With troops headed towards Ukraine, North Korea tests a new ICBM off Japan
(Originally published Nov. 1 in “What in the World“) As Israel continued to bombard Gaza and widened strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the U.S. conducted airstrikes Monday on remnants of Islamic State in Syria.
Russia, meanwhile, launched its 19th airstrike against Kyiv this month, involving 62 drones. Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 33 of them. But Russian forces succeeded in seizing more than 400km2 of Ukrainian territory in October, more than in any month since the summer of 2022.
And North Korea, which has sent 11,000 troops to help Russia fight Ukrainians in Russia’s Kursk province, on Thursday test-fired a long-range ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. In the air for 86 minutes, it was the longest flight ever for a North Korean missile. Pyongyang said the missile was a newly developed, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-19. Solid-fuel rockets don’t require filling before firing, making them faster to launch. They’re also easier to transport and so can be deployed on trains and trucks, making them harder to target on the ground before launch.