North Korea fires banned missile in longest flight yet | BBC News

North Korea has test fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile which came down in the sea off the coast of Japan according to the Japanese government the missile flew higher and for longer than previous launches its estimated flying time was nearly 90 minutes it reached an altitude of 7,000 kilm the US described the missile test as a flagrant breach of un resolutions our Tokyo correspondent Shima Khalil has been giving us the latest we've had confirmation from pongyang that they launched an ICBM an intercontinental ballistic missile and according to their official media it says that the launch

set a record exceeding their previous tests and I must say it is rare that we get on the day confirmation from North Korea about missile launches normally they wait to the next day and that tells you that they want to get their message out as fast as they can we've also been getting more details from the Japanese authorities here and the South Korean authorities as well the defense Ministry in Tokyo said that the ICBM was in the air for about an hour and a half specifically an hour and 26 minutes and that's longer than any

North Korean ICBM that they've tested before defense officials in Soul say that North Korea seems to want to develop weapons that fly farther and higher and according to them the test was possibly aimed at uh increasing the payload of the missile essentially for a rocket to carry multiple warheads and be more resistant to uh missile defense systems the ICBM we understand flew for about a thousand kilm to the east before it landed just outside Japanese territorial Waters off the coast in hokkaidou and the projectile flew at a sharply high angle and that implies that it

could fly or that it could go into the Pacific far into the Pacific reaching the United States had it been flown at a more horizontal angle all of it makes for a very worrying an anxiety inducing picture for Washington and elsewhere here in the region the timing of this is of note too this launch comes as the relationship between north and south is increasingly deteriorating there is an increasingly aggressive rhetoric from pongyang towards uh soul but we're also a week away from the US presidential elections and observers are saying that what pongyang is trying to

do is to strengthen its negotiating hand with whoever comes into the White House White House whoever that is they're going to be dealing with an angrier and a more imold North Korea our Tokyo correspondent shy M Khalil well the missile launch comes after South Korea and the US accused Pyongyang of sending troops to Russia to support Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine the US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said that North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving towards Ukraine Washington believes believes that around 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia's

kusk region where Ukraine launched an incursion 3 months ago all the Emer at the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council Russia's un Ambassador dismissed reports of North Korean troops aiding Russia in Ukraine calling them mere assertions given the statements about the North Korean soldiers it shouldn't surprise anyone because they're all barefaced lies and they're trying to distract from truly significant problems that threaten International Peace and security and we see that again when we listen to the Lamentations by the US and their allies and the performance today has one goal to try and postao justify

their own decision to send NATO troops so as to shore up the regime of the outdated dictator those comments from Russia's un ambassador