North Korea showed off its “most powerful” intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade attended by top officials from Russia and China, Pyongyang’s state media reported yesterday.
The event to mark 80 years under the Workers’ Party of Korea came as leader Kim Jong-un has been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman and former president Dmitry Medvedev attended the parade on Friday alongside Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) and Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam.
Photo: EPA
The spectacle featured some of the country’s most advanced weapons, including its new Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) described as its “most powerful nuclear strategic weapon system.”
Thousands of people in colorful traditional dress filled the streets of the North Korean capital for the late-night event, waving national flags and cheering as weapons rumbled down the main streets.
The country’s “invincible” army “has always added double strength to our Party’s efforts to overcome difficulties and bring a bright future,” Kim said in a speech.
Photo: EPA
He made an apparent nod to North Korean troops fighting alongside Moscow’s forces in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“The heroic fighting spirit displayed, and the victory achieved, by our revolutionary armed forces on the foreign battlefields for international justice ... demonstrated the ideological and spiritual perfection,” KCNA quoted him as saying.
About 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded fighting for Russia, Seoul has said.
The celebrations come after Seoul said a meeting between North Korea and the US “cannot be ruled out” on the sidelines of this year’s APEC summit in South Korea.
Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting academic at the Harvard University Asia Center, said: “It is crucial to see this parade not as an isolated event, but as the culmination of a deliberate, structural shift in regional geopolitics.”
“It serves as a stark warning that Seoul’s strengthened alliance with Washington will be met with a consolidated and powerful trilateral bloc on its doorstep,” he said.
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