Kim Jong Un was joined by high-level delegations from Russia and China at a military parade in Pyongyang where North Korea showed off its newest missile designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to the US.
(Bloomberg) — Kim Jong Un was joined by high-level delegations from Russia and China at a military parade in Pyongyang where North Korea showed off its newest missile designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to the US.
Among the weapons on display was North Korea’s Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday about the event held the night before. Multipurpose attack drones also flew around the parade skies, KCNA said, without saying whether Kim spoke at the event.
Initial photos released by North Korea showed Kim sitting between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Li Hongzhong, a member of the Communist Party of China’s 24-member Politburo.
“This is the largest, most overt North Korean display of nuclear-capable systems with foreign officials,” Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on social media. “The message is clear: Kim has the backing of two powerful regional partners,” who are also veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council, he added.
Kim also gave Shoigu a tour of a weapons exhibition, showing him nuclear-capable missiles and other arms. The Russian minister’s visit has stoked US concerns about Pyongyang sending munitions to help the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine.
The visits were the first by senior foreign delegations since Kim shut the country’s borders at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic about three years ago and are the latest sign of an opening by the isolated country. But there has been no indication that North Korea is ready to accept foreign tourists, who have in the past provided cash for the sanctions-hit nation.
The celebrations, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice Agreement that ended Korean War fighting on July 27, 1953, come at a crucial time for Kim. He is looking to powerful friends in Moscow and Beijing for support to fend off new sanctions as he increases the potency of a nuclear arms program designed to deliver strikes on the US and its allies. The North Korean leader is also seeking to ease up on pandemic border controls that slammed the brakes on his economy.
Read: Secret Deals With Russia Help Kim Jong Un Fund Nuclear Program
The military parade allows Kim to showcase his latest weaponry, much of which has evolved from systems developed by his nation’s closest partners. China fought with North Korea in the war and the Soviet Union helped supply the political and military backing to state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader who sent troops across the border in 1950 to start the conflict.
“Various attack and reconnaissance drones flew in demonstrations while circling in the sky over the square, doubling the joy of the people celebrating the victory of Juche Korea,” KCNA said. Even through the Korean War ended with a cease fire to halt the stalemate, North Korea celebrates the end of fighting as a victory.
Kim appears to have found new ways of making money by selling munitions to Russia to aid its war on Ukraine, the US has said. Signs of a resumption of trade with China, historically North Korea’s biggest trading partner, led Fitch Solutions to estimate the economy returned to growth after two full years of contraction, though significant uncertainties remain.
One thing that North Korea has and Russia likely wants is artillery shells that can be used with the Soviet-era weaponry pushed into service in Ukraine. Putin’s military has been burning through its stocks and rushing to secure new supplies.
At North Korea’s last military parade in February, the regime rolled out its biggest display of ICBMs, which included the new, solid-fuel Hwasong-18. Kim also brought along his daughter, showing there’s another generation in the Kim dynasty forged in the Cold War that will depend on nuclear arms for its survival.
Since then, North Korea has twice tested the Hwasong-18 ICBM, which is designed to carry a multiple nuclear weapons. Solid-fuel missiles have the propellants baked into rockets, allowing them to stay hidden. They can also be rolled out and fired in minutes, giving the US less time to prepare for interception. The challenge becomes even greater if the missile carries several warheads instead of one.
The other ICBMs North Korea has tested are liquid-fueled, which make them vulnerable to attack before launch as it takes time to fill their engines with propellant while they sit on the pad.
Russia and China have used their veto power at the UN Security Council in recent months to block new efforts to punish Kim’s government for its ballistic missile tests.
(Updates with details, background throughout)
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