The latest weapons test by North Korea was overseen by its leader, Kim Jong Un, according to state media on Friday. Pyongyang has been accused of supplying Russia with weaponry.

Recently, the mostly isolated nation has strengthened its military connections with Russia, and this month Pyongyang expressed gratitude to Moscow for using its veto power in the UN Security Council to prevent the renewal of a panel of UN experts that oversaw international weapons restrictions against Kim's administration.

Despite UN sanctions prohibiting such actions, North Korea is accused by South Korea and the US of providing weaponry to Russia.

Additionally, experts have speculated that the nuclear-armed North may be testing and producing more artillery and cruise missiles before shipping them to Russia for use in the Ukrainian conflict.

According to the official Korean Central News Agency, the "flight features, (and) hit and concentration indices" of the "240 mm shell of a multiple rocket launcher," manufactured at Pyongyang's new military manufacturing unit, were "evaluated very satisfactorily" during the test.

Kim reiterated "the need... to surely carry out the munitions production plan for this year in a qualitative way," according to KCNA.

According to Kim, "with new technology, the rocket launcher would bring about a strategic change in bolstering up the artillery force" of the North Korean army, as reported by KCNA.

Pyongyang stated earlier this week that Kim had supervised the nation's first-ever "nuclear trigger" exercises, in which adversaries were warned by emulating a nuclear counterattack.

Based on the declaration made on Friday, Yang Moo-jin, head of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, stated that the North appears to have made "some progress" in integrating guiding technology for precise attacks aimed at the capital region of South Korea.

"The entire country resembles a missile defence industry expo," according to him.

In spite of warnings from Washington and Seoul and in violation of UN sanctions in effect since 2006, North Korea carried out a record number of missile tests last year.

In 2022, Pyongyang proclaimed itself a state with "irreversible" nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has labelled South Korea as its "principal enemy" this year, sacked reunification agencies, and threatened to go to war for "even 0.001 mm" of territorial violation.

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