North Korea Fires Two Short-Range Ballistic Missiles Toward the East Sea

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on Sunday, September 20, 2026, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. According to the Joint Chiefs, the first missile was launched from the Wonsan area at around 3:00 p.m. and the second from the same area at around 5:50 p.m.

The first missile flew approximately 450 km and the second more than 600 km, the Joint Chiefs said. The launches came eight days after North Korea's previous firings, on September 12, 2026, which took place during a joint firepower drill.

"Our military detected an additional short-range ballistic missile launched from the Wonsan area of North Korea towards the East Sea at around 5:50pm," the Joint Chiefs said in its statement on the second launch. It added that it is working with the United States on a detailed analysis of both launches.

The South Korean government called on Pyongyang to "immediately cease" its ballistic missile launches, describing Sunday's firings as a "grave act" that violated UN Security Council resolutions.

Japan's Defense Ministry reported a suspected North Korean missile and said it did not land in Japan's territorial waters. The Japanese government lodged a "stern protest" over the launches and condemned them as a threat to regional peace and security.

The firings followed a period in which North Korea rejected an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution demanding that it halt its nuclear activities. Pyongyang also reasserted that its status as a nuclear weapons state is "irreversibly and permanently fixed."

North Korea is ranked 17th in GlobalMilitary.net's ATLAS military power index. The site's record of the country's nuclear warhead inventory puts it at an estimated 60, up from an estimated 50 in 2025; both are estimates rather than declared holdings, as the nuclear forces pages state.

Sunday's flights sit at the opposite end of that arsenal from the systems the site catalogues. Coverage of North Korean ballistic missiles on GlobalMilitary.net is confined to the long-range tier: the shortest-ranged type with a page is the Hwasong-8, listed at 4,000 km, followed by the Hwasong-12 at 4,500 km, the Hwasong-14 at 10,400 km, the Hwasong-15 at 13,000 km and the Hwasong-17 at 15,000 km. At roughly 450 km and more than 600 km, the two missiles fired on September 20 flew an order of magnitude shorter than anything in that catalogue.

The intercontinental systems dominate attention paid to the arsenal, but the short-range, road-mobile tier is the one North Korea fires most often, and Sunday's launches were of that kind.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said its analysis of the launches, carried out with the United States, is continuing. Neither it nor Japan's Defense Ministry identified the two missiles by type in its statements on Sunday.