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In new challenge to U.S., North Korea says it tested long-range cruise missiles

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North Korea says it successfully test-fired what it described as newly developed long-range cruise missiles over the weekend, its first known testing activity in months that underscored how it continues to expand its military capabilities amid a stalemate in nuclear negotiations with the United States.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Monday that the cruise missiles, which had been under development for two years, demonstrated an ability to hit targets 932 miles away during its flight tests on Saturday and Sunday. State media published photos of a projectile being fired from a launcher truck and what looked like a missile traveling in the air.

North Korea hailed its new missiles as a “strategic weapon of great significance” that meets leader Kim Jong Un’s call to strengthen the country’s military might, implying that they were being developed with an intent to arm them with nuclear warheads.

North Korea says it needs nuclear weapons in order to deter what it claims is hostility from the U.S. and South Korea — and has long attempted to use the threat of such an arsenal to extract much-needed economic aid or otherwise apply pressure. The North and ally China faced off against South Korea and U.S.-led United Nations forces in the 1950-53 Korean War, a conflict that ended in an armistice that has yet to be replaced with a peace treaty.

The international community is bent on getting the North to abandon its nuclear arsenal and has long used a combination of the threat of sanctions and the promise of economic help to try to influence Pyongyang. But U.S.-led negotiations on the nuclear issue have been stalled since the collapse of a summit between then-President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2019. At that time, the Americans rejected Kim’s demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear complex.

North Korea ended a yearlong pause in ballistic tests in March by firing two short-range missiles into the sea , continuing a tradition of testing new U.S. administrations to measure Washington’s response. Kim’s government has so far rejected the Biden administration’s overtures for dialogue, demanding that Washington abandon its “hostile” policies first — a reference to the U.S. maintaining sanctions and a military alliance with South Korea.

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The U.S. keeps about 28,000 troops in South Korea to help deter potential aggression from North Korea, a legacy of the Korean War.

There hadn’t been any known North Korean test launches since March, as Kim focused his efforts on fending off the coronavirus and salvaging an economy damaged by sanctions, bad flooding in recent summers and border closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts have warned that the economic situation is dire, although monitoring groups have yet to detect signs of mass starvation or major instability.

The report of the tests comes before President Biden’s special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, was to meet his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Tokyo on Tuesday to discuss the stalled nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military was analyzing the North Korean launches based on U.S. and South Korean intelligence. South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said after a meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne that the resumption of testing activity highlighted the urgent need for reviving diplomacy with the North.

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The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said it was monitoring the situation with allies and that the North Korean activity reflects a continuing focus on “developing its military program and the threats that poses to its neighbors and the international community.” Japan said it was “extremely concerned.”

While the cruise missiles were clearly aimed at sending a message to Washington, the tests may indicate that North Korea is struggling with more provocative weapons systems, and might not garner much of a response, said Du-Hyeogn Cha, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

China, the North’s staunchest ally , had no direct comment on the missiles. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian urged “all parties concerned to exercise restraint, move in the same direction, actively engage in dialogue and contact” to reach a political settlement.

Kim during a congress of the ruling Workers’ Party in January doubled down on his pledge to bolster his nuclear deterrent in the face of U.S. sanctions and pressure and issued a long wish list of new sophisticated assets, including longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, spy satellites and tactical nuclear weapons. Kim also said then that his national defense scientists were developing “intermediate-range cruise missiles with the most powerful warheads in the world.”

North Korea vows to be ‘fully prepared for confrontation’ with U.S.

Kim Jong Un has ordered his government to be fully prepared for confrontation with the United States over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

June 18, 2021

KCNA said the missiles tested over the weekend traveled for 126 minutes above North Korean territory before hitting their targets. “In all, the efficiency and practicality of the weapon system operation was confirmed to be excellent,” it said.

It appeared that Kim wasn’t in attendance to observe the tests. KCNA said Kim’s top military official, Pak Jong Chon, observed the test-firings and called for the country’s defense scientists to go “all out to increase” the North’s military capabilities.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said North Korean missiles of such range would pose a “serious threat to the peace and safety of Japan and its surrounding areas.”

