North Korea has carried out demonstration flights of new military drones, state media reported, as leader Kim Jong-un shared centre stage with senior delegates from Russia and China in a show of unity at a parade in the capital.
State media said on Friday that Kim rolled out his most powerful, nuclear-capable missiles during the “Victory Day” parade in Pyongyang to mark the 70th anniversary of the armistice that stopped fighting in the Korean War.
Joining Kim were Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese ruling party official Li Hongzhong. Earlier, Shoigu gave Kim a “warm and good letter” signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which noted Pyongyang’s support for Russia in its conflict with Ukraine, adding that the Korean War had laid the foundation for good relations in confronting the west.
The North’s official Korean Central news agency said the parade featured ceremonial flights of newly developed surveillance and attack drones, which were first unveiled by state media this week as they reported on an arms exhibition attended by Kim and Shoigu. Some observers said the two models displayed resembled US Global Hawk and Reapers drones in terms of their visual appearance.
The news came as Japan warned on Friday that North Korea posed a more serious threat to its national security than “ever before”, as nuclear-armed Pyongyang rattles its neighbours with repeated missile tests and belligerent rhetoric.
Japan’s defence ministry made a case in its annual white paper for a significant rise in domestic defence spending as the world enters “a new era of crisis”. China’s growing military might and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were major focuses of the white paper.
NEW: North Korea airs the first video footage of its two new military drones in action, showing a combat UAV firing missiles during flight. Read more about the unveiling here: https://t.co/AoOvLYVg2l pic.twitter.com/07uYQGJv3g
— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) July 27, 2023
Thursday’s parade followed meetings between Kim and Shoigu in Pyongyang this week that demonstrated North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and added to suspicions the North was willing to provide arms supplies to Russia, whose war efforts have been compromised by defence procurement and inventory problems.
On Thursday, the streets and stands were packed with tens of thousands of mobilised spectators, who roared in approval as waves of soldiers, tanks and huge, intercontinental ballistic missiles wheeled out on launcher trucks filled up the main road.
Photos showed Kim smiling and talking to Shoigu and Li, who respectively stood to his right and left at the balcony’s centre spot, and Kim and Shoigu raising their hands to salute the parading troops.
KCNA did not say whether Kim made a speech during the parade. It did summarise a speech by North Korean defence minister Kang Sun-nam, who described the parade as a historic celebration of the country’s “great victory against the American imperialists and the forces of their follower nations” and said the North under Kim’s leadership would “prosper indefinitely”.
Black-and-white synthetic aperture radar imagery from satellites showed what appeared to be a massing of people at the square at about 10pm local time on Thursday, said Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, which is part of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Kim’s latest display of his military might comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in years.
North Korean state media said Kim and Shoigu on Wednesday reached a consensus on unspecified military matters related to the “regional and international security environment”.
Kim also took Shoigu to an arms exhibition that displayed his most powerful weaponry, including new Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that were flight-tested in recent months and demonstrated potential range to reach deep into the US mainland. Those ICBMs — the Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-18 — were rolled out as the finale of Thursday’s parade, the KCNA said.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said: “China’s representation at North Korea’s parading of nuclear-capable missiles raises serious questions about Beijing enabling Pyongyang’s threats to global security.”
“Given Russia’s need for ammunition for its illegal war in Ukraine and Kim Jong-un’s willingness to personally give the Russian defence minister a tour of North Korea’s arms exhibition, UN member states should increase vigilance for observing and penalising sanctions violations,” he said.
With Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
