On Tuesday, March 28, North Korea unveiled new, smaller nuclear warheads and vowed to produce more weapons-grade nuclear material to expand its arsenal, state media said on Tuesday, as a U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea for military drills. North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released photos of the warheads, dubbed Hwasan-31s. Leader Kim Jong Un visited the Nuclear Weapons Institute and inspected new tactical nuclear weapons and technology for mounting warheads on ballistic missiles, as well as nuclear counterattack operation plans.
On Wednesday, March 29, a senior Russian diplomat said that Moscow will no longer inform the U.S. about its missile tests, an announcement that came as the Russian military deployed mobile launchers in Siberia in a show of the country’s massive nuclear capability amid the fighting in Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies that Moscow has halted all information exchanges with Washington after previously suspending its participation in the last remaining nuclear arms pact with the U.S.
On Thursday, March 30, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, successfully conducted Flight Test Aegis Weapon System 31 Event 1a (FTM-31 E1a). The test demonstrated the capability of a ballistic missile defense (BMD)-configured Aegis ship to detect, track, engage, and intercept a medium range ballistic missile (MRBM) target in the terminal phase of flight utilizing the Standard Missile–6 (SM-6) Dual II with Software Upgrade (SWUP) in a single salvo of two interceptors. FTM–31 E1a was the third successful flight test of an Aegis BMD-equipped vessel using the SM–6 Dual II missile and the first Aegis Baseline 9.C2.0 (BMD 5.1) intercept of an MRBM target using the SM-6 Dual II SWUP missile.
On Monday, April 3, after a Russian attack using anti-air missiles to hit land targets, six civilians were killed in the Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka on Sunday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Two S-300 missiles and four Uragan Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) projectiles struck a residential area in the city of Donetsk according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The S-300 system is a long-range surface-to-air missile platform. The anti-air system possesses the capability to launch the missiles against ground targets, but the missiles are expensive munitions. The Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate said in December that such a tactic was indicative of Russia's dwindling supply of missiles.
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