North Korea Commissions 5,000-Ton Destroyer Choe Hyon at Nampo

North Korea commissioned the 5,000-ton destroyer Choe Hyon into its navy Tuesday at Nampo port. Kim Jong Un attended the ceremony. He stated that the program to equip the navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly and constitutes a strategic course of crucial importance.

The vessel is equipped with anti-aircraft weapons, anti-ship weapons, and nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. Kim said the Choe Hyon shows the navy is rising into a full-fledged service equipped with strategic means. He added that North Korea will soon commission the destroyer Kang Kon for operations.

The country will launch 10,000-ton strategic warships one after another after the Kang Kon and should build two surface ships every year whose class is higher than the Choe Hyon, including a 10,000-ton cruiser, Kim said. The Choe Hyon was unveiled in April 2025. Kim oversaw a cruise missile test from the ship that month.

A second destroyer of the same class, the Kang Kon, was damaged during a botched launch in May 2025 at Chongjin port and was relaunched in June 2025 after repairs. Kim attended a three-day Workers’ Party plenary meeting that ended Monday. At the meeting he stated that South Korea and the United States are pushing the region to the brink of a nuclear war.

Separately, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday it took into custody an unidentified North Korean soldier who crossed the inter-Korean border Tuesday night. The soldier expressed an intent to defect. The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

North Korea is under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear program.