Military activity in North Korea has been especially intense in recent weeks. State media have shown its supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, dedicated to the modernization of the army: he has toured weapons exhibitions, supervised live-fire demonstrations and demanded that his scientists make progress in the military use of artificial intelligence and the development of drones. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has carried out tests of projectiles that it presents as hypersonic, launches of cruise missiles from submarines, drone tests and tests of cluster munitions. In parallel, the fortification works on the border with South Korea continue, fueling tension on the peninsula, while Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the top leader, accompanies this deployment with threats.
“North Korea is taking advantage of the international situation to improve its Armed Forces as much as it can, because it knows that the moment the war in Ukraine ends its relationship with Russia will change,” Ramón Pacheco Pardo, professor of International Relations at King's College London specializing in Korea, says by phone.
Cooperation has been especially closer since Kim and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, signed a strategic partnership treaty in 2024, which includes a mutual defense pact in the event of aggression. Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with ammunition, missiles and around 15,000 soldiers for its fight. In exchange, it has received oil and, according to the multilateral team that monitors compliance with the sanctions against North Korea, air defense and electronic warfare systems.
Given that North Korean propaganda presents with the same triumphalism the weapons that the Army already uses, the prototypes that are beginning to be tested, and the capabilities that Kim aspires to develop, it is difficult to discern how much they have actually improved. Although satellite images show expansions in facilities linked to their weapons programs, they do not allow for a precise determination of the volume or pace of production.
North Korean weapons specialist Vann H. Van Diepen, a former senior official in the US State Department, highlights by email “the impressive track record of successful launches” of certain models of short-range ballistic missiles, some of which Russia has used against Ukraine. Its use in combat allows Pyongyang to evaluate its operation and correct errors. However, some of Pyongyang's claims regarding the development of hypersonic glider vehicles and the incorporation of artificial intelligence into its missiles remain unproven. As for its intercontinental missiles, the analyst suspects that they are not very reliable, but sufficient to “maintain a minimum deterrence against the United States.”
In assessing the improvements derived from the use of North Korean projectiles in the Ukrainian war, Van Diepen warns: “Most of the evidence available in open sources comes from statements by Ukrainian military intelligence, which, on the one hand, has plausible ways to obtain this information, but, on the other, may also have incentives to misinform.”
With this caution, the consultant interprets as “especially credible” the information that suggests that the missiles fired at Ukrainian targets have gained precision, since he believes that North Korean technicians have learned to counteract the electronic interference that diverted them from their targets.
The precision improvement strengthens both Pyongyang's conventional and nuclear capabilities, says Ankit Panda, senior researcher in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Panda considers it likely that Moscow is behind some of this progress: "We still do not see conclusive evidence, but Russian technical assistance is probably making possible the rapid acceleration of North Korean advances in several areas of conventional weapons."
Pacheco Pardo places precisely there one of the ways in which Russian collaboration can benefit the North Korean atomic arsenal. Although he rules out that Russia is directly supporting the North Korean nuclear program, he emphasizes that the Kremlin can provide technology, components and experience to develop the missiles that transport these loads.
This modernization of missiles accompanies the expansion of the nuclear arsenal. Despite the sanctions imposed by the United Nations since 2006 for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, Kim has described his country's atomic status as “completely and absolutely irreversible” and has refused to exchange disarmament for economic benefits or security guarantees. Pyongyang has carried out six nuclear tests, the last in 2017, but, in this time, it has expanded its capacity to produce fissile material (highly enriched uranium and plutonium), the raw material for atomic bombs.
In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) identified through official photographs and satellite images a second uranium enrichment plant at Yongbyon, the country's main nuclear complex, and detected signs of activity at an expansion of the Kangson plant. According to Vertic, a British center specializing in nuclear non-proliferation and verification, the new plant and previous expansions could raise the annual production capacity of highly enriched uranium to about 2.5 times that of early 2021, if all those facilities were fully operational.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates in its 2026 yearbook that North Korea would have assembled about 60 nuclear warheads and accumulated enough fissile material to manufacture at least another 30. “Our uncertainty about the total size of the arsenal grows year after year,” acknowledges Panda, who says he has “no doubt” that Kim is “still far” from having the nuclear arsenal he aspires to.
For Pacheco Pardo, this military modernization responds to political and economic frustrations. The failure of the rapprochement with Seoul and the negotiations with Washington in 2018 and 2019 (during the first term of US President Donald Trump), followed by the subsequent isolation during the pandemic, led to the turn towards the Armed Forces, which had lost influence during Kim's first years in power, recalls the researcher.
The military reinforcement now coincides with an economic recovery supported, in part, by the manufacture of weapons for Russia. The South Korean Central Bank estimates that North Korea's GDP grew by 3.5% in 2025, after advancing by 3.7% in 2024 and 3.1% in 2023. These are external calculations due to the lack of official North Korean statistics. But this rebound coexists with strong pressures on the population: according to an analysis by economist Randall Jones, from the Korea Economic Institute in the United States, the price of rice multiplied by 5.2 between May 2024 and May 2026.
China, in turn, retains a fundamental role as a historical ally and main trading partner of North Korea, and has also contributed to alleviating its neighbor's economic isolation. Both countries have strengthened their ties again since last year, and bilateral exchanges totaled around €2.42 billion in 2025, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Pacheco Pardo also indicates that Kim has once again relied on the Army because it fulfills an internal function: it is a tool that allows him to toughen repression and surveillance of the population, but also to provide employment for young people. Furthermore, sending troops to the Russian front generates revenue for Pyongyang; The researcher believes that part of these payments could reach the families of the military. The regime has accompanied the tributes to the North Koreans who fell in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict with rewards for their loved ones, such as financial aid and housing.
The academic links these decisions and the display of arms muscle with the need to ensure the continuity of the regime. “Kim has no military experience and this is a way of saying: 'I control them, they are at my service,'” explains Pacheco Pardo. At the same time, it seeks to convey to South Korea and the United States that the dynasty that has ruled the country since 1948 has an army willing to defend it. The show of force also has a diplomatic dimension, given Trump's interest in meeting again with Kim. “North Korea does not rule out a possible summit with the United States and, if it occurs, the more modernized its Armed Forces are, the better,” details Pacheco Pardo.
