The event featured at least 11 Hwasong-17 ICBMs.
North Korea displayed an unprecedented number of long-range nuclear missiles at a military parade in Pyongyang on Wednesday night. “They displayed more ICBMs at the last parade than ever before,” said Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert.
As expected, a new North Korean canisterized ICBM mock-up. More credible than the last time they paraded similar mock-ups (2017) given broad progress in solid rocket motors (including a December 2022 static engine test). pic.twitter.com/WEwKRo5ECB
— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) February 9, 2023
The event, which was held to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, featured at least 11 Hwasong-17 ICBMs . It is the largest rocket of this type that Pyongyang has, which is suspected of being able to reach almost any part of the world with a nuclear warhead, collects Reuters.
At the same time, pictures from the parade show new launch vehicles designed to carry solid-fueled ICBMs . Such projectiles are designed for faster deployment, The Wall Street Journal indicates .
“This time, Kim Jong-un let North Korea’s expanding long-range missile and tactical forces speak for themselves ,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “The message that Pyongyang wants to send internationally, demonstrating its deterrence and coercion capabilities, is likely to come in the form of solid fuel missile tests and the detonation of a miniature nuclear device,” he noted.
Developing a solid-fueled ICBM has long been a key goal for North Korea, as they may be more difficult to detect and destroy during a conflict.
The North Korean leader himself, Kim Jong-un, was the one who presided over the event. Dressed in a black coat and fedora, Kim watched from a balcony as thousands of soldiers lined up in the square named after his grandfather and the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung. His wife Ri Sol-ju and his daughter also attended the parade.