation’ of UN resolutions
Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday, the second missile test by the Kim Jong Un regime in two days, condemned as a “brazen violation” of UN resolutions by the US and its allies.
The ICBM was launched around 10:15 a.m. local time from the Sunan area of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, and flew about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) east, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said it likely fell in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), about 210 kilometers (130 miles) west of the Japanese island of Oshima Oshima, according to the Japan Coast Guard. It did not fly over Japan.
“North Korea is continuing to carry out provocative actions at frequency never seen before,” Kishida told reporters Friday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
“I want to restate that we cannot accept such actions,” he said.
The Japanese government will continue to collect and analyze information and provide prompt updates to the public, he said. So far, there have been no reports of damage to vessels at sea, Kishida added.
The ICBM reached an altitude of about 6,100 kilometers (3,790 miles) at Mach 22, or 22 times the speed of sound, according to the JCS, which said details were being analyzed by intelligence authorities in South Korea and the US.
On Friday morning US Vice President Kamala Harris gathered on the sidelines of the APEC summit with leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada to condemn the launch, in a previously unscheduled media briefing.
“I have asked this group of allies and partners to come together to join us in condemning North Korea’s long range ballistic missile launch,” she said. “I’ve also asked them to join in so that we as allies and partners can consult on next steps. This conduct by North Korea most recently is a brazen violation of the multiple UN Security resolutions. It destabilizes security in the region and unnecessarily raises tensions.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday also ordered the “active execution” of strengthened extended deterrence measures against North Korea.
The President said Seoul will strengthen its alliance with Washington, and bolster its defense posture and cooperation over security with the US and Japan.
“The government will not tolerate North Korea’s provocations,” his office said in a statement. “The government has overwhelming response capability and willingness to immediately react to any North Korean provocations, so North Korea should not misjudge this.”
It added that North Korea cannot gain anything through continuous provocations, while warning that sanctions against the North will only be strengthened, resulting in Pyongyang’s further international isolation.
Friday’s missile was about 100 kilometers short in altitude and distance compared to Pyongyang’s missile test on March 24, which recorded the highest altitude and longest duration of any North Korean missile ever tested, according to a report from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) at the time. That missile reached an altitude of 6,248.5 kilometers (3,905 miles) and flew a distance of 1,090 kilometers (681 miles), KCNA reported.
Calling the launch a “significant provocation and a serious act of threat,” the JCS warned the North of violating the UN Security Council’s resolution and urged it to stop immediately.
The Misawa Air Base issued a shelter in place alert after the firing of the missile, according to US Air Force Col. Greg Hignite, director of public affairs for US Forces Japan. It has now been lifted and the US military is still analyzing the flight path, he said.
US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the missile launch and his national security team will “continue close consultations with Allies and partners,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in statement Friday.
“The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement,” Watson said. “The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies.”
Friday’s launch comes one day after Pyongyang fired a short-range ballistic missile into the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, and issued a stern warning to the United States of a “fiercer military counteraction” to its tighter defense ties with South Korea and Japan.
It’s the second suspected test launch of an ICBM this month – an earlier missile fired on November 3 appeared to have failed, a South Korean government source told CNN at the time.
The aggressive acceleration in weapons testing and rhetoric has sparked alarm in the region, with the US, South Korea and Japan responding with missile launches and joint military exercises.
Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of International Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said North Korea is “trying to disrupt international cooperation against it by escalating military tensions and suggesting it has the capability of holding American cities at risk of nuclear attack.”
North Korea has carried out missile tests on 34 days this year, sometimes firing multiple missiles in a single day, according to a CNN count. The tally includes both cruise and ballistic missiles, with the latter making up the majority of North Korean test this year.
There are substantial differences between these two types of missiles.
A ballistic missile is launched with a rocket and travels outside Earth’s atmosphere, gliding in space before it re-enters the atmosphere and descends, powered only by gravity to its target.
A cruise missile is powered by a jet engine, stays inside Earth’s atmosphere during its flight and is maneuverable with control surfaces similar to an airplane’s.
Ankit Panda, senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while he wouldn’t see Friday’s presumed ICBM launch “as a message, per se,” it can be viewed as part of North Korea’s “process of developing capabilities Kim has identified as essential for the modernization of their nuclear forces.”