“We are extremely concerned,” Kato said while mentioning Japanese efforts to strengthen its missile defense capabilities. He said Tokyo was working with Washington and Seoul to gather information on North Korea’s latest tests but said there was no immediate indication that the weapons reached inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

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Kim’s powerful sister last month hinted that North Korea was ready to resume weapons testing while issuing a statement berating the United States and South Korea for continuing their joint military exercises, which she said was the “most vivid expression of U.S. hostile policy.”

The allies say the drills are defensive in nature, but they have canceled or downsized them in recent years to create space for diplomacy or in response to COVID-19.

Talks between the United States and North Korea have stalled since the collapse of a summit between Trump and Kim in 2019, when the Americans rejected the North’s demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities. Kim’s government has so far rejected the Biden administration’s overtures for dialogue , demanding that Washington abandon its “hostile” policies first.

The latest tests came after Kim threw an unusual parade in the capital, Pyongyang, last week that was a marked departure from past militaristic displays, showcasing anti-virus workers in hazmat suits and civil defense organizations involved in industrial work and rebuilding communities destroyed by floods instead of missiles and other provocative weaponry.

Experts said that the parade was focused on domestic unity as Kim now faces perhaps his toughest test, with the economy in tatters.

More to Read

N. Korea says it tested a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile that is easier to hide

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North Korea says it tested a solid-fuel missile tipped with a hypersonic weapon

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South Korea says the North has again fired artillery shells near their sea border

Jan. 6, 2024

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A Short History of Cruise Missiles: The Go-To Weapons for Conventional Precision Strikes

The slow, stubby-winged cruise missile has become a major part of modern warfare. This is its story.

• They’re not like other missiles; instead, cruise missiles work more like drones.
• Ironically, the inspiration for the first cruise missiles involved pilots—the infamous kamikazes of World War II .

One weapon that establishes a military power in a completely different category from the rest is the cruise missile. Originally designed to deliver nuclear weapons at long distances, it’s become the go-to weapon for conventional precision strikes, and is currently front and center in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But as the cruise missile is now in its fifth decade of use, there are signs it’ll need some adjustments to stay relevant on the modern battlefield .

Divine Wind

A cruise missile is a subsonic guided missile that uses a turbojet, a smaller version of the jet engines that power today’s airplanes , to reach its targets. Cruise missiles often have small, stubby wings to allow them to bank and turn, following an invisible flight path in the sky. Modern cruise missiles use satellite navigation to guide themselves to target, and some can even take pictures of the target area, allowing operators to retarget them in midair. The missile’s payload is typically a warhead in the 1,000-pound weight class, often with the ability to penetrate earth and concrete to target underground shelters.

The first cruise missiles were Japan’s kamikaze planes of World War II. The kamikaze, or “divine wind,” was part of the Japanese Special Attack Units. Created out of desperation and meant to curb the inexorable advance of U.S. forces across the Pacific, kamikaze pilots were sent on one-way missions to target ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The planes were loaded with explosives, and the pilots flew low and fast to avoid detection until the last possible moment.

Kamikaze missions were incredibly successful. In the first four months of their use, an estimated 34 percent of all kamikazes reached their targets. Much of their success is likely attributable to American forces’ disbelief that pilots could commit suicide for their mission. But the low-flying mission profile and the pilot’s ability to recognize threats and avoid them were also undoubtedly factors. In the 1970s, when U.S. military planners originally conceived of the cruise missile, the kamikazes were likely not far from anyone’s mind.

How Cruise Missiles Work

Cruise missiles were originally designed to carry nuclear weapons long distances, allowing bombers to strike their targets without entering the range of an adversary’s air-defense weapons. Conventional rocket-powered missiles didn’t fit the bill: rocket engines are designed to provide speed, and burn up fuel quickly. A cruise missile would need an enormous rocket engine to reach a distant target, with the result being a missile so big only a few would be able to fit inside a bomber.

Instead of rockets, engineers took a different tack: small turbofan engines that burn jet fuel. Turbofan engines are much more efficient, allowing a 21-foot-long missile to carry enough fuel to fly 1,000 miles, plus a 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead (or W-80 thermonuclear warhead ) and a guidance system. The downside was that a turbofan-powered cruise missile could not fly particularly fast, just about 500 miles per hour.

