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North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Monday morning, October 12, in its fourth round of launches this month — and the sixteenth this year. According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missiles were launched from the Pyongyang area at around 9:20 a.m. local time, with at least one type assessed to have flown more than 900 kilometres before landing in the sea. The launches landed just four days after South Korea publicly revealed its own first-ever hypersonic missile test, and analysts are reading Monday's salvo as Pyongyang's pointed reply.
What the two sides detected
South Korea's military said it detected "multiple ballistic missiles" heading toward the East Sea — the name Koreans use for the Sea of Japan — and immediately strengthened surveillance in case of further launches, while sharing tracking data closely with the United States and Japan. Japan's defence ministry assessed at least two missiles, launched roughly seventeen minutes apart: the first flew about 220 kilometres and reached an altitude of around 20 kilometres, while the second travelled more than 910 kilometres, peaking near 70 kilometres. Japanese officials noted the second missile may have flown on an irregular trajectory — the kind of evasive flight path associated with weapons designed to slip past missile defences. Both projectiles fell outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, and no damage to ships or aircraft was reported.
Protest and emergency meetings
Japan lodged a formal protest with North Korea through diplomatic channels, condemning the launches as violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ordered government offices to gather and assess information quickly, share it accurately with the public, and ensure the safety of sea and air navigation. In Seoul, South Korea's National Security Office convened an emergency meeting to review readiness, and military spokespersons said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities were conducting a detailed analysis of the missiles' exact specifications — including whether hypersonic or intermediate-range weapons were involved.
A tit-for-tat missile race
The timing is the story. On October 8, South Korea abruptly disclosed that it had conducted the first test launch of a domestically developed hypersonic glide vehicle — a weapon designed to travel at more than five times the speed of sound while manoeuvring to evade interception. Seoul presented the test as a response to a landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone, and President Lee Jae-myung observed the launch in person. Nine days earlier, on October 3, North Korea had fired what it claimed was a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile from the Wonsan area, with leader Kim Jong-un reportedly in attendance and state media claiming a range of 1,000 kilometres.
South Korea's military is now examining whether Monday's launches were partly a show of force answering the South's test — and partly a demonstration of progress under the North's five-year defence development plan. Japanese officials noted that Pyongyang has already carried out more launches this year than in all of 2025, with the number of projectiles roughly triple. Each side keeps answering the other, and each answer raises the stakes on a peninsula where diplomacy has been stalled for years.
Follow Global Insight for updates as Seoul, Tokyo and Washington complete their analysis of Monday's launches.