NORTH Korea commissioned its latest destroyer–the Kang Kon amidst the country’s push to modernise its naval assets and sharpen its combat readiness at sea with nuclear-capable vessels. Supreme leader Kim Jong-un attended the commissioning ceremony held on September 6 at the eastern port city of Wonsan, where he called the new 5,000-tonne destroyer “essentially an offensive destroyer” and part of “the state nuclear counteraction system,” according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“The new-generation destroyer should deal a deadly retaliatory blow at the enemies as it is a force involved in the state nuclear counteraction system,” the KCNA reported Kim as saying. Kim stressed the need to develop the country’s navy into “a nuclear armed force” in order to carry out maritime defence and war deterrence activities “more clearly. We are in the process of implementing an important plan to bolster our navy forces, and I will prove it to the world eight months from now,” he said, without elaborating further.
The destroyer Kang Kon will be commissioned into the Korean People’s Navy (KPAN) East Sea Fleet “to fulfil the responsible mission of defending the maritime sovereignty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as the nuclear war deterrent,” the KCNA added. The Kang Kon’s commissioning follows the commissioning of its first and largest-ever class lead vessel–the Choe Hyon less than three months prior in June. Most notably, the Kang Kon suffered a botched launch in May 2025 which left the ship partially submerged on its side and capsized before it was refloated and subsequently relaunched around a month later. North Korea has been accelerating its push to deploy naval assets with nuclear capabilities on both coasts, with the Choe Hyon in the West Sea and the Kang Kon in the East Sea.
In April, two strategic cruise missiles and three anti-ship missiles (AShM) were fired from the Choe Hyon to check the warship’s integrated weapons command system, train crews in missile-launch procedures and verify the accuracy and anti-jamming performance of upgraded navigation systems, KCNA said. The cruise missiles reportedly flew for about 7,869 to 7,920 seconds and the anti-ship missiles for about 1,960 to 1,973 seconds over water before striking their targets in what was described as ultra-precision accuracy. Then in July, North Korea test-fired strategic nuclear-capable cruise missiles and other weapons from the destroyer into the East Sea, with Kim overseeing the drills.
North Korea is reportedly building two more ships of the same class, with the third ship expected to be completed by October. At the same time, Pyongyang also plans to build two large warships of over 5,000 tonnes over the next five years, including 10,000-tonne-class warships and even its first “nuclear-powered submarine”. Last December, North Korean media released images of Kim inspecting a large submarine under construction, a submarine which first broke cover in March 2025. –-shp/adj/dl (Pix:REUTERS/KCNA)
