North Korea fired roughly 10 short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area toward its eastern waters on August 20, 2026, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said — just hours after President Trump told reporters he expects to meet Kim Jong Un again before the end of the year.
A separate, low-credibility rumor that Kim Jong Un had died circulated on Aug. 18-19, but major outlets did not pick it up and the claim was not credibly confirmed.
That launch came as the United States and South Korea were finishing their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise, which Trump had already ordered shortened by about six days, citing his relationship with Kim. South Korea’s military said the missiles flew roughly 300 kilometers (185 miles) out to sea and appeared to have come from large 600-millimeter rocket launchers North Korea has tested before. No report said the missiles hit land or another country’s waters.
Key facts
- August 20, 2026: North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area toward its eastern waters.
- Distance: The missiles flew roughly 300 kilometers (185 miles) out to sea; no report found in the available coverage said they hit land or entered another country’s waters.
- Trump’s comment: He said he expects to meet Kim Jong Un again before the end of the year.
- Kim Yo Jong’s response: She said she was “not aware of it at all” of any contact between Trump and her brother.
- Nuclear estimate: Trump put North Korea’s arsenal at “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” — his own, uncorroborated figure.
Seoul calls the launches a violation of U.N. resolutions
South Korea’s National Security Council met soon after the launches and called on North Korea to stop firing ballistic missiles, which it said United Nations Security Council resolutions ban. This was not North Korea’s first launch this month: the North also fired a short-range ballistic missile on August 6, 2026 — its first since late June — and another on August 12, 2026, in the run-up to and during the joint US-South Korea drills.
Analysts are divided on what North Korea was signaling. Some read the timing as a calculated negotiating move: Pyongyang raising the price of re-engagement before it comes back to the table, rather than shutting the door on talks altogether. Other coverage frames it more simply as a rebuff to the shortened drills and to Trump’s outreach. North Korea itself has not issued an official statement explaining the launches.
Trump says Kim responded to outreach — Kim’s sister says she knows nothing about it
On August 19, 2026, Trump told reporters he expects to meet Kim Jong Un again “later this year,” answering “Yeah, I will be” when asked directly whether he’d see the North Korean leader. He also said Kim had responded to his overtures for a conversation and called the development “very positive.”
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister and a senior North Korean official, pushed back the next day, saying she was “not aware of it at all” when asked about Trump’s claim of contact with her brother — though she added that personal relations between the two men remain “still excellent.” She also dismissed the shortened US-South Korea drills as “unworthy of comment,” saying the exercise remains “provocative” even at a smaller scale and shouldn’t be read as a good-faith gesture.
No date or location for a Trump-Kim meeting has been confirmed by either government. Some reporting has floated a possible meeting window around a November summit in Shenzhen, China, but neither the White House nor Pyongyang has confirmed any meeting plan.
Trump puts a number on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal
Speaking about North Korea this week, Trump also estimated the country’s arsenal at “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” — a figure reporters described as the first specific number he has cited publicly. That number is Trump’s own estimate: no independent intelligence assessment corroborating it, or offering a different count to weigh it against, turned up in reporting on the claim.
Other developments in the background
A Bloomberg Economics analysis found the country took in as much as $22 billion in foreign revenue between 2022 and 2025 — a roughly 400% jump from the prior four years and more cash than at any point in Kim’s 15 years in power — driven largely by supplying weapons and troops to Russia and by cryptocurrency theft.
Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence reported around Aug. 5 that a North Korean missile unit was deploying to Russia’s Voronezh region, potentially with up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers; Russia and North Korea had not independently confirmed that report.
North Korea has also objected to Japan’s military posture. Japan test-fired a US-made Tomahawk cruise missile from the destroyer Chokai in early August. Kim Yo Jong accused Tokyo of shifting toward a pre-emptive military posture backed by the United States, and warned that North Korea could respond with “additional military options.”
For now, the picture is unsettled: Trump is publicly optimistic about a meeting, North Korea’s government has not confirmed contact, and its military just sent 10 missiles into the sea.