The US and international observers have been warning for months that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be the hermit nation’s first in five years.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Center for Non-proliferation Studies, said the ICBM test was designed to validate parts of North Korea’s missile program, something that Kim Jong Un has vowed to do this year.
The recent short-range tests “are exercises for frontline artillery units practicing preemptive nuclear strikes,” Lewis said.
He dismissed any political or negotiating message from the tests.
“I wouldn’t think about these tests as primarily signaling. North Korea isn’t interested talking right now,” Lewis said.
North Korea keeps up its missile barrage with launch of ICBM
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea added to its barrage of recent weapons tests on Thursday, firing at least three missiles including an intercontinental ballistic missile that forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and temporarily halt trains.
The launches are the latest in a series of North Korean weapons tests in recent months that have raised tensions in the region. They came a day after Pyongyang fired more than 20 missiles, the most it has fired in a single day ever.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North firing an ICBM from an area near its capital Pyongyang around 7:40 a.m. and then firing two short-range missiles an hour later from the nearby city of Kacheon that flew toward its eastern waters.
The longer-range missile appeared to be fired on a high angle, possibly to avoid entering the territory of neighbors, reaching a maximum altitude of 1,920 kilometers (1,193 miles) and traveling around 760 kilometers (472 miles), according to South Korea’s military.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the launch was successful.
Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada announced similar flight details but said that his military lost track of the weapon after it “disappeared” in skies above waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Choi Yong Soo, a South Korean Navy captain who handles public affairs for Seoul’s Defense Ministry, didn’t answer directly when asked whether the military believes the launch might have failed with the missile exploding in midair, saying that the test was still being analyzed.
Citing anonymous military sources, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that the missile possibly failed to maintain normal flight following a stage separation.
The Japanese government initially feared the ICBM would fly over its northern territory but later adjusted its assessment. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the alerts were based on a trajectory analysis that indicated a flyover.
The office of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida broadcast alerts through television, radio, mobile phones and public loudspeakers to residents in the northern prefectures of Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata, instructing them to go inside firm buildings or underground.
There have been no reports of damage or injuries from areas where the alerts were issued. Bullet train services in those regions were temporarily suspended following the missile alert before resuming shortly. Kishida condemned the North’s launches and said officials were analyzing the details of the weapons.
The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said his national security director Kim Sung-han discussed the launches during an emergency security meeting where members talked about plans to strength the country’s defense in conjunction with its alliance with the United States.
The office said South Korea will maintain its combined military exercises with the United States in response to North Korea’s intensifying testing activity, which it said would only deepen the North’s international isolation and unleash further economic shock on its people.
Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, issued a statement saying the United States strongly condemns the North’s ICBM test and that President Joe Biden and his national security team are assessing the situation in close coordination with allies and partners.
“This launch, in addition to the launch of multiple other ballistic missiles this week, is a flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” Watson said.
She said the United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and allies South Korea and Japan.
One of the more than 20 missiles North Korea shot on Wednesday flew in the direction of a populated South Korean island and landed near the rivals’ tense sea border, triggering air raid sirens and forcing residents on Ulleung island to evacuate. South Korea quickly responded by launching its own missiles in the same border area.
Those launches came hours after North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons to get the U.S. and South Korea to “pay the most horrible price in history” in protest of ongoing South Korean-U.S. military drills that it views as a rehearsal for a potential invasion.
North Korea has been ramping up its weapons demonstrations to a record pace this year. It has fired dozens of missiles, including its first demonstration of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as it exploits the distraction created by Russia’s war in Ukraine and a pause in diplomacy to push forward arms development and dial up pressure on the United States and its Asian allies.
The North has punctuated its tests with an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes preemptive nuclear attacks over a variety of loosely defined crisis situations. U.S. and South Korean officials say North Korea may up the ante in the coming weeks with its first detonation of a nuclear test device since September 2017.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a telephone call with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin over Wednesday’s missile launches, including the one that “recklessly and dangerously” landed near the South Korean coastline, and stressed the “ironclad” U.S. commitment to the security of its ally, according to their offices.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price also addressed concerns about possible North Korean preparations for another nuclear test, which would be its seventh overall. Experts say such tests could possibly bring North Korea a step closer to its goal of building a full-fledged arsenal threatening regional U.S. allies and the American mainland.
“Should it go forward with a seventh nuclear test there would be additional costs and consequences,” Price said, noting that the test would be a “dangerous, reckless, destabilizing act.”
North Korea last flew a missile over Japan in October in what it described as a test of a new intermediate range ballistic missile, which experts say potentially would be capable of reaching Guam, a major U.S. military hub in the Pacific. That launch forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and pause train services.
Experts say North Korea is escalating a brinkmanship aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating economic and security concessions from a position of strength.
Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled since early 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps.
The North has so far ignored the Biden administration’s calls for open-ended talks, insisting that Washington should first discard its “hostile” policy, a term North Korea mainly uses to describe sanctions and combined U.S.-South Korea military exercises.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday underscored that the Biden administration has repeatedly sought to reach out to North Korean officials through diplomatic channels and has made clear “we’re willing to sit down with North Korea without precondition to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula.”
——
Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo. AP writers Aamer Madhani and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to the story from Washington.
North Korea readying ICBM or nuclear test for Biden visit, says intelligence
Seoul’s National Intelligence Service also detected preparations for nuclear and missile tests in the North, South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung said after being briefed by the spy agency Thursday.
“Despite the coronavirus situations [in North Korea], there are signs pointing to a missile launch,” Ha told reporters, attributing the information to the spy agency. “The country is also done preparing for a nuclear test and just waiting for the right time.”
Largely unvaccinated North Korea announced a “severe national emergency” since reporting its first official coronavirus case last week. Because of a lack of testing capacity there, the true scale of the outbreak in the reclusive country is unclear, but the state media has estimated nearly 2 million possible cases.
Pyongyang has rebuffed offers of coronavirus aid from Seoul and Washington, South Korean national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo said in a briefing Wednesday. Given Pyongyang’s lack of response, it will be difficult to discuss North Korea aid in the upcoming meeting between Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Kim said.
“If North Korea conducts a long-range missile or nuclear test during Biden’s Seoul visit, it clearly marks a deliberate provocation aimed at extorting concessions from Washington,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
During a summit in 2019, President Donald Trump refused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s demand for sanctions relief in exchange for disarmament steps. North Korea has since rejected Washington’s offer for nuclear talks and ramped up weapons testing activities.
While North Korea would view the presidential summit between South Korea and the United States as a fresh opportunity for provocation, it is unclear whether the country has the bandwidth to carry out a nuclear or long-range missile test, Yang said. Kim Jong Un called this week for a “countrywide anti-epidemic war to fight the severe public health crisis” and even mobilized his military to help with the supply of medicines in Pyongyang.
A nuclear test from North Korea would strike a sour note amid international efforts to provide the country with vaccine doses, medicine and other forms of support, analysts said.
North Korea sees China as its preferred donor for coronavirus aid, said Ha, the lawmaker. He said the United States and South Korea are the last countries from which the North will seek help.
If Pyongyang carries out a serious provocation during Biden’s three-day South Korea visit, the allies can turn to a “plan B” that could alter the summit’s schedule, said Kim Tae-hyo, the national security adviser.
Biden is landing in South Korea on Friday to kick-start his Asia trip, which will focus on strengthening U.S. ties with allies amid growing competition from China.
Russia announces ICBM test as Ukraine clings to Mariupol
Putin also claimed, according to Russian news reports, that the nuclear-capable RS-28 Sarmat missile was made using “exclusively” domestically manufactured parts — an apparent shot at Western sanctions, which have kept Moscow from obtaining critical components for other weapons systems it has relied upon in its assault on Ukraine.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the United States, in keeping with existing arms control provisions, was notified of the test ahead of time. But Putin’s comments served as a reminder of the military might of his nuclear-armed state, and his potential willingness to escalate a brutal war that seems nowhere near an end.
After the Ukraine invasion began, a test launch of a U.S. Minuteman III ICBM was postponed when U.S. officials said they did not want Russia to misconstrue such a display of firepower, or use it as justification to escalate hostilities in Ukraine.
In Washington, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, along with multiple other world leaders, walked out of a closed-door Group of 20 meeting when Russian officials began to speak, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s political sensitivity.
Earlier in the week, a Treasury Department official said that Yellen would use the meeting “to voice our strong condemnation of Putin’s brutality” and make clear such gatherings were “reserved for countries that demonstrate respect for the core principles that underpin peace and security across the world.”
Wimbledon on Wednesday barred tennis players from Russia and Belarus from playing in the premier annual tournament that begins in June because of the Ukraine invasion, a decision that will affect two of the world’s highest-ranked players. Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, ranked second in the world, and fourth-ranked women’s player Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, will not be permitted to play, according to the All England Club.
The action was quickly condemned by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who told reporters that players “are again being made hostages of political intrigues.”
Russian figure skaters were banned from world championships in March, and Russian international and club teams have been banned from soccer competitions by the sport’s governing body. Despite calling Russia’s invasion “reprehensible,” the Association of Tennis Professionals called Wimbledon’s decision “unfair” and said it “has the potential to set a damaging precedent for the game.”
In the southern Ukraine port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces are making a last stand, their commander issued a dire warning Wednesday, saying his fighters holed up in the Azovstal steel plant were “dying underground.” In audio messages sent to The Washington Post, Maj. Serhiy Volyna of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, while still resisting against an advancing and much larger Russian force, appealed for other countries to help them secure a way out.
“While the world is asleep, in Mariupol, the guys are dying,” Volyna said. “They’re suffering losses. They’re being bombed with heavy bombs … torn up by artillery, and they’re dying underground — the wounded and the living there.”
His comments came amid successive Kremlin surrender deadlines, all of which have been refused by the defenders. In their latest move, Russia demanded Ukrainian forces in Mariupol give up their weapons and walk out of the steel plant by 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. Eastern) Wednesday or face a bitter end.
Tass, a state-run Russian news agency, on Wednesday reported that a “mop-up operation in Mariupol” was “nearing its conclusion,” citing a statement from a pro-Moscow separatist group in the area. A planned humanitarian corridor to evacuate thousands of women, children and the elderly still in the city also fell through, according to the governor of the Donetsk region, to the northeast of Mariupol. New videos recorded in the city show the lifeless bodies of more than a dozen civilians lying on streets.
Taking full control of Mariupol would tighten the grip of Russian forces along the Sea of Azov coast and help form a land bridge between Russian-occupied areas along the border and the Crimean peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.
Putin is said by Western defense officials to be determined to take Mariupol and advance in Donbas — the broad region of eastern Ukraine bordering Russia — by May 9, a holiday in Russia known as Victory Day to commemorate the surrender of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.
Western backers are just as determined to at least stall the Russian onslaught, and continued to pledge their support, even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and commanders in the field said they needed more.
According to the Pentagon, an influx of aircraft parts sent by the West in the last few weeks has made at least 20 more fighter jets available to the Ukrainian air force. A senior defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the Pentagon, would not say whether all of the repaired jets are Soviet-origin MiGs, which are part of Ukraine’s arsenal.
Earlier in the conflict, there was also a high-profile push, primarily from Poland, to augment Ukraine’s fleet with more such warplanes, an offer discouraged by the United States as escalatory. This week, the Pentagon official indicated that another offer has been made by a third-party country to send Ukraine whole fixed-wing aircraft to augment its fleet, but noted that has not happened yet.
A second U.S. official familiar with the issue said the administration wanted to “leave it to that country to determine if they want to speak publicly.”
The second official said that the Biden administration was opposed to the earlier Polish proposal because Warsaw’s intention to send the planes through the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany, was judged to be “low reward, high risk” in terms of escalating the Ukraine conflict. But “if other countries want to and are able to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, that is certainly their own sovereign decision that we respect and support.”
“It’s not that we don’t think it’s a good idea,” said the official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive matter. “Our comments about risks more directly related to that one proposal, as opposed to overall … If another country wanted to provide them with jets, we would not oppose it by any means.”
Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that the Ukrainians had received aircraft “platforms and parts,” without specifying what that meant. On Wednesday, the senior defense official noted that Ukraine has “been given whole helicopters, including helicopters from the United States.”
The United States announced last week an $800 million military assistance package to Ukraine that included 11 Mi-17 attack helicopters. The helicopters were purchased from Russia years ago to send to U.S.-backed forces in Afghanistan.
In a telephone call Wednesday with his Turkish counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said any prospect of overcoming an apparent stalemate in negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv to end the conflict “depends solely on Kyiv’s willingness to take into account our legitimate demands,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.
Russia’s goal in negotiations, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a Moscow news briefing, is focused on “demilitarization and denazification and the restoration of the official status of the Russian language, [and] recognition of modern territorial realities, including Crimea as part of Russia and independence of the DNR and LNR.” Those acronyms refer to the southeastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, both part of Donbas, that Russia claimed to have “liberated” and made independent with its invasion.
