Thousands of North Korean soldiers have started large-scale training for a military parade likely to take place in the coming weeks or months, according to NK Pro analysis of recent satellite imagery.

A military parade would mark the country’s fifth in under three years and comes as leader Kim Jong Un has ramped up long-range and tactical nuclear missile development in the last year. 

Planet Labs imagery shows that the training began in the first week of December at the Mirim military parade training grounds in southeast Pyongyang and has continued through Wednesday.

It has already featured full-scale marching practices involving what appeared to be over 11,000 soldiers filling the military compound’s replica Kim Il Sung Square with at least 39 block formations. The formations typically contain 288 soldiers each during actual parades. 

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A temporary camp for soldiers or administrative personnel appeared between Dec. 2 and 5 in the courtyard of an unfinished hotel under construction on site, indicating the start of preparations.

Rows of possible vehicles used to transport soldiers between the practice site and the parade grounds in central Pyongyang then appeared on Dec. 6 in an open grass lot adjacent to the marching grounds, another requisite action prior to past military parades.

Soldiers appeared marching in block formations throughout the compound — likely practicing their synchronized goose stepping — in available Planet Labs imagery taken on the mornings of Dec. 9, 11, and 13, before appearing to fill the replica square on Dec. 14.

A separate secure heavy weapons vehicle garage and driving practice compound within the training complex — built in 2020 — has yet to appear active. This may point to another paramilitary or smaller-scale parade similar to one held in Sep. 2021, since the vehicle area was not active in the run-up to that event. 

On the other hand, the area did not appear highly active in the lead up to the Jan. 2021 parade either, which did feature large missile launchers. Additionally, the vehicle compound may still become active in the future, as it only started to appear busy five to seven weeks before the Oct. 2020 and April 2022 parades.

WHEN WILL IT BE?

The date of the apparent upcoming parade is unknown and North Korean state media has yet to announce any details. 

One possible date for the parade in the coming months is Feb. 8, the 75th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army (KPA). 

North Korea last held a parade on this date in 2018 to mark the 70th anniversary of the KPA. Pyongyang is known to hold major celebrations for both this holiday and a similar holiday on April 25 marking the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA), holding a parade for that anniversary earlier this year. 

With leader Kim Jong Un boosting his own personality cult in the last year while promoting his 10-year-mark as North Korean dictator, it is also possible that the parade could be held on Jan. 8 to mark his own birthday. 

State media has yet to establish an official birth year for Kim Jong Un, but clues point to it being 1982, suggesting it would have made more sense to hold a large-scale celebratory event on his 40th instead of his upcoming 41st birthday. 

His father and grandfather did not hold military parades to mark their own birthdays while they were still alive, but did oversee other forms of large-scale birthday celebrations for themselves such as mass games events and student rallies.

The DPRK military could also theoretically hold a parade as early as this month given the truncated parade preparations of just two to three weeks for the Jan. and Sept. 2021 parades. 

However, there are no good candidate anniversaries this month. On Dec. 24, North Korea will celebrate the 105th birthday of Kim Jong Suk, the wife of founding leader Kim Il Sung, but North Korea has never held a parade to mark this holiday. A parade is also unlikely this Saturday when the country marks 11 years since the death of Kim Jong Il, a typically somber occasion. 

It is also possible that the DPRK military is conducting regular military parade training and does not intend to hold an actual parade soon. However, satellite imagery has only revealed one instance of large-scale training without a parade in the last six years; that was likely ahead of a canceled parade as it came in Jan. 2020, just before the country entered lockdown over COVID-19. 

Meanwhile, evidence of large-scale civilian parade practice has yet to appear in satellite imagery of open public spaces in Pyongyang. These have typically featured tens of thousands of civilians holding colored pom-poms in Kim Il Sung Square in the weeks before a parade to practice forming slogans and symbols.

Edited by Arius Derr