Kim Jong Un commissions his largest warship and declares the nuclear arming of the navy is on an “unerring” course, marking a strategic shift for a regime that has historically relied on land-based missiles and ground forces.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the commissioning of the Choe Hyon, the country’s first 5,000-ton multi-mission destroyer, at the western port city of Nampho on Tuesday. State media reported the ceremony as the culmination of 14 months of sea trials for a vessel the regime has cast as the centerpiece of an ambitious naval modernization program aimed at extending North Korea’s nuclear deterrent into the maritime domain.
In a speech delivered before senior ruling party officials, military commanders, and shipbuilders, Kim said the destroyer’s deployment was “a strategic course of crucial importance” that would keep the country’s nuclear forces “ready for multifaceted and efficient operation.” The Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as declaring that “the program of equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly.”
The Choe Hyon, named after a Korean War-era general and former minister of the armed forces, is the largest surface combatant North Korea has ever built. It is equipped with a phased array radar system and a vertical launching system, both firsts for the Korean People’s Navy. State media says the warship carries nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles alongside anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons. Kim has personally overseen cruise missile tests from the vessel in recent months, including a March shakedown cruise during which the ship sailed under its own power for the first time.
Kim acknowledged the navy’s historical reputation as the weakest branch of the country’s military. “It has clearly become a thing of the past when our navy existed as a force for defending the sea off our land,” he said, according to KCNA. “It is rising into a full-fledged service equipped with strategic means.”
The North Korean leader did not stop at one ship. He pledged to commission a second destroyer, the Kang Kon, in the near future and called for the construction of two Choe Hyon-class or larger surface combatants every year under the country’s five-year defense plan. Kim specifically mentioned 10,000-ton “strategic warships” as the next milestone, a size that would narrow the gap with blue-water vessels operated by South Korea and the United States. He also called for new naval bases and the development of underwater weapons systems.
The strategic shift is significant. For decades, North Korea concentrated its resources on land-based ballistic missiles and a massive ground army, treating the navy as a coastal defense force of patrol boats and aging Soviet-era submarines. The pursuit of a nuclear-armed surface fleet represents a doctrinal departure, one that would give Pyongyang the ability to project power beyond its shores and complicate the military calculations of its adversaries.
Analysts say the move is primarily aimed at deterring the United States, South Korea’s main security ally. “The key point is that North Korea sees these weapons as part of an effort to more effectively deter or impede US military intervention on the Korean Peninsula in the event of a conflict,” Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, told AFP. He warned that ship-launched cruise missiles fitted with tactical nuclear warheads would significantly increase the threat to US and allied forces in the region.
South Korean officials and independent experts believe the Choe Hyon was built with Russian technical assistance, reflecting the deepening military partnership between Pyongyang and Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US and its allies have accused North Korea of supplying artillery shells and ballistic missiles to Russia in exchange for advanced weapons technology, though both countries deny the arrangement.
The commissioning comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit North Korea, a rare high-level engagement that underscores Pyongyang’s strengthening ties with its two main diplomatic and military patrons. China has been North Korea’s closest ally since the Korean War, but recent years have seen Beijing grow uneasy with the pace of Kim’s weapons programs. A Xi visit would signal continued strategic alignment despite those concerns.
The second ship in the Choe Hyon class, the Kang Kon, suffered a botched launch at the northern port of Chongjin in May 2025 that damaged the hull and provoked a furious response from Kim. The vessel was later raised, repaired, and relaunched in June 2025, but outside experts have questioned whether it is fully operational.
Some analysts remain skeptical about the readiness of North Korea’s naval ambitions. The Choe Hyon class will require considerable time for fitting out, manufacturer’s trials, and navy acceptance before it can be committed to sustained operations. The lack of a helicopter hangar on the destroyer points to constrained aviation support and limited anti-submarine warfare capability compared to modern regional warships.
Nevertheless, even a small number of such vessels would give Pyongyang new options for nuclear signaling, theater strike, and maritime coercion. The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, as the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Kim has accused Washington and Seoul of driving the region “to the brink of a nuclear war,” and he has repeatedly rejected the Northern Limit Line, the maritime boundary drawn by the US-led UN Command that has been the site of several deadly naval skirmishes.
North Korea has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since Kim’s 2019 summit with then-President Donald Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearization and sanctions relief. The regime shows no sign of backtracking. The Choe Hyon, steaming out of Nampho with nuclear-capable missiles on its deck, is the clearest signal yet that Kim intends to take that nuclear status to sea.