North Korean leader Kim shares center stage with Russian, Chinese delegates at military parade
United States. State media said Friday Kim attended Thursday evening’s parade with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese ruling party official Li Hongzhong from a balcony looking over the city’s main square.
The streets and stands were packed with tens of thousands of mobilized spectators, who roared in approval as waves of goose-stepping soldiers, tanks and huge, intercontinental ballistic missiles wheeled out on launcher trucks filled up the main road. Kim’s latest display of his military might comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in years.
North Korea has dialed up its weapons tests to a record pace in recent months and the U.S. has responded by strengthening combined military exercises and nuclear contingency planning with South Korea, in a cycle of tit-for-tat that has been punctuated by mutual, verbal threats of destruction.
North Korea’s invitation of Russian and Chinese delegates to the parade was a rare opening for the country since the start of the pandemic. Experts say Kim is trying to break out from diplomatic isolation and boost the visibility of his partnership with authoritarian allies to counter pressure from the United States, which has been strengthening its security cooperation with South Korea and Japan to contain the North’s nuclear threat.
The parade followed meetings between Kim and Shoigu in Pyongyang this week that demonstrated North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and added to suspicions that the North was willing to provide arms supplies to Russia, whose war efforts have been compromised by defense procurement and inventory problems. North Korean state media said Kim and Shoigu during a meeting Wednesday reached a consensus on unspecified
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