Seoul: The military of South Korea reported that North Korea launched several cruise missiles Saturday toward its western sea, marking the country's second such launch this week, ostensibly in opposition to the US submarine with nuclear weapons docking there.

North Korea has increased the number of missile launches it has made recently, but for a fifth day in a row, it kept a low profile regarding the fate of an American soldier who fled across the heavily fortified Korean border this week and entered the North.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea said the launches were discovered starting at around 4 a.m., but they did not immediately state how many missiles were fired or how far they traveled. It claimed that the militaries of the US and South Korea were carefully examining the launches.

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On Wednesday, two short-range ballistic missiles were launched by North Korea from a location close to Pyongyang. Before coming to a stop in the waters east of the Korean Peninsula, they traveled about 550 kilometers (341 miles).

The USS Kentucky visited South Korea on Tuesday, the first time a US nuclear-armed submarine had been there since the 1980s. The flight distance of those missiles roughly matched the distance between Pyongyang and the South Korean port city of Busan.

In a show of force against North Korea, which has tested about 100 missiles since the beginning of 2022, the US and South Korea have increased their joint military drills and agreed to increase the regional deployment of US strategic assets like bombers, aircraft carriers, and submarines.

New rounds of nuclear contingency planning meetings have also been launched by the allies, in part to allay South Koreans' concerns about the North's escalating nuclear threat and to quell calls for the country to develop its own deterrent.

The docking of the Kentucky in South Korea, according to North Korea's defense minister, could be cause for a nuclear attack by the North. Although North Korea has used similar rhetoric in the past, the remarks highlighted how tense the situation is right now.

The Kentucky's deployment and the nuclear emergency planning meetings between Washington and Seoul were both referred to as "defensive response measures" by the South Korean Defense Ministry on Friday. A nuclear attack by the North on the allies would be met with a "immediate, overwhelming and decisive response," according to the ministry, which "strongly warns" that it would bring an end to the North Korean regime.