For the first time in seven months, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a rare large-scale military parade, showing off powerful weapons systems and vowing to speed up the development of his nuclear arsenal while also delivering a chilling warning about its potential use.
The event, which was held late Monday and involved scores of goose-stepping troops and a display of the country’s biggest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) — the massive Hwasong-17 — came amid the global focus on Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which has largely overshadowed North Korea's recent weapons advances.
Kim, likely well aware of this fact, used a speech at the event to sound a more ominous note about his nuclear weapons — one that may have been influenced by the war in Ukraine and the lurking threat of Moscow using its smaller-yield, battlefield nuclear weapons.
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