North Korea has commissioned its first nuclear-capable surface warship, a 5,000-ton destroyer named the Choe Hyon, in a ceremony that leader Kim Jong-un used to declare his navy’s nuclear transformation is proceeding on schedule.
Kim attended the commissioning at the western port of Nampo on Tuesday and told officers the vessel represents a turning point for a military branch that has historically operated as a coastal defense force. “It has clearly become a thing of the past when our navy existed as a force for defending the sea off our land,” Kim said, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. “It is rising into a full-fledged service equipped with strategic means as the program of equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly.”
The Choe Hyon is armed with nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons, and additional systems, KCNA reported. The ship has been placed under naval command with responsibility for defending North Korea’s western coast.
Kim first unveiled the vessel in April 2025. Since then, he oversaw a series of weapons tests aboard the ship, including launches of what Pyongyang described as nuclear-capable cruise missiles. Following a March test, Kim claimed his naval nuclear push would “constitute a radical change in defending our maritime sovereignty, something that we have not achieved for half a century.”
North Korea suffered a public setback last year when a second destroyer in the same class, the Kang Kon, was damaged during a botched launch at the port of Chongjin. Kim responded with public fury. Pyongyang later announced the ship was relaunched in June 2025 after repairs, though independent verification remains impossible. Kim said Tuesday that the Kang Kon will also enter service soon.
Beyond the two 5,000-ton destroyers, North Korea has announced plans to build a 10,000-ton destroyer and continues development of a nuclear-powered submarine. Kim outlined naval expansion as a primary military objective at a Workers’ Party congress in February, which also included calls for intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of launching from underwater.
Kim has not engaged in nuclear negotiations with the United States since talks with President Trump collapsed in 2019. He has since accelerated expansion of North Korea’s arsenal, deepened ties with Moscow and Beijing, and repeatedly demanded Washington drop denuclearization as a precondition for any future diplomacy.
