According to the report of the Korean Central News Agency quoted by China News Network on the 19th, Kim Jong-un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the State Council, guided the performance test of unmanned weapons and equipment developed and produced by research institutes and enterprises affiliated to the Unmanned Aviation Technology Consortium on September 18th.

North Korea's unmanned weapons and equipment performance test

Kim Jong-un said he knew specifically. Strategic and tactical unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, multipurpose unmanned aircraftThe performance and combat suitability of various unmanned weapons.

The report also noted that ¡°the trials carried out on the same day clearly proved the military strategic value of the unmanned strategic reconnaissance aircraft and its innovative performance, and the excellent combat effectiveness of the Venus series of tactical unmanned attack aircraft.¡±

This is the first time that the North Korean media has mentioned the name of the "Venus" series of tactical unmanned attack aircraft.

North Korea has shown several drones.

No mosaic this time

Three drones appeared in the news photos of the DPRK, one of which has also appeared in previous news, because the shape is similar to the U.S. RQ-4 "Global Eagle" drone, the outside world generally called it the Korean version "Global Eagle", the outside world believes that this is the "New Star-4" drone.

News Photo of September 19, 2025

U.S. Global Eagle drone photo

The other two suicide drones may include the "Venus" series. One of the cross-shaped drones also appeared in the report of the Korean Central News Agency on March 27th this year. From the picture, this drone had not been painted at that time. The report said that "the unmanned strategic reconnaissance aircraft has the detection ability to track and monitor different strategic objects and enemy ground and sea activities. The test also fully demonstrated the strike capability of self-exploding drones that can be used in various tactical attack missions."

News Photo of 27 March 2025

News Photo of September 19, 2025

AI+ drone, Kim Jong-un attaches great importance

It is worth noting that Kim Jong-un mentioned AI again when guiding the work of the Unmanned Aviation Technology Consortium.He said, "Reality requires us to regard the high-tech core technology in this field and the artificial intelligence and combat capability of unmanned weapons and equipment systems as the biggest task of the modernization of China's armed forces." Kim Jong-un also put forward countermeasures to rapidly develop newly adopted artificial intelligence technology and expand and strengthen the mass production capacity of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Earlier, Kim Jong-un inspected the missile production of military enterprises.

According to the DPRK news agency on September 1, General Secretary of the DPRK Labour Party and State Chairman Kim Jong-un on August 31 also inspected the comprehensive production process of important military-industrial missiles, specifically to understand the newly designed flow-water-line missile automation production process.

Kim Jong-un assessed the implementation of the missile production capacity expansion plan and entered various missile batch production, pointing out that this achievement may be the most important core achievement and strategic achievement achieved by the Korean military industry department in the implementation of the defense forces development plan since the 8th National Congress of the Labour Party, and stressed that the missile production department must be prepared to accept and implement the new production goals put forward by the Labour Party at the 9th National Congress.

Kim Jong-un inspects important military-industrial missile production processes

Further reading:

Media: Kim Jong-un is getting more and more important Korean officials arrested because of the naval accident

More and more North Korean cadres have been publicly announced to be detained after Kim Jong Un, the top leader of North Korea, was furious over a serious accident when the new destroyer was launched at Chongjin Shipyard.

According to the news of the Korean Central News Agency on May 26th, on the 25th, according to the information verified by the accident investigation team, the judicial organs of the DPRK summoned and detained Li Hengxian, deputy minister of the Central Military Industry Department of the Workers' Party, who "bears great responsibility for the occurrence of major accidents".

Prior to this, on the 22nd, Hongji Huang, the head of the Qingdao shipyard, who had "evident responsibility for the accident", was summoned to the judicial authorities; on the 24th, Qingdao shipyard's general engineer Jiang Xing, who was "responsible for the accident", and the director of the shipyard assembly workshop, Huang Yingjiang School and executive deputy manufacturer, Kim Yong He, were detained.

North Korea's military-industrial system cadres are rarely seen in public reports, and the personal history of the above cadres is not yet known to the outside world.

