North Korea tests missiles, says U.S. actions warrant its nuclear buildup

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Russian, North Korean diplomats meet

Russian, North Korean diplomats meet arsenic troops move toward Ukraine 04:30

Seoul — North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early Tuesday, Seoul's subject said. It was Pyongyang's 2nd motorboat successful days and it came conscionable hours earlier Americans were group to vote for a caller president.

The nuclear-armed North past week test-fired what it said was its astir precocious and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic rocket (ICBM). That was Kim Jong Un's first weapons trial since he was accused by U.S. and Ukrainian officials of sending soldiers to thief support Russia's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

North Korea, which has denied nan deployment, is nether increasing world unit to retreat its troops from Russia, pinch Seoul informing Tuesday that thousands of soldiers were being deployed to front-line areas, including nan Russian region of Kursk, which Ukrainian troops pushed into months ago.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected nan motorboat of "several short-range ballistic missiles" astatine astir 7:30 a.m. Tuesday (5:30 p.m. Eastern, Monday) into waters eastbound of nan Korean peninsula. The missiles flew astir 248 miles and Seoul's subject said it had tracked nan motorboat successful existent clip while sharing accusation pinch Tokyo and Washington.

"In mentation for further launches, our subject has strengthened surveillance and alertness," it added. Seoul was group to get much U.S. thief successful monitoring nan North's rocket launches, meanwhile, pinch nan State Department successful Washington announcing Monday nan support of a caller subject assistance package worthy almost $5 billion.

That package includes nan imaginable waste of airborne early informing and power systems to South Korea, pinch nan support of 4 E-7 Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) aircraft, 10 pitchy engines, and different systems and support elements, astatine an estimated full costs of $4.92 billion.

The early informing and power aircraft, known arsenic Wedgetails, would alteration South Korea to observe missiles and different threats much swiftly and from greater distances than ground-based radar systems.

"This projected waste will amended nan Republic of Korea's expertise to meet existent and early threats by providing accrued intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and airborne early informing and power capabilities," nan State Department said. "It will besides summation nan ROK Air Force's command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) interoperability pinch nan United States."

On Sunday, South Korea, Japan and nan United States conducted a associated aerial drill involving a U.S. B-1B bomber, South Korean F-15K and KF-16 combatant jets, and Japanese F-2 jets, successful consequence to nan ICBM launch. Such associated drills infuriate Pyongyang, which views them arsenic rehearsals for invasion.

Pyongyang called its latest motorboat "a nonstop consequence to nan trilateral aerial exercises complete nan weekend," Han Kwon-hee of nan Korea Association of Defense Industry Studies told AFP. "Given it was a salvo of short-range missiles, nan North is indicating that it not only has long-range missiles tin of reaching nan U.S., but besides short-range ones to target each bases successful South Korea and Japan."

Kim Yo Jong, sister of nan country's leader and a cardinal spokesperson, called nan U.S.-South Korea-Japan exercises an "action-based mentation of nan astir dispute and vulnerable fierce quality of nan force toward our Republic."

In a connection carried Tuesday by nan charismatic Korean Central News Agency, she said nan drill was "absolute impervious of nan validity and urgency of nan statement of building up nan atomic forces we person opted for and put into practice."

Seoul has agelong accused nan nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to thief Moscow conflict Kyiv and alleged that Pyongyang has moved to deploy soldiers en masse since Kim signed a communal defense woody pinch Russian President Vladimir Putin successful June.

"More than 10,000 North Korean soldiers are presently successful Russia, and we measure that a important information of them are deployed to front-line areas, including Kursk," Jeon Ha-gyu, a spokesperson for nan South Korean Defense Ministry, said Tuesday.

Blinken condemns North Korean ICBM test, says 8,000 DPRK troops deployed adjacent Ukraine border 07:52

Seoul, a awesome weapons exporter, has said it is reviewing whether to nonstop weapons straight to Ukraine successful response, thing it has antecedently resisted owed to longstanding home argumentation that prevents it from providing weaponry into progressive conflicts.

With its caller testing spate, "Pyongyang is showing that its publication of weapons and troops to Russia's warfare successful Ukraine does not curtail its subject activities person to home," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor astatine Ewha University successful Seoul. "On nan contrary, practice pinch Moscow appears to alteration blatant violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions."

On Monday, Robert Wood, U.S. lawman ambassador to nan U.N., slammed nan North's advancing ballistic rocket programme and said Russia and China were preventing nan U.N. from holding Pyongyang to account.

Beijing and Moscow "have many times shielded nan DPRK, contributing to nan normalization of these tests and emboldening nan DPRK to further break this Council's sanctions and resolutions," he said, referring to nan North by its charismatic name.

Speaking Tuesday successful Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said nan North's rocket tests were a justified guidance to U.S. "provocations," according to Russia's state-run TASS news agency.