“If the Kyiv regime is genuinely committed to its publicly expressed and confirmed commitment to negotiate, it must begin to look for realistic options for reaching an agreement,” Zakharova said.
A United Nations majority voted not to recognize the 2014 Crimea annexation, and Ukraine has said it will not negotiate away any of its territory. Turkey has sought to mediate the conflict and hosted a round of talks between the two sides last month.
Zakharova also said that the Russian side had given Ukraine new peace proposals on Friday, but that Kyiv had not yet responded to them. Ukrainian negotiators “are using their favorite tactics: dragging out, refusing earlier reached interim agreements, public repudiation of what was agreed upon,” she said.
In response, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, told the Ukrainian news outlet Strana that “the Russian Federation loves to make loud statements in order to put pressure on this or that process.”
Podolyak said that during the last round of negotiations in Istanbul, Russian officials were given a “formulated position of the Ukrainian side,” and have now offered counterpositions — nothing more.
“Then it is our turn to study, compare and draw conclusions. Including of a political and legal nature,” Podolyak said.
He downplayed Russia’s description of the current proposals, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described as a “draft document” that “has been handed over to the Ukrainian side, which includes absolutely clear formulations worked out,” according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency.
Meanwhile, Russian Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said in Moscow that lessons explaining the objectives of what Russia calls its “special operation” in Ukraine will start in Russian schools on Sept. 1, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Children, Kravtsov said, “were simply showered with disinformation, which is not credible at all, with fake news about our country.” The lessons, he said, would be held on Mondays, along with flag-raising ceremonies and singing the national anthem.
Russia has banned the media’s use of the words “war” and “invasion” in reference to the Ukraine operation, and has closed down virtually all independent news sites in the country.
DeYoung and Demirjian reported from Washington. Amy Cheng in Seoul; Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia; Adela Suliman in London; and Matt Bonesteel, Jeff Stein and Paulina Firozi, Claire Parker, Jon Swaine, Sarah Cahlan and Atthar Mirza in Washington contributed to this report.
North Korea not telling the whole truth about latest ICBM test, South Korean official says
The official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said South Korean and US analysis of the March 24 launch of what North Korea claimed was a new Hwasong-17 ICBM, was in actual fact the older and slightly smaller Hwasong-15 — an ICBM last tested by Pyongyang in 2017.
Several missile experts have since reached a similar conclusion, but they caution the significance of last week’s successful ICBM launch — North Korea’s first in more than four years — should not be discounted, pointing out the test still demonstrated a weapon with the theoretical ability to hit all of the continental United States.
The ICBM fired by North Korea last Thursday flew to an altitude of 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) and to a distance of 1,080 kilometers (671 miles) with a flight time of 71 minutes before splashing down in waters off Japan’s western coast last Thursday, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.
Japan’s Vice Defense Minister Makoto Oniki told reporters shortly afterward that the missile’s altitude would suggest it is a “new type of ICBM.”
Japanese officials were sticking to that assessment this week, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno saying on Monday that Tokyo judged the missile to be a new type based on flight altitude and other information.
And CNN previously reported that the Pentagon is still assessing to what extent the missile is an improved version of previous launches.
But the South Korean official and missile experts said further close analysis of images in North Korean state media of last week’s launch gave two potential clues relating to Pyongyang’s alleged subterfuge.
The South Korean official said assessments by Seoul and Washington showed the ICBM launched last week only had two engine nozzles, like Hwasong-15, whereas Hwasong-17 has four.
And video released last Friday by state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV) purporting to show Kim Jong Un guiding the launch reveal the North Korean leader’s shadow appearing westward, meaning it was filmed in the morning, but the launch took place in the afternoon, the official said.
Also, it was cloudy in the launch area last Thursday, but the weather in the KCTV video appears to be sunny, the official said.
Analysts say US must still be wary
Several missile experts have also begun to cast doubt on North Korea’s claim to have launched a Hwasong-17.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said the KCTV video appears to have been made during a failed launch on March 16, in which a North Korean missile exploded soon after liftoff around an altitude of 20 kilometers (12.5 miles).
“North Korea released a video after the March 24 test. We measured the shadows in it, however, and it is clear from the altitude and angle of the sun that the video is from the test on the morning of March 16,” Lewis said.
“The video is of the (previous) test that failed. That strongly suggests the other test was something different that they don’t want us to see.”
Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Pyongyang may have altered the Hwasong-15 — first tested nearly five years ago — to make it look like a more powerful missile.
“They claimed that it’s the Hwasong-17, which is the new, very large ICBM they inaugurated at a parade in October 2020, but it looks like what they actually did was they put a very light or perhaps no payload on a Hwasong-15, which is the ICBM they first tested in November 2017. And they used that to stage a demonstration,” Panda said.
Panda said Pyongyang’s apparently inflated claim was aimed at a domestic audience rather than internationally.
“The only thing going well in North Korea right now is the missile program, so perhaps Kim Jong Un plans to use this demonstration to indicate to his own people that they are suffering, the food shortages, the economic difficulties, the lockdown over Covid, that all of this has been worth it, because their national defense capabilities are still advancing,” he said.
On Tuesday, South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung told reporters that, according to a military briefing, debris rained down over the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, following the failed March 16 test.
Ha’s office confirmed the lawmaker’s remarks to CNN on Thursday, adding North Korea may have been prompted to announce the March 24 Hwasong-15 launch as a Hwasong-17 to temper negative opinions in Pyongyang, where citizens witnessed the March 16 failure. North Korea has not acknowledged reports of a failed March 16 test.
Lewis, the nuclear weapons expert, said regardless of which missile was fired last Thursday, the test showed a powerful offensive capability that US defense officials have to be wary of.
“The missile fired on March 24 would have had a range of about 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles), which is certainly within the capability of a Hwasong-15, which can deliver a nuclear weapon anywhere in the United States,” Lewis said.
And Matsuno, the Japanese official, said Monday that North Korea’s missile program remains a serious threat to the security of Japan, the region and the world.
CNN’s Yoonjung Seo and Junko Ogura contributed to this report.
North Korea fires first suspected ICBM since 2017
The suspected ICBM flew to an altitude of 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles), landing in waters off Japan’s western coast on Thursday, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.
The altitude would suggest it is a “new type of ICBM,” Japan’s Vice Defense Minister Makoto Oniki told reporters Thursday. The missile landed inside Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, 170 kilometers (106 miles) west of Cape Tappi on the northern tip of Japan’s main island of Honshu, Oniki said.
Thursday’s launch is North Korea’s 11th of the year, including one on March 16 which is presumed to have failed, and its longest-range test since November 2017, when it sent a Hwasong-15 missile to an altitude of 4,475 kilometers (2,800 miles).
On Thursday, world leaders will meet in the Belgian capital for what has been described as an extraordinary NATO summit, as they seek to align their responses to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. A European Council and G7 meeting will also take place Thursday.
According to analysts, the recent spate of North Korean missile tests suggest the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is attempting show an increasingly turbulent world that Pyongyang remains a player in the struggle for power and influence.
“By threatening to destabilize Asia while global resources are stretched thin elsewhere, Pyongyang is demanding the world pay it to act like a ‘responsible nuclear power,'” Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told CNN in January this year.
Pyongyang’s other most recent launches, on February 26 and March 4, were likely intended to test a new ICBM system, the US Defense Department said earlier this month.
The US Indo-Pacific Command announced earlier this month that the US is intensifying “intelligence, readiness and surveillance collection activities” related to North Korea following the recent spate of missile launches.
The move is a signal from the Biden administration that it needs to strengthen its military posture to ensure the US and allies in the region like South Korea and Japan are protected against North Korea’s missile tests.
The command said they have “ordered intensified Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance collection activities in the Yellow Sea, as well as enhanced readiness among our ballistic missile defense forces in the region.”
Last week, the US military staged exercises on and around the Korean Peninsula to show its readiness in the wake of North Korean activity, including simulating ballistic missile defense systems.
The US Army’s 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade moved to a remote location, “occupying its wartime defensive position, emplacing the Patriot missile system, and executing air and missile defense operations under a simulated combat scenario,” US Forces Korea said in a press release.
And at sea, F-35 and F/A-18 fighter jets flying off the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln along with US Air Force assets based in the region put on a show of force in the Yellow Sea off the western coast of South Korea, according to a statement from the US Navy’s 7th Fleet in Japan.
Thursday’s [potential launch also comes just two weeks after South Korea elected a new conservative President, Yoon Suk Yeol, who is expected to take a harder line against North Korea than the current office holder, Moon Jae-in.
This story has been updated to clarify the location of missile.