A subsonic cruise missile flying a straight flight path and unable to take evasive action would prove easy meat to any enemy interceptor that happened upon it. The first modern cruise missile, the American-made Tomahawk , was designed to fly low, less than 100 meters above the ground. This limited the range at which ground-based radars could detect a cruise missile, as radar waves conform to the curvature of Earth. This also frustrated enemy fighters, whose nose-mounted radars found it difficult to pick out a cruise missile against the clutter created by the ground below. While cruise missiles were too slow to become first-strike weapons, they were effective for retaliatory strikes against heavily defended airspace.

Early Tomahawk cruise missiles followed a pre-programmed flight path to target using a system called terrain contour matching (TERCOM). In TERCOM , a radar altimeter scans the terrain below the missile, then compares it to a terrain elevation map stored in its onboard computer brain. If the two match, the missile is on the right flight path; if they don’t match, the missile adjusts course. Programming TERCOM for a long-range mission was a notoriously time-consuming process, and had to be done at a computer terminal.

As the Tomahawk neared its target, it switched over to a completely different navigation system: digital scene matching and area correlation ( DSMAC ). DSMAC used an optical sensor that took pictures of the ground and compared them to actual sites on the final route to the target. Together, TERCOM and DSMAC delivered unheard of accuracy, allowing Tomahawks to fly hundreds of miles and strike specific parts of land targets, even specific parts of buildings.

More recent cruise missiles, including newer versions of the Tomahawk, have done away with the old navigation systems in favor of using GPS to guide themselves to a fixed target. This has had the effect of making an already accurate missile even more accurate—reportedly to within 32 feet of a target. The Tomahawk Block IV version, introduced in the 2010s, included a camera that could send back imagery to the missile’s controllers, allowing a missile to be re-tasked in midair if its target was already destroyed. Block Va, the latest version, adds the ability to target and attack moving ships at sea.

The Tomahawk missile was the first cruise missile fired in anger. U.S. Navy warships fired a total of 288 Tomahawks during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Tomahawk missiles have also been fired at Bosnia, Sudan, Syria , Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Afghanistan. U.S. and U.K. forces have delivered just over 2,000 Tomahawk missiles against operational targets, with more than half against Iraq.

In recent years, other countries have also used cruise missiles in combat. In October 2017, Russia began cruise missile strikes against so-called terrorist targets in Syria. These Novator 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles are very similar to Tomahawk missiles, but use Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system, an alternative to the American GPS. Russia has launched a steady stream of air- and sea-launched cruise missiles against Ukraine since the early hours of the invasion on February 24, 2022 , but a shrinking missile stockpile has led to the attacks becoming less frequent, supplemented by Iranian-made kamikaze drones.

The war in Ukraine has also seen the use of two European cruise missiles, the U.K.’s Storm Shadow and the French SCALP missile . The two are essentially the same, with a 340-mile range and 990-pound warhead. The missiles donated to Ukraine are launched from specially modified Su-24 Soviet-era strike jets . Storm Shadow/SCALP was also used against the Khaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, ISIS in 2015, and by Saudi Arabia against Yemeni rebels in 2016.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has also confirmed an important, long suspected fact: low-flying, subsonic cruise missiles are vulnerable to man-portable surface-to-air missiles. In 2022, a Ukrainian National Guardsman was filmed shooting down a Russian cruise missile with an Igla surface-to-air missile. It was the first known case of a shoulder-fired missile, typically carried by infantry, shooting down a multi-million dollar cruise missile. How this event will affect future cruise missiles remains to be seen.

The Takeaway

Cruise missiles have dramatically changed warfare, as one might expect from a weapon that can fly 1,000 miles and deliver a half-ton high-explosive warhead within 32 feet of a target. The missiles allow countries that can afford them the ability to execute precision strikes on heavily defended targets without endangering pilots or aircraft.

The war in Ukraine will likely impart lessons on the next generation of cruise missiles , but the platform isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News , and others. He lives in San Francisco.

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Supersonic Naval Cruise Missile For Norway, Germany In The Works

By Joseph Trevithick

Posted on Nov 29, 2023 4:45 PM EST

7 minute read

The governments of Norway and Germany have teamed up to develop a new supersonic naval “super missile” to arm warships belonging to both countries. A supersonic naval strike missile, which could potentially be used against targets ashore and at sea, would represent a major capability boost for both the Norwegian and German navies.

