North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early Tuesday, Seoul’s military said, Pyongyang’s second launch in days and just hours before Americans vote for a new president.

The nuclear-armed North last week tested what it said was the most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in Kim Jong Un’s first weapons test since he was accused of sending soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine.

Pyongyang, which has denied the deployment, is under increasing international pressure to withdraw its troops from Russia, with Seoul warning on Tuesday that thousands of troops were deployed in frontline areas, including Kursk.

Seoul’s Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launch of “several short-range ballistic missiles” at around 7:30 a.m. (2230 GMT) on Tuesday in waters east of the Korean peninsula.

The missiles flew about 400 kilometers (248 miles), and Seoul’s military said it watched the launch in real time while sharing information with Tokyo and Washington.

“In preparation for additional launches, our military has strengthened surveillance and vigilance,” he added.

Tokyo also confirmed Pyongyang’s latest weapons test, with government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi saying the North’s “repeated ballistic missile launches threaten the peace and security of our country.”

On Sunday, South Korea, Japan and the United States conducted a joint air exercise involving a US B-1B bomber, South Korean F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets and Japanese F-2 jets in response to the launch ICBM.

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Such joint exercises infuriate Pyongyang, which sees them as rehearsals for invasion.

– “Aggressive nature” –

Pyongyang’s latest launch was “a direct response to the trilateral air exercises over the weekend,” Han Kwon-hee of the Korea Defense Industry Studies Association told AFP.

“Given that it was a short-range missile salvo, the North indicates that it not only has long-range missiles capable of reaching the US, but also short-range missiles to target all bases in Korea of the South and Japan,” Han added. .

Kim Yo Jong, the country’s leader’s sister and a key spokesperson, called the US-South Korea-Japan drills an “action-based explanation of the enemy’s most hostile and dangerously aggressive nature toward our Republic.”

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday, she said the exercise was “absolute proof of the validity and urgency of the nuclear force-building line we have opted for and put into practice.”

Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kiev and has claimed Pyongyang has moved to deploy troops en masse since Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense agreement with the Russian president Vladimir Putin in June.

“More than 10,000 North Korean soldiers are currently in Russia, and we estimate that a significant number of them are deployed in frontline areas, including Kursk,” Jeon Ha-gyu, a spokesman for the South’s Ministry of Defense, said on Tuesday. Korean Defense.

Seoul, a major arms exporter, has said it is considering whether to send arms directly to Ukraine in response, something it has previously resisted due to long-standing domestic policy that prevents it from supplying weapons to active conflicts.

With a recent series of tests, “Pyongyang is showing that its contribution of arms and troops to Russia’s war in Ukraine is not limiting its military activities closer to home,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“On the contrary, cooperation with Moscow appears to allow flagrant violations of UN Security Council resolutions.”

On Monday, Robert Wood, the US deputy ambassador to the UN, criticized the North’s advanced ballistic missile program and said Russia and China were preventing the UN from holding Pyongyang accountable.

Beijing and Moscow “have repeatedly protected the DPRK, helping to normalize these tests and encouraging the DPRK to further violate the sanctions and resolutions of this Council,” he said, referring to the North by its official name.