Russian legislator says North Korean missiles can reach US

This Aug. 29, 2017 photo distributed on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, by the North Korean government shows what was said to be the test launch of a Hwasong-12 intermediate range missile in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for more ballistic missile tests targeting the Pacific Ocean, Pyongyang announced Wednesday, a day after his nation for the first time flew a ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload over Japan. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

MOSCOW  — A Russian lawmaker says that he and colleagues who recently visited Pyongyang were shown North Korean calculations indicating that their missiles could reach the U.S. West Coast.

Anton Morozov of the nationalist Liberal-Democratic Party said in remarks carried by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Friday that North Korea is preparing to test-fire a long-range missile “in the nearest future.”

Morozov, who visited North Korea with two fellow lawmakers earlier this week, said that their interlocutors told them that Pyongyang has the technology that would allow missile warheads to survive the heat while entering the atmosphere.

He said North Koreans also showed them “mathematical calculations which they say prove that their missile is capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast.”