March 3, 2025
SEOUL – North Korea test-fired strategic cruise missiles aimed to showcase the reclusive regime’s “powerful striking ability” against its enemies from its west coast earlier this week, Pyongyang’s state media said Friday.
The launch was supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and was conducted by a missile unit of the Korean People’s Army in the western region, according to the Korean Central News Agency. Kim Jong-un was accompanied by Kim Jong-sik, a member of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, and Jang Chang-ha, director of the Missile General Bureau.
The missiles flew along an oval trajectory of 1,587 kilometers for 7,961 to 7,973 seconds before precisely hitting the targets, the KCNA explained.
The latest test was conducted to warn “enemies, who are seriously violating the security environment of the (country) and fostering and escalating the confrontation environment,” the KCNA said. “What is guaranteed by powerful striking ability is the most perfect deterrence and defense capacity,” the North Korean leader, quoted by the state media, said.
South Korea’s military said in a text message sent to reporters that it had detected the launches of several cruise missiles fired toward the Yellow Sea at around 8 a.m. Wednesday. They had been bracing for a possible test-firing of a missile, with relevant signs detected beforehand, the Joint Chiefs of Staff added.
The JCS said it is closely monitoring various North Korean activities under the firm South Korea-US combined defense posture so that the North does not misjudge the current security situation.
The latest test-firing is a message directed towards the second administration of US President Donald Trump as its North Korea policy has begun to take shape, an expert here said.
“It’s a counteraction message against the North Korea policy that has been taking shape under the Trump administration,” Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said.
“The Trump administration has reaffirmed its commitment to the North’s denuclearization, an advance in the trilateral partnership scheme between South Korea, US and Japan, and Washington’s ongoing participation in the Seoul-led monitoring group implementing UN sanctions against Pyongyang,” he explained.
Wednesday’s launch marked Pyongyang’s first test-firing of cruise missiles since Jan. 25, when it tested sea-to-surface strategic guided cruise missiles, vowing to take the “toughest countermeasure” against the US in the first week of the new Trump administration. It came merely days after Trump expressed his intent to reach out to Kim Jong-un, raising prospects that the US president eyes reviving his personal diplomacy with the North Korean leader.
The test-launch also comes ahead of a regular South Korea-US combined Freedom Shield military exercise scheduled for mid-March. The North views the joint military drills as a rehearsal for invasion, but the allies have long claimed that such exercises are defensive in nature.