North Korea on Saturday lambasted a recent trilateral meeting between South Korea, the US and Japan that discussed peace in the Indo-Pacific region, deriding the talks as an "insult" to peace.
A Ukrainian media outlet has reported that about 500 North Korean soldiers were killed in a missile strike by Kyiv in Russia's western Kursk region.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said on Sunday that South Korea will have to pay a "dear price" for sending propaganda leaflets across the border the previous day.
NATO and Europe are crying hoarse about North Korean troops being deployed in Russia. According to the Pentagon, about 10,000 North Korean troops are ready to be deployed in the war zone, most of whom are undergoing training in Russia. This would imply strength of about one division.
Guided by Kim, North Korea carried out a "crucial" missile test that set milestones in "perpetuating the absolute superiority" of the country's armed forces, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Saturday's firings marked the seventh round of such launches since July 25 when the North broke a 17-month hiatus and started firing missiles and projectiles to test new weapons and protest the South-US joint military exercise that it has long denounced as a rehearsal for invasion.
The trilateral tension between the US, China and Russia will almost certainly escalate as it has over a welter of other issues.
The South Korean official's remarks came a day after Biegun said that the US was "prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea", a position that the North does not appear to share.
The act "is a grave provocation that has openly denied the joint declarations and the military agreement" between the two sides on the Korean Peninsula, he said.
Biegun made the remark after a meeting in Seoul with Lee Do-hoon, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs
