North Korea fired what appeared to be a midrange ballistic missile toward the ocean east of the peninsula on August 12, its second launch in less than a week, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The back-to-back launches came two days after South Korea and the United States announced their plans for joint drills. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is set to begin on August 17. The allies describe the drills as defensive. but North Korea has for years denounced them as invasion rehearsals and has frequently responded with weapons tests timed around the training period.
The missile lifted off from the Wonsan area on North Korea’s east coast around 6 a.m. and flew more than 700 kilometers, or about 435 miles, before falling into the sea. Authorities in South Korea, the United States, and Japan tracked the launch from its early stages and were still analyzing its exact specifications as of this writing. The JCS did not disclose the missile’s type or flight angle, a departure from its usual practice of offering at least a preliminary classification within hours of a launch. By South Korea’s count, it was Pyongyang’s 11th ballistic missile launch of 2026.
The test followed a shorter-range ballistic missile that North Korea fired from the same Wonsan area on August 6. That earlier test was Pyongyang’s first ballistic weapons test in 48 days, breaking a lull that had persisted since its missile launch on June 25. Kim Jong Un, the autocratic leader of North Korea, was shown new missile systems that day, including a modular launcher developed as an analogue of the U.S. HIMARS rocket system.
