The Chosunilbo:
An intercontinental ballistic missile unveiled during a parade marking the 70th anniversary of the North Korean Workers Party on Oct. 10 looks suspiciously similar to Russia’s SS-N-23 submarine-launched missile, a government source here said Sunday.
The source said the new missile has an estimated range of about 9,000 km with a larger warhead than a similar earlier rocket with the range of 12,000 km.
Military authorities here note that the North previously turned an old Soviet submarine-launched missile into the Musudan ground-launched ballistic missile with a range of 3,500 km and deployed it warfare-ready.
The North also showed off an improved Musudan missile at this year’s parade, which was modified from an old Soviet SS-N-6 missile. It is about 3 m longer than the Soviet version.
Soviet missile engineers are believed to have played a decisive role in building North Korean missile, traveling clandestinely to the North from the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, until the early 1990s.