Norwegian defense contractor Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, which is now leading the project, announced the bilateral missile development effort last week. The missile is currently known as the SuperSonic Strike Missile (3SM) and by the nickname Tyrfing, a magical sword from Norse mythology.

Details about the 3SM are, so far, scant. However, a rendering that Kongsberg has released, seen at the top of this story, has a large air intake under the nose. This is a design feature often associated with ramjet and scramjet engines , though a ramjet would be more in line with Tyrfing being a supersonic design. Ramjets and scramjets are also often linked to missiles and other air vehicles with very high supersonic or even hypersonic speeds. Hypersonic speed is defined as anything about Mach 5.

However, ramjets and scramjets do not work effectively at lower speeds. Missiles and other platforms that use these kinds of engines therefore need some way to get to an optimal speed first, typically a rocket booster of some kind. Booster rockets are often just a common component of missiles fired from ships as a byproduct of the design of the launch system, as well.

The 3SM’s strakes along the middle of its body and control fins only at the tail end are also features commonly found on other high-speed missile designs . This type of arrangement helps retain stability in flight and provide lift, but with lower drag than a configuration with additional fins elsewhere along the body.

How the 3SM would be guided to its targets, or even what those targets might be, is unclear. Kongsberg has described the weapon as a “naval strike missile,” rather than an anti-ship missile. Kongsberg currently makes something called the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), a stealthy subsonic design that is primarily an anti-ship missile, but that also has a secondary land-attack capability .

NSM achieves this via the use of a mixture of GPS, inertial navigation system (INS), and terrain recognition to navigate to a target area, or to strike a specific set of coordinates, and an imaging infrared seeker for terminal homing against ships. Imaging infrared guidance has the benefit of being immune to radiofrequency jamming and other countermeasures intended to disrupt seekers in that spectrum.

Tyrfing could have a similar or even more flexible multi-mode guidance system. The conical nose cone seen in the rendering of the SM3 is indicative of a radar seeker.

Interestingly, U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman showed off a Maritime Strike Missile concept at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference earlier this year that seems similar in many respects, in form and function, to the 3SM design.

Whatever the exact specifics of the design might be, a supersonic strike missile would be a major boon for the navies of Norway and Germany.

The Norwegian Navy currently has two types of ships, its four Fridtjof Nansen class frigates (a fifth was lost in an infamous collision with a commercial tanker in 2018) and six Skjold class corvettes , which can employ the aforementioned NSM. This is the only surface-launched anti-ship cruise missile currently in service in Norway.

The German Navy has four Brandenburg class and three Sachsen class frigates that are armed, in part, with U.S.-made RGM-84 Harpoon subsonic anti-ship missiles .

Another five Braunschweig class corvettes are also in German service, and five more are set to be acquired in the coming years. These ships can fire Swedish-designed RBS 15 Mk 3 anti-ship cruise missiles, another subsonic design that also has a secondary land-attack capability. In October, it emerged that the German Navy is also planning to refit the Brandenburg class frigates with these missiles.

Harpoon and RBS 15 are both aging designs, though significantly improved variants of both types have been developed and fielded over the years. You can read more specifically about the work still being done to expand Harpoon’s capabilities here . NSM is a much more modern missile all around, and is growing in popularity around the world, including in the U.S. military , but is also still subsonic.

A supersonic missile can cover longer distances in a far shorter amount of time, shrinking the total time required between when the decision is made to engage a target and when the first weapon arrives. This can be particularly valuable for striking time-sensitive targets before they leave a certain area.

An opponent similarly has less time to react to an incoming supersonic missile in any way. On top of any stealthy or other design features to make the weapon more survivable, its speed increases the difficulty in attempting to intercept it, too.

Kongsberg says it sees the 3SM as a complement to the NSM. Arming a ship with both types of these missiles (or Tyrfings and another type of subsonic maritime strike missile) could increase its flexibility, allowing for the use of the supersonic weapons only against targets that require its distinct capabilities. 3SMs could also be layered together with subsonic cruise missiles, which could present additional challenges for defenders who would be facing a wave of incoming threats with different flight profiles.

