North Korea has revealed the first high-quality photos of a new warship currently under construction, indicating that it will likely be the navy’s largest and feature a missile launcher system.

Korean Central Television (KCTV) aired four photos on Sunday of leader Kim Jong Un inspecting the warship on at least two occasions in 2024, according to NK Pro analysis, part of its coverage of an end-of-year plenum.

The ship is “likely a destroyer and the largest warship ever constructed in the DPRK,” according to Joseph Dempsey, Research Associate for Defence and Military Analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

“Weapons-wise, the large aperture immediately forward of the bridge would imply [plans to install a] possible vertical launching system (VLS)” for firing missiles from the ship. He added that it’s still too early to make solid predictions about its overall classification and capabilities.

NK Pro analysis suggests the photos were taken at the Nampho Dockyard on the west coast, and that state media previously published a cropped photo showing Kim inspecting the ship in September. 

Dempsey agreed that the new warship is likely under construction at the Nampho Dockyard. Writing for IISS in October, he provided details about a structure at the dockyard built to hide construction on a large new warship.

He said “the design appears to have an approximately 15 meter (50 feet) beam,” which is one-third wider than the unofficially dubbed Amnok- and Tuman-class corvettes. North Korea has unveiled two of each of those roughly 77-meter (252-foot) corvettes in the last couple years, one of each on the west and east coasts.

These “were North Korea’s largest warships constructed since the Najin-class frigates in the 1970s,” he said, but the new warship at Nampho could be much bigger at “more than 100 meters (328 feet) long” and have “a displacement classification of some kind of principal surface combatant.”

Pyongyang has claimed that at least the Amnok-class can launch nuclear-armed cruise missiles, expanding basing modes for nuclear weapons and increasing chances of a successful strike.

The DPRK also warned last year that it plans to deter U.S. reconnaissance flights off the coast by “constantly deploying a ship loaded with new-type anti-aircraft missiles.”

Experts have cautioned, however, that the North has a long way to go if it wants to challenge U.S. and South Korean naval forces.

Photos of the bow of the large new ship first appeared in the background of KCTV coverage of a major weapons expo in the capital last month, NK Pro previously found. The photos were low-resolution but appeared to show Kim Jong Un wearing a white shirt in some and a dark jacket in others.

He also appeared wearing a white shirt in one of the four photos released Sunday and then a patched leather jacket in the other three.

He wore a white shirt in the Sept. 8 KCNA photo, which only provided a glimpse of the hull, and the accompanying report didn’t disclose the location. But the rail-based cradle stands supporting the ship’s hull as well as the blue and yellow staircases seen in the background match the new photos.

Three of the photos shown by state TV on Sunday were likely taken in or after October since that is when he started wearing the patched jacket during public activities.

NK Pro previously determined that the managers in the Sept. 8 photo, despite being blurred out, resembled men who were not blurred in coverage of Kim’s public visit to the Nampho Dockyard in February this year.

Dempsey said he is confident the new warship is under construction at Nampho given matching features of the new structure built there this year and the structure seen in Sunday’s KCTV photos, such as side wall window patterns and covering made of netting.

Planet Labs high-resolution satellite imagery shows the structure was built following Kim’s public visit in February and that proper roofing was installed to replace the netting in October.

Imagery also shows another construction hall was renovated from after his visit until July, followed soon after by efforts to build and remodel other buildings and reclaim land to slightly expand the complex grounds.

State media quoted Kim as saying during both the February and September inspections that strengthening naval forces is “the most important issue in reliably defending the maritime sovereignty of the country and stepping up the war preparations at present.”

He called for “​​pushing ahead with the planned building of ships and unconditionally completing them within the period of the Five-Year Plan.”

This suggests that North Korea seeks to complete construction on the new presumed destroyer by Jan. 2026 for the Ninth Party Congress, despite only starting work around the middle of 2024.

The February report showed Kim inspecting other ships under construction at the Nampho Dockyard, including several smaller ASW (anti-submarine warfare) or missile boats and a Nalchi-class VSV (Very Slender Vessel).

Meanwhile, Kim said in September that a large naval base project on the east coast will resume for “large surface warships and submarines,” which North Korea is “soon to possess” but which “can not be anchored by the existing facilities for mooring warships.”

He also called for producing more large ship engines at the Pukjung Machine Complex on the northwest coast last year, while inspecting a gas turbine possibly scavenged from a Russian ship.

Given North Korea’s efforts to undertake separate construction of the Amnok- and Tuman-class corvettes on each coast, it’s possible that an east coast factory could begin work on a new destroyer as well.

Edited by Bryan Betts