South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said that North Korea fired a possible long-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Saturday, a day after the Kim Jong-un regime vowed an “unprecedented response” to what it deemed hostile actions by South Korea and the United States.

The JCS said in a mobile message to South Korean reporters that it detected at least one ballistic missile that took off from the Sunan area of Pyongyang toward the East Sea at 5:22 p.m. in what it believes was the latest test of a long-range ballistic missile.

It was the second such launch of 2023, 48 days after the regime rang in the new year with a test-firing of a short-range ballistic missile.

The JCS is working on analyzing technical details, including the missile’s range, speed and altitude.

South Korea's presidential National Security Advisor Kim Sung-han presided over an emergency meeting of the National Security Council's standing committee immediately after the military detected the launch.

Meanwhile, NHK cited the Japanese defense ministry saying that the missile flew some 900 kilometers, peaking at an altitude of around five-thousand-700 kilometers before failing into waters west of Hokkaido’s westernmost island of Oshima.

Japanese media also quoted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as telling reporters that he believes the missile fell into Japan's exclusive economic zone, and that Tokyo is working closely with Seoul and Washington to analyze the launch.

The provocation comes a day after North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a warning against plans by South Korea and the U.S. to hold their joint Freedom Shield military drills next month, while also denouncing what it defined as their schemes to manipulate the United Nations Security Council to pressure Pyongyang.

It also comes on heels of South Korea’s classification of North Korea as an enemy for the first time in six years in the 2022 edition of the biennial Defense White Paper released on Thursday.

North Korea recently showcased its largest array of intercontinental ballistic missiles during a military parade in Pyongyang on February 8 marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of its army.