In North Korea, the head of large military enterprises, heavy manufacturing enterprises and general engineers, enjoy a high political status, are often reused and promoted. The current Labour Party Central Secretary and Minister of Military Industry Zhao Chunlong, for a long time in the military industry enterprises as a workshop manager, plant manager. The first deputy minister of the military industry department, responsible for nuclear weapons research and development, Hong Yuan, in the early years as the general engineer of the Ningbo nuclear facilities reactor. Another deputy minister, Hong Ying, is also the workshop manager and factory party committee secretary.

From April 28 to 29, the multi-purpose destroyer of the "Trai Zhi" launched a test of combat suitability of the weapons system.

Department of Military?

On the day of the May 21 accident, Kim Jong-un's initial instruction was to review the case for this "serious mistake" at the Labour Party Central Plenary Session held in late June, but after the 21st, North Korea daily updated the progress of the investigation, detaining key cadres on a daily basis, not only through the DPRK-Chinese news agency, but also through the DPRK Central TV and Labor News, synchronously informing domestically.

This is in line with Kim Jong-un's "hard accusations" after the prosecution procedure.Kim Jong-un's last "hard accusations" on the scene was in July 2024, when he inspected the template of the Three Pyeongchang City construction work, discovered a serious building quality problem, and after the "hard accusations" gave instructions on the spot: the state construction supervision and deputy prime minister immediately suspended, transferred to the judicial authorities to pursue responsibilities; the Deputy Minister of Labour Party Central Organization guidance department of the department for construction department dismissed; and the cabinet deputy prime minister for "guiding the entire construction" was "re-examined".

Different from the construction issue of the Three-Pain Abbey, this destroyer underwater accident requires professional investigation to clarify responsibility.Therefore, in the three reports of the DPRK on the detention of senior cadres, the investigation team first to the Central Military Committee of the Labour Party, and then handed over the latest "catching" progress of the judicial organs.

As of May 26, the important cadres detained due to the destroyer's underwater accident, whether Li Hongzhi, or Hongzhi Huang and his subordinates, were cadres of the system of the Ministry of Military Industry. Labor Party Central Ministry of Military Industry (referred to as "Military Industry Ministry") is the highest responsible department of the Korean Military and Industrial Front, the current "hand" is Labor Party Central Secretary and Military Industry Minister Zhao Chunlong, who has led the Korean Military and Industrial Front for more than a decade.

Many reports indicate that the Ministry of Military Industry is the leader of the shipbuilding work. On April 25, this year, Minister Zhao Chunlong spoke at the waterfall ceremony of the "Chu Qian" level headquarters, saying that the shipbuilding plant in Nanjing "in only more than 400 days" completed the unprecedented shipbuilding. On May 21, Kim Jong-un was in "strict accusations" and named "strict accountability" among the institutions, the Ministry of Military Industry was primarily concerned, and the remainder of the designated units were mostly its subsidiary institutions or cooperation departments.

The Qingdao Shipyard has also long been under the leadership of the Ministry of Military Industry and its predecessor, the ¡°Second Economic Commission¡±. Since the 1950s, the Qingdao Shipyard was initially managed by the Ministry of Aquaculture, and in the 1980s it was renamed as the Saarabe Shipyard Joint Undertaking, which belonged to the Ministry of Shipyard Industry.

However, according to the information disclosed in the Korean Ocean and Fisheries Review published by the South Korean Ocean Research Institute in 2021, the economic crisis of the 1990s caused large industrial enterprises in the Qingdao Industrial Area to stop work. Following the international environment, North Korea expanded ship imports. Statistics show that in 2010, North Korea imported 142 fishing vessels, peaked. Between 2005 and 2017, North Korea imported 87 tankers and cargo vessels.

It was during this period that North Korea adjusted a portion of its shipbuilding capacity to the military-industrial front. According to South Korea¡¯s unified information, in 1998, the North Korean shipbuilding industry province, the large shipyards gradually spread to the ¡°second economic committee¡± responsible for the military industry, where the Qingdao shipbuilding plant was assigned to the second economic committee approximately after 2013. This was after Kim Jong-un became the highest leader of North Korea.

¡°Important shipyard¡±

After becoming a military factory, Qingjin Shipyard rarely appeared in public reports. Except for some small ships, the factory has a large slipway of more than 200 meters and an annual output of 30,000 tons, and no large ships have been built for the North Korean Navy. However, the Ministry of Military Industry has never let Qingjin Shipyard "convