A man watches a television news screen showing a picture of North Korea's recent test-firing of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), at a railway station in Seoul on March 17, 2023. - North Korea said the projectile it test-fired o SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward waters off its eastern coast Monday, adding to a recent flurry in weapons tests as the United States prepared to deploy an aircraft carrier strike group to neighboring waters to step up military exercises with the South.South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired from a western inland area south of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang from around 7:47 a.m.
to 8 a.m. and traveled around 370 kilometers (229 miles) before landing at sea. It condemned the missile launches as a "serious provocation" threatening regional peace and violating U.N.
Security Council resolutions and added that the U.S. and South Korean intelligence departments were analyzing the launches more closely.
Japan’s coast guard said it believed both weapons landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.The launches were the North’s seventh missile event this month and underscore heightening military tensions in the region as the pace of both North Korean weapons tests and the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises has accelerated in recent months in a cycle of tit-for-tat responses.The White House said Wednesday that North Korea is covertly sending a significant number of artillery shells to Russia amid the war with Ukraine.