North Korea said Kim Jong Un watched a Saturday intermediate-range missile drill that state media claimed hit a sea target 1,000 kilometres away. South Korea’s military had assessed a flight of more than 700 kilometres.
North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un oversaw an intermediate-range strategic missile drill launched at dawn on Saturday, 3 October 2026, from the country’s east toward the East Sea. The Korean Central News Agency report, carried by Reuters and Yonhap on Sunday, said the firing was meant to train troops operating a hypersonic strategic weapon system and to check reliability, efficiency and mobility.
KCNA said the missile hit a target 1,000 kilometres away in the sea off the east coast. South Korea’s military said on Saturday that it detected a ballistic missile from the Wonsan area that flew more than 700 kilometres toward the same sea. The two accounts differ on range, and neither figure has been independently reconciled.
Kim Yo Jong, a senior Workers’ Party official and the leader’s sister, said on Saturday that a wave-like trajectory mode had exposed limits in South Korean and Japanese tracking. She also said artificial intelligence had been applied so the missile could change its flight path at low altitude. Those claims came from Pyongyang and were not confirmed by Seoul or Tokyo.
Kim Jong Un was quoted by KCNA as saying Pyongyang must keep making adversaries recognise the reliability and lethality of its strategic weapons, and that developing a nuclear war deterrent remained essential. Yonhap reported that photographs released by state media showed his daughter Ju Ae and wife Ri Sol Ju at the event.
South Korea’s detection statement remains the main independent check on the launch itself. No new diplomatic response from Seoul or Tokyo was confirmed in the Sunday KCNA coverage used here.