North Korea Launches Possible KN-25 Short-Range Ballistic Missiles into East Sea.

North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on January 27, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and Japan’s Coast Guard. The launch underscores renewed regional tension and reinforces concerns about Pyongyang’s advancing precision strike capabilities.

North Korea launched several short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea early Monday, triggering swift condemnations from South Korea and Japan, which said the activity violated United Nations Security Council resolutions banning the regime’s ballistic missile testing. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and Japan’s Coast Guard confirmed the launches originated near Pyongyang, as U.S., South Korean, and Japanese defense officials moved to share tracking data and assess what they described as another deliberate signal from Kim Jong Un’s leadership amid stalled diplomacy.
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At this stage, the exact model has not been officially confirmed, but the technical and visual indicators released by North Korean media suggest it could plausibly be the KN-25, a system that deliberately blurs the boundary between rocket artillery and ballistic missiles (Picture source: KCNA)

Seoul’s presidential office described the launch as a provocative act and urged Pyongyang to halt further actions that escalate tensions. The US Forces Korea command stated that it was aware of the launch and was consulting closely with allied and partner authorities, while the US Indo-Pacific Command assessed that the event posed no immediate threat to US personnel, territory, or treaty allies. The sequence underscores the established allied playbook: detect, attribute, coordinate messaging, then quietly shift into higher readiness while intelligence agencies work to identify the exact missile type and flight profile.

At this stage, the exact model has not been officially confirmed, but the technical and visual indicators released by North Korean media suggest it could plausibly be the KN-25, a system that deliberately blurs the boundary between rocket artillery and ballistic missiles. The KN-25 is often described by Pyongyang as a “super-large” multiple launch rocket system (MLRS), yet it is categorized by the United States Forces Korea (USFK) as a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) due to its size, range, and quasi-ballistic flight profile. First tested on August 25, 2019, the KN-25 has demonstrated a range of around 380 km, with early tests reportedly reaching a maximum altitude of about 97 km. Technically, it is assessed to be a single-stage solid-propellant missile, with a reported diameter of 600 mm (0.6 m) and an estimated length of approximately 8.6 m, deployed on a road-mobile transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) concept associated with high survivability and rapid shoot-and-scoot tactics.

This launch is the second known ballistic missile event attributed to North Korea in 2026, following a January 4 firing in the same general direction. In recent years, Pyongyang has increasingly blended technical experimentation with political choreography, using missile launches not only to refine capabilities but also to punctuate diplomatic calendars and domestic milestones. South Korean reporting notes that the January 4 launch occurred as President Lee Jae Myung was preparing to travel to Beijing for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, reinforcing the pattern in which North Korean tests are timed to remind regional actors that any broader Northeast Asian agenda remains constrained by the peninsula’s military reality.

While Seoul and Tokyo described the weapons as ballistic missiles, North Korean state media on January 28 framed the event differently, presenting it as a test fire conducted by the Missile General Bureau to verify a “new, upgraded large caliber multiple rocket launcher system” using new technology. In the North’s narrative, Kim Jong Un personally observed the test and emphasized improvements in mobility, accuracy, and the system’s ability to withstand external interference, while also linking the program to nuclear deterrence objectives. The state account claimed that four rounds struck a sea target at a range of 358.5 kilometers, a distance broadly consistent with the flight range publicly cited by South Korean authorities and also consistent with a KN-25-class weapon operating below its maximum envelope.

The publicly available figures point to a short-range strike system optimized for regional targets rather than intercontinental reach. The reported range of around 350 kilometers places potential coverage across much of the Korean Peninsula and into adjacent maritime approaches, depending on launch location and trajectory. Such distances also align with North Korea’s continued investment in battlefield and theater strike systems that complicate allied air and missile defense planning by increasing the density of threats in the opening hours of a crisis. If the system is indeed the KN-25, its design philosophy is especially relevant: it combines artillery-style salvo employment with missile-like reach, allowing Pyongyang to create operational dilemmas without relying exclusively on traditional SRBMs.

The North Korean description of an “autonomous precision guidance flight system” suggests continued work on improving terminal accuracy, a key factor for operational credibility when the payload is conventional, submunition-based, or intended for infrastructure disruption rather than purely demonstrative launches. KN-25 imagery from earlier test campaigns indicates a control layout featuring four fixed rear fins and four forward control surfaces, consistent with an ability to maneuver in flight and support guided impact rather than area-only bombardment. Although independent verification remains limited, the repeated emphasis on guidance resilience and interference resistance is consistent with modern strike warfare requirements, where electronic attack and GPS denial are assumed in contested environments. Even incremental improvements in guidance, coupled with salvo tactics, can raise the cost of defense for South Korea and Japan by stressing interceptor inventories and command and control timelines.

Operationally, short-range ballistic missiles and guided rocket artillery occupy a tactical sweet spot for Pyongyang. They provide rapid launch capability, are difficult to preempt once dispersed, and can be fired in clusters to saturate defensive sensors and interceptors. With flight times measured in minutes, they compress political decision space and force allied forces into automatic response postures. In a conflict scenario, such systems can be used to strike air bases, logistics hubs, port infrastructure, ammunition storage sites, and command nodes, aiming to disrupt sortie generation and reinforcement flows before heavier allied capabilities fully mobilize. The KN-25 concept, in particular, supports an approach where multiple rounds can be fired in relatively short intervals, enabling saturation effects against Patriot and Aegis-linked air and missile defense architectures while forcing defenders to ration interceptors and prioritize assets under time pressure.

Beyond the immediate military dimension, the launch reinforces a wider geopolitical reality: missile testing remains one of Pyongyang’s most reliable instruments for shaping regional agendas and probing alliance cohesion. Each event drives renewed emphasis on missile defense, strike deterrence, and intelligence sharing, while also raising pressure on China to manage stability along its periphery. For international security, the persistence of these tests sustains a climate of chronic crisis readiness in Northeast Asia, accelerates procurement of interceptors and counterstrike systems, and deepens the strategic coupling between the Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific force posture debates, with implications that extend well beyond the East Sea.

Written By Erwan Halna du Fretay - Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Erwan Halna du Fretay is a graduate of a Master’s degree in International Relations and has experience in the study of conflicts and global arms transfers. His research interests lie in security and strategic studies, particularly the dynamics of the defense industry, the evolution of military technologies, and the strategic transformation of armed forces.