Just like a Bond villain: Kim poses with massive missile that could hit UK
SURVEYING North Korea’s latest threat to the West, Kim Jong-Un is dwarfed by the rogue state’s new missile – capable of striking Britain and the US.
The dictator oversees the successful test of the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in pictures released by Pyongyang’s state news agency yesterday.
North Korea claims that the ‘greatest ICBM’ could be armed with a ‘superlarge heavy nuclear warhead’ and is capable of striking the ‘whole mainland’ of the US.
The rocket travelled almost 600 miles in Tuesday’s test, with estimates putting its range at 8,100 miles. London is 5,397 miles from the North Korean capital, while Washington is 6,850 miles away.
As well as the picture of the rocket, which towers over 5ft 6in Kim, North Korean state media also released images of the tyrant laughing and smoking a cigarette as he watches the rocket take off.
It came as the US called on China to cut off its oil supply to Pyongyang in a bid to starve North Korea of resources for its nuclear programme.
On Wednesday Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said: ‘The dictator of North Korea made a decision yesterday that brings us closer to war, not farther from it.’
North Korea said that the missile – significantly larger than the 63ft Hwasong-14 tested in July – had reached a height of 2,780 miles before accurately hitting a sea target. It claimed Kim then ‘declared with pride’ that his country had become a ‘rocket power’.
The state also boasted of how the launch came from a domesti-
cally made launcher vehicle. They allow missiles to be moved and launched from different locations easily – making them more difficult for the West to find and destroy. Russia accused the US of trying to provoke Kim to ‘fly off the handle’ over his missile programme to hand Washington a pretext to destroy his country.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov also rejected a US call to cut ties with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programme.
He said: ‘The latest US actions look designed to deliberately provoke Pyongyang into taking new extreme action.’ Mr Lavrov said he was referring to US-South Korean military exercises planned for this month, which he said the US had indicated would not take place until spring.