There is also the possibility that 3SM, or variants or derivatives thereof, could be adapted to be launched from land-based platforms or aircraft, as well as be optimized for non-maritime target sets. NSM, for instance, is also available in ground-launched configurations, including one the U.S. Marine Corps is in the process of fielding . Kongsberg’s air-launched Joint Strike Missile (JSM), which evolved from the NSM and was developed in cooperation with Raytheon in the United States, is another good example of this kind of follow-on development.

That Norwegian and German authorities have kicked off the 3SM project now makes sense in many ways, too. The countries are both NATO members and are currently presented with a host of serious existing and emerging national security challenges close to home and further abroad. NATO, as a whole, has seen its role just in and around Europe be completely revitalized as a byproduct of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Late last year, Norway notably announced that its armed forces would step up patrols around the country’s offshore oil and gas installations. This came in the wake of explosions that left the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea seriously damaged, as well as reports of worrisome drone activity near some of Norway’s offshore platforms.

Norway is also an Arctic country with major interests in the increasingly strategic High North. Russia , as well as China , along with many of Norway’s allies and partners, including the United States , are increasingly seeing the potential for new economic opportunities, and competition , as Arctic ice recedes due to global climate change.

Germany is separately looking to have an increasingly pronounced military presence in the Pacific region as part of a broader Western push to challenge Chinese influence. Defense News reported just on Monday that the German Air Force is planning to take part in a number of major exercises across the Pacific next year.

Kongsberg’s announcement about the 3SM missile also highlighted economic benefits for both countries from the development and production of these weapons, which could also eventually be exported to other nations.

There are supersonic cruise missiles already in service, like Russia’s P-800 Oniks (and the BrahMos derivative co-developed with India) and China’s YJ-12 , which both present threats and have been important drivers for other countries to pursue their own capabilities in this regard. The United States, for instance, is also looking toward new supersonic or even hypersonic anti-ship missiles .

“The Norwegian defense industry, with Kongsberg at the forefront, has unique expertise and produces world-class missiles. The project will continue to extend this strategically important expertise, so we can continue to develop missiles that are attractive to other NATO countries and close allies,” Norway’s Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said in a statement along with the initial announcement about the 3SM project last month.

“The new strike missile project will ensure that Norway retains its position as a world leader in missile production, based on seamless cooperation between industry, governments, and research establishments,” Eirik Lie, President of Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, also said at that time. “The project will create new Norwegian jobs, while offering Norway and its allies improved defense capabilities.”

All this being said, the 3SM still looks to be years away from entering service. Kongsberg says it currently hopes the missile will be “ready” – it’s unclear if this refers to the completion of the development, the delivery of the first missiles, or the weapons actually being in service – by 2035.

Whatever the case, Norway and Germany have now at least made the first step forward to acquiring a new and more capable maritime strike capability for their respective warships.

Contact the author: [email protected]

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Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

April 27, 2017

Fact Sheet: Ballistic vs. Cruise Missiles

Ballistic missiles are powered initially by a rocket or series of rockets in stages, but then follow an unpowered trajectory that arches upwards before descending to reach its intended target. Ballistic missiles can carry either nuclear or conventional warheads.

There are four general classifications of ballistic missiles based on their range, or the maximum distance the missile can travel:

• Short-range: less than 1,000 kilometers (approximately 620 miles), also known as “tactical” ballistic missiles.
• Medium-range: between 1,000 and 3,000 kilometers (approximately 620-1,860 miles), also known as “theater” ballistic missiles.
• Intermediate-range: between 3,000 and 5,500 kilometers (approximately 1,860-3,410 miles)
• Long-range: more than 5,500 kilometers (approximately 3,410 miles), also known as intercontinental or strategic ballistic missiles. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) can fly much further than the minimum range; for example, Russia could hit Chicago with an ICBM launched from the Krasnoyarsk ICBM base, which is located 9,156 kilometers (5,689 miles) away.

Ballistic missiles have three stages of flight:

Boost Phase begins at launch and lasts until the rocket engine(s) stops firing and the missile begins unpowered flight. Depending on the missile, boost phase can last three to five minutes. Most of this phase takes place in the atmosphere.

Midcourse Phase begins after the rocket(s) stops firing. The missile continues to ascend toward the highest point in its trajectory, and then begins to descend toward Earth. This is the longest phase of a missile’s flight; for ICBMs, it can last around 20 minutes. During midcourse phase, ICBMs can travel around 24,000 kilometers per hour (15,000 miles per hour).

Terminal Phase begins when the detached warhead(s) reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and ends upon impact or detonation. During this phase, which can last for less than a minute, strategic warheads can be traveling at speeds greater than 3,200 kilometers per hour (1,988 miles per hour).

Cruise missiles remain within the atmosphere for the duration of their flight and can fly as low as a few meters off the ground. Flying low to the surface of the earth expends more fuel but makes a cruise missile very difficult to detect.

Cruise missiles are self-guided and use multiple methods to accurately deliver their payload, including terrain mapping, global positioning systems (GPS) and inertial guidance, which uses motion sensors and gyroscopes to keep the missile on a pre-programmed flight path. As advanced cruise missiles approach their target, remote operators can use a camera in the nose of the missile to see what the missile sees. This gives them the option to manually guide the missile to its target or to abort the strike.

To learn about missile defense, check out our fact sheet .

Sources: Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency, Federation of American Scientists .

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Hezbollah has the weapons to carry out its threat against Cyprus

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The leader of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon threatened the Republic of Cyprus.

Hezbollah has a vast arsenal of missiles and drones to carry through on its threat.

Hezbollah may be using Cyprus as a "stand in" to threaten Greece, a regional expert said.

The leader of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon threatened the Republic of Cyprus for the first time this month, underscoring the risks of the Middle East crisis spreading beyond the region. The threat against Cyprus is also an indirect threat against NATO member Greece, which has close ties with Israel.

"The Cypriot government must be warned that opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war and the resistance (Hezbollah) will deal with it as part of the war," Hassan Nasrallah , Hezbollah's secretary-general, declared in a June 19 speech.

Hezbollah has a vast arsenal of drones, anti-ship, ballistic, and cruise missiles that makes it capable of following through on Nasrallah's threat against the Eastern Mediterranean island.

"Hezbollah is attempting to use all possible means to cause fear in Israel and its partners, in this case, the Republic of Cyprus," George Tzogopoulos, a senior fellow at the Centre International de Formation Européenne, a French policy research institute, told Business Insider.

"I would consider Hezbollah's tactics as psychological warfare," Tzogopoulos said. "Although the Republic of Cyprus and Israel have enjoyed strategic cooperation for years, the current timing is crucial. That is perhaps why threats were made public a few days ago."

Cyprus is a divided island. The republic, which Nasrallah threatened, in the south is a member of the European Union. Aside from Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north is internationally unrecognized. These sides are split by a UN-patrolled buffer zone . The United Kingdom also has exclusive control over two military bases on the island's south, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which are officially known as Sovereign Base Areas.

The EU predictably denounced Nasrallah's threats, as did the republic's main ally, Greece . Turkey, conversely, warned Cyprus "to stay away from the conflict" in the region.

The armed forces of Cyprus have hosted training exercises with their Israeli counterparts on the island. Cyprus has maintained an official policy of neutrality in Israel's ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, which it has reiterated since Nasrallah's threat. The island serves as a hub for the maritime humanitarian corridor the US and the EU have tried to establish for shipping aid to Gaza. According to officials, relations between the US and Cyprus recently "reached their highest level yet," raising hopes that the US will fully lift its arms embargo on the island. Warming ties will undoubtedly help Cyprus weather Hezbollah's threat.

"Public threats are taken seriously, and they can generate a political response," Tzogopoulos said. "The Republic of Cyprus is able to expose the tactics of Hezbollah at the EU level and simultaneously seek support by the US."

"Hezbollah's public threats could turn out to be a double-edged sword for it," Tzogopoulos added. "In terms of security, I would not expect a country like the Republic of Cyprus, which is so close to the US and Israel, to start preparations against a possible attack as a result of public threats."

