North Korea is expanding a naval port on the east coast where leader Kim Jong Un inspected one of the country’s newest strategic warships last year, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery, though questions remain over the deployment status of the new class of ships.

The expansion is likely to improve the navy’s ability to train sailors and support the deployment of the new warships and other vessels under development, but it is not as large as some other bases on the east coast.

Planet Labs satellite imagery shows large parts of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) Navy Unit 155 base in Munchon were demolished in April to make way for a new complex. Construction on a new ship quay also started in late May.

State media revealed the construction plans in a report on a visit by Kim to the base last August, saying he learned about “the plan for updating the naval port.”

It said the Guards 2nd Surface Ship Flotilla of the KPA Navy East Sea Fleet occupies the base, and that it has been awarded the prestigious “O Jung Hup-led 7th Regiment” title as a unit “associated with the great feats of our Party in leading the army.”

Kim inspected the navy’s “Patrol Ship no. 661” there — what analysts have called an Amnok-class corvette — and showed it off in detail publicly for the first time. 

It’s one of four 250-foot (77-meter) corvettes that have undergone lengthy construction since 2011, with one Amnok-class and one Tuman-class vessel on each coast. Pyongyang is now presenting them as the most advanced ships in the aging navy’s fleet.

North Korea claimed last year that the ships can carry and launch nuclear-capable long-range cruise missiles. This could help increase the survivability of the country’s nuclear forces in a war, though experts have said the U.S. and South Korea can easily track the ships. 

Pyongyang has also announced plans to deter U.S. reconnaissance flights off the east coast by “constantly deploying a ship loaded with new-type anti-aircraft missiles.”

All four corvettes have left the shipyards where they were built, but the Tuman-class vessel on the east coast remained at the October 3 Factory in Munchon this week, a possible sign of ongoing structural or installation work and not active deployment, after deploying for a short stint at the Unit 155 base in March. The Amnok-class ship on the west coast also remained this week at the Nampho Dockyard, where it was built.

The Amnok-class corvette on the east coast (patrol ship 661) has been deployed to different parts of Kumgang near the South Korean border since March this year, sometimes appearing out at sea for days at a time as part of apparent training or operations, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery. The Tuman-class ship on the west coast remained deployed at Pipha naval base as of Aug. 19.

Meanwhile, the new Munchon naval base construction once again highlights a now-abandoned project to build a much larger naval base nearby for Navy Unit 291.

Large-scale construction took place from 2014 to around 2018 and involved building over a dozen piers and a one-kilometer-long rail bridge across a bay that ends at the base, likely at great expense. The site has exhibited virtually no change since 2021. 

Edited by Alannah Hill