Kim had suggested October would be the month for the third attempt at launching. When he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in September, Putin said he intended to help North Korea build satellites, a remarkable comment given Russia’s position as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council — which bans Pyongyang’s testing of long-range missile technology, including the rockets used to launch satellites. Watson, the NSC spokeswoman, called the launch Tuesday a “brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions,” adding that the launch “raises tensions, and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond.”
Analysts have pondered the reason for the delay past the October time frame. Was Pyongyang merely struggling to fine-tune existing capabilities over the three launches? asked Lee Ho-ryung, North Korean military expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. Or did Russia play a major role in helping Pyongyang cross the finish line?
“The important event between the second and third launch was the summit between North Korea and Russia, where they discussed military, space, science and technological cooperation and North Korea brought officials from those areas on the visit,” Lee said.