Nevertheless, Hezbollah could harm Cyprus if it carries out its threat. The group flew three unarmed drones over Israel's Karish gas-drilling platform in 2022, demonstrating its capability to threaten targets within Israel's maritime zone. Tzogopoulos suspects that Hezbollah could "perhaps employ similar tactics" inside Cyprus's economic exclusive zone, which is also well within the range of the group's drones and missiles.

"The Israeli capacity to shoot down Hezbollah's drones in 2022 could be a model for the Republic of Cyprus," Tzogopoulos said. "In fact, this is the substance of the strategic cooperation between Israel and the Republic of Cyprus."

Israel, the analyst noted, is also "prepared to share part of its technological and military know-how" with the island republic. Before the Gaza war that began in the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attacks, reports emerged that Cyprus was negotiating the acquisition of Israeli Merkava Mark III main battle tanks and even Israel's well-known Iron Dome air defense system .

Existing air defenses in the Cypriot National Guard are limited to short- to medium-range systems like the Russian Tor and Buk. These systems are no match for the powerful surface-to-surface missiles in Hezbollah's arsenal, which include the Iranian-designed Fateh series of short-range ballistic missiles, many of which have the range to reach the Cypriot capital Nicosia roughly 180 miles away.

Hezbollah's expansive arsenal includes up to 150,000 rockets and missiles and approximately 2,000 drones of various types, many of them based on Iranian designs. These include a Syrian variant of the Iranian Fateh-110 missile, the M-600. That GPS-guided missile is almost 9 meters long.

Hezbollah's drones have recently posed significant challenges to Israel's sophisticated, multi-layered air defenses, including the Iron Dome. While many of these drones are relatively low-tech, such as the cheap and locally assembled Mersad and Ayoub models , others are more advanced models based on Iranian designs like the Ababil, Mohajer, and Shahed series. In addition to launching barrages of one-way explosive drones, Hezbollah attacked a military post in northern Israel in May using a drone that fired two missiles inside Israeli airspace .

Hezbollah has also amassed an arsenal of increasingly sophisticated anti-ship missiles in recent years, most notably the Russian-made Yakhont, which boasts a range of 186 miles.

Such capabilities would undoubtedly pose a significant threat to Cyprus in the event of war.

Experts have already noted that such missiles also enable Hezbollah to target Britain's Akrotiri air base on the island, which supported US-led airstrikes against Hezbollah's ally, the Houthis in Yemen. "For Hezbollah to target British bases in Cyprus would be a high risk," Tzogopoulos said. "The British-American response to such a scenario would be strong. Nothing is to be excluded in times of general instability, but Hezbollah will pay a heavy price if it targets British bases in Cyprus."

Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, believes that Nasrallah's threat is also directed at other countries, specifically Greece. Hezbollah seeks to send the message "that all of the Eastern Mediterranean is within range of its attacks" if the group "feels existentially threatened" by a full-scale war with Israel, he said.

"Cyprus, although it could serve as a route for the Israeli Air Force to target Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Hezbollah assets in Syria, is nowhere near as important a security partner to Israel as Greece has become over the past several years," Heras told BI.

The New Lines analyst noted the Israeli Defense Forces has used Greece as a "key site" for training for another potential war in Lebanon. Greece allows the Israeli Air Force to train over parts of the country with "topographical similarities" to Lebanon.

"Greece, a NATO country, is not a likely target for Hezbollah, but Cyprus, a country with close cultural and other ties to Greece, serves as a stand-in for Greece for potential intimidation purposes," Heras said.

"Hezbollah's longer-range, Iranian-supplied missiles could strike Greece."

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Friday 28 June 2024 08:56, UK

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We're pausing our live coverage of the war in Ukraine for this evening.

Scroll through below to catch up on the latest developments.

Two people have been killed and two more are wounded as a result of Russian shelling in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, an official has said.

Vadym Filashkin, head of the regional military administration, said Russian forces struck the centre of Kurakhove city, killing a woman and a 40-year-old man.

Two injured people were taken to hospital, he said.

He added that the extent of the damage in the attack was being assessed.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had a seemingly lively chat ahead of a meeting of European leaders in Brussels today.

It's not known what that the two men discussed - but relations between Budapest and Kyiv have become more strained since the Russian invasion in 2022.

Hungary is Russia's closest ally in the EU and Mr Orban has maintained a friendship with Vladimir Putin while criticising the EU's strategy on Ukraine.

