Seoul (BLAZETRENDS) met a second time with the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Kim presided over the event held on Thursday with Shoigu on his right and Li Hongzhong, a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Politburo, on his left in the box set up in Pyongyang’s central Kim Il-sung Square in front of the Grand Palace. of People’s Studies.
During the event, military salutes and solemn faces alternated in the rostrum with laughter and complicit gestures between the three – according to the images published today by the KCNA agency and the state television channel KCTV – while rows of troops, armored vehicles or projectiles of all kinds.
The regime exhibited its longest-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the Hwasong-17 and the even more sophisticated Hwasong-18, which uses solid fuel and was tested for the second time on July 12 from near Pyongyang.
He also showed off other of his newer assets, hitherto not included before in his increasingly regular military parades in the capital.
new drones
Among these novelties was the Haeil underwater drone, tested last spring and which Pyongyang claims is capable of generating radioactive tsunamis just like the Russian Poseidon.
Also on view was one of the newly developed drones, whose design is reminiscent of the American Reaper, famous for its use to destroy targets in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But all this weaponry had already been seen by Shoigu on Wednesday when Kim took it to an exhibition in the North Korean capital.
The image that has resulted from Thursday’s parade, and in general the one left by the presence of the delegations led by Shoigu and Li, is one of camaraderie between Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing at a time marked by growing polarization within the framework of the war in Ukraine and also in Northeast Asia, where in turn Washington seeks to make friends with Seoul and Tokyo with increasing insistence.
It is also important to note that never before had Chinese or Russian delegations invited by Pyongyang to one of these military parades seen so much North Korean weaponry with potential nuclear capabilities parading.
With permission from Beijing and Moscow
This is a sign, unprecedented until now, of the approval of Moscow and Beijing – which refuse at this point to sanction the North Korean regime for its weapons tests – for the development of weapons of mass destruction by Kim Jong-un.
A Kim who, with the presentation of these new drones, can now cross out yet another item from the list of new weapons to be developed that was included in the military modernization plan approved in 2021 and which has fewer and fewer pieces left to complete.
And so, as the West continues to accuse Pyongyang of secretly and illegally supplying military resources to Moscow, the North Korean leader in turn chose to meet Shoigu a second time on Thursday to discuss the need for “further development of the strategic and tactical collaboration and cooperation between the two countries in the field of defense and security,” according to KCNA.
For his part, the Russian Defense Minister took advantage of a conference also held on Thursday in Pyongyang to convey a message from President Vladimir Putin praising “the unwavering support of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (official name of the country) for the special military operation ( of Russia)” in Ukraine.
North Korea has been one of the few countries to publicly underline its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and this week Moscow patted it back on the back.