The dispatch announcing the test was brief, noting only that the missile has a "peculiar mode of guiding flight" and "a powerful warhead," according to KCNA. This is the first public weapons test since the February 28 summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, which ended without a deal on denuclearization.
Described as "tactical" rather than "strategic," the weapon is likely a short-range device, Reuters noted, for use on the battlefield rather than internationally.
It's unclear if the weapon is the same one that KCNA announced Kim had inspected last November, which had reportedly been "researched and developed for a long time," since Kim's father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, ran the country between 1994 and 2013.
Kim said at the time that the weapon was "another display of our rapidly-growing defense capabilities to the whole region," Sputnik reported. No details on the weapon were given by any North Korean media outlets.
For nearly a year, Pyongyang has suspended weapons tests, including those of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, in an attempt to arrive at a peace agreement with the United States and South Korea, which since 1953, at the conclusion of the Korean War, have only had a flimsy ceasefire with the country and not a complete peace treaty.