In December, Mr Orban blocked a €50bn aid package for Ukraine in a move that frustrated other EU leaders. He lifted the veto several months later.

Two people have been injured in a Russian drone attack on southern Ukraine, an official has said.

The Kherson regional administration said Russian forces launched an attack on the village of Novodmytrivka, leaving a 66-year-old man and 71-year-old woman hurt.

Both have blast injuries and have been taken to hospital for treatment, it said on Telegram.

The US, Israel and Ukraine are all in talks to provide Ukraine with up to eight Patriot air defence systems, according to the Financial Times.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for NATO members to send his country the US-made Patriot systems as it battles intensifying Russian attacks.

The FT said the deal would likely involve Israel first sending the systems it plans to retire to the US, before they are handed over to Kyiv.

Sources with knowledge of the negotiations told the paper the outlines of the deal have been discussed between ministers and senior officials from each of the three countries.

Mr Zelenskyy said in May that Kyiv urgently needed at least seven more Patriot missile systems to ward off Russian strikes against its power grid, civilian areas and military targets.

Pictures have emerged this evening of the aftermath of Russia's latest airstrike on the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.

Emergency services said earlier that five people were injured and buildings were damaged in the attack (see 17.55 post).

Russian forces launched an assault on a new front in Kharkiv in May, after months of fighting focused on the east.

Ukrainian troops have repelled Russian forces from a neighbourhood in the frontline town of Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian military official has said.

Nazar Voloshin, a spokesman for the Khortytsia operational-strategic group, told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency that Russian forces had been pushed out of the Kanal neighborhood in the east of the town.

Mr Voloshin claimed Moscow's forces were not slowing down in their push to break through in Chasiv Yar, and said two assault operations were ongoing.

"Ukrainian defenders reliably hold the defence in this area and give a decent rebuff to the Russian aggressor," he told the agency.

For context: Chasiv Yar, a strategically-important town in the eastern Donetsk region, has long been a Russian target.

It has been pummelled by Russian air, artillery and drone strikes for months now, as Moscow views the town as a gateway to launch direct offensives against several Ukrainian "fortress cities".

Chasiv Yar had a pre-war population of more than 12,000, but now only a few hundred residents remain.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged EU leaders to make good on their promises to provide his country with military aid after the bloc signed a security agreement underlining its support for Kyiv in the long term.

"Fulfilment of every promise is important, not only in terms of protecting lives but also to destroy the Russian illusion that they will achieve something by war," he said at the summit in Brussels today.

The Ukrainian president thanked countries that have so far promised equipment and arms aid, but pointed out that they were "needed urgently on the battlefield".

He also urged more help on "the urgent things - air defence, that is one".

The EU-Ukraine security agreement entrenches the EU's commitment to help Ukraine in nine areas of security and defence policy - including arms deliveries, military training, defence industry cooperation and demining,

In essence, it encapsulates what the 27-nation bloc has been doing for the country since the start of the war.

But the EU has made a specific commitment to the "predictable, efficient, sustainable and long-term provision of military equipment" for Ukraine.

Kyiv in return has promised to uphold European values and continue on its reform path in preparation to join the EU.

Five people have been injured in Russian airstrikes in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, according to emergency services.

The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said the strikes hit a residential area of the region, partially destroying one building and damaging others - including a school - as well as cars.

Crews at the scene said five people were hurt.

The windows and gates of the local fire station were also damaged, the emergency service said.

While the apparent gains made by Russia during its spring offensive in Kharkiv were the focus of much of the news coverage of the way in May, a new report indicates any progress made by Vladimir Putin's troops came at a significant cost.

According to UK and other Western intelligence agency sources cited by the New York Times, more than 1,000 Russian soldiers were injured or killed each day last month.

However, the newspaper also cites US officials as saying Moscow is continuing to recruit between 25,000 and 30,000 new soldiers a month - roughly as many as it is losing from the battlefield.

American officials told the outlet that Russia achieved a critical objective of Mr Putin in creating a buffer zone along the border to make it more difficult for the Ukrainians to strike into the country.

But, the Western officials said, this did not threaten Kharkiv and was ultimately stopped by Ukrainian forces.

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