North Korea shows off its most advanced missiles, including the powerful Hwasong-8 hypersonic projectile

Television North Korea has shown images of its most advanced missiles taken at a weapons exhibition held in Pyongyang on Monday, in which the leader Kim Jong-un defended his country’s right to self-defense.

The images showed unpublished angles of the call Hwasong-16, the largest intercontinental missile in the North Korean arsenal, or its new hypersonic missile first tested just a few weeks ago.

The Hwasong-16, First shown in a parade in October 2020, it was displayed on its huge 11-axis mobile erecting platform (TEL) and, in fact, some images shown on monitors in the exhibition would point to it being actually called Hwasong-17 ( the missile has not been officially named by propaganda until now).

The images broadcast by the state network KCTV also showed from different angles the Hwasong-8, new hypersonic missile of which until now only one photograph had been shown.

In addition to other last generation projectiles (Hwasong-15, KN-23, KN-24 or KN-25) a missile of the Pukguksong family was also shown (which work with solid fuel, which makes them much easier to deploy and shoot) that until now had not been seen and whose name is unknown.

The exhibition was attended by his sister Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo-jong, members of the politburo presidium such as Jo Jong-won or Choe Ryong-hae, and key figures from the North Korean arms program such as Jang Chang-ha or Kim Jong- sik.

They all witnessed an air show and combat display by North Korean troops before entering the main compound.

The footage shows the soldiers exhibiting their skills to throw knives or break bricks and apparent tiles with fists, kicks or the head, with taekwondo movements, as well as shirtless officers who endure stone blocks and other materials being split on their bellies. with a hammer while their backs rest on spiked plates or broken glass.

In addition to acrobatic movements in the air or fighting scenes, North Korean troops show muscle and exhibit endurance and training by bending iron bars in pairs by using the omotracheal triangle of the neck or allowing them to break tile blocks by hammering their bare hands and arms.

Kim Jong-un then delivered a speech in which he defended his country’s right to develop weapons to defend itself against “hostile forces” and in which he assured that Washington still maintains its policy towards Pyongyang.

The US has offered North Korea in recent months to meet without preconditions to try to reactivate the denuclearization dialogue, stalled since 2019, but the regime has so far rejected the US invitation.