Ballistic missiles launched by North Korea travelled out over waters along the country's eastern shoreline, according to the South Korean military. According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the projectiles launched Monday covered a distance exceeding 900 kilometres, having originated from the vicinity of Pyongyang. No figure for the number of missiles detected was provided in the joint chiefs' statement.

Two unidentified projectiles, assessed by Japan's coastguard to be ballistic missiles, were reported on Monday to have already come down after their launch from North Korea.

Seoul's presidential office issued a statement characterising North Korea's continued ballistic missile launches as violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and urged Pyongyang to bring the activity to an end.

The missile test carried out on Monday contributed to an already tense atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula, where both sides have been conducting separate weapons trials. JCS spokesperson Jang Do-young described the missile launch as a probable demonstration of military capability timed to follow South Korea's own hypersonic test-fire.

On Thursday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung was present at the unveiling ceremony for South Korea's inaugural hypersonic missile trial — a degree of direct presidential visibility at a weapons test that had not been publicly demonstrated in the country before. A statement from Lee's office indicated that the hypersonic weapon, upon reaching full development, would give South Korea the capacity to deliver undetected strikes against priority targets within the broader Korean Peninsula theatre of operations.

A hypersonic intermediate-range missile, built to slip past the air-defence networks protecting South Korea and Japan, was put to the test by North Korea on October 3.

Three soldiers sustained wounds from a landmine detonation in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, after which Seoul put forward a formal request for an apology in the days that followed. Findings from a joint inquiry conducted by South Korean and UN investigators pointed to landmines placed by North Korean personnel at the site roughly a year before the probe concluded. North Korea's government rejected the assertion and characterised South Korea's actions as a deliberate act of provocation.

Before the landmine detonation at the border, South Korea had been taking steps to lay the groundwork for talks between the governments in Pyongyang and Washington. At the outset of his 2025 term, Lee put forward a commitment to restoring direct communication with North Korea.

North Korea's nuclear programme has continued to grow under Kim Jong Un's direction, while diplomatic outreach from both Washington and Seoul — intended to restart negotiations that have stalled for years — has drawn no response. Negotiations between Kim and former US President Donald Trump came to a halt in 2019, with no agreement reached before the two sides parted ways.

Pyongyang has laid out two conditions for any resumption of talks: that Washington withdraw what it describes as an adversarial stance toward North Korea, and that the longstanding push for the country's nuclear disarmament be set aside as a prerequisite for negotiations.