In 15 years, North Korea will have a nuclear potential twice that of Britain 0 11

According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, North Korea possesses 150 nuclear warheads and may increase this number to over 400 by 2040. In comparison, the United Kingdom has about 225 nuclear warheads, of which approximately 160 are ready for deployment.

The leader of North Korea believes that Pyongyang must "make enemies understand that they will inevitably pay for encroaching on its strategic sovereignty and security," and that they will face relentless retaliatory strikes if they attempt to use military options.

"We will continuously and multifacetedly strengthen the Navy and its strategic composition, accelerate the construction of various surface and underwater vessels, increase their scale, and continuously combine them with various offensive weapon systems," Kim Jong Un assured.

Judging by the photos published by the KCNA, the hull of the first North Korean submarine is fully formed, which apparently means the complete and finished installation of a nuclear power plant in the hull. The submarine has ballistic missile launchers placed in a long massive enclosure of the conning tower (resembling an early Soviet unrealized project of a nuclear ballistic submarine 639). The number of missile silos and specific types of missiles are still unknown. Six torpedo tubes are located in the bow - it is unclear whether they are of 533 mm caliber or larger.

Regarding the missiles, it is worth noting that on the non-nuclear missile submarine "Hero Kim Gun Ok" (hull number "841"), launched on September 6, 2023, at the North Korean shipbuilding facility in Pundae (Sinpo), a missile compartment with ten missile silos of two different types is installed - four larger ones (presumably for ballistic missiles of the "Pukguksong" type) and six smaller ones (possibly for lighter ballistic missiles of a new type).

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un first announced the construction of a nuclear submarine in North Korea during a speech on January 5, 2021, at the VIII Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea. In March 2025, footage was released showing Kim Jong Un visiting the shipyard where the submarine is being built, and the images showed fragments of the submarine's hull.

The "San-O" type submarines are already known - a series of small diesel-electric submarines of North Korea. Due to high secrecy, a significant portion of the available information about this type is based on intelligence data and assumptions. The construction of "San-O" type submarines began in 1995, and as of 2021, 40 submarines of this type are in service. The North Korean Navy actively uses them for reconnaissance operations in South Korean territorial waters. On September 18, 1996, one submarine of this type ran aground off the coast of the Republic of Korea and was captured by South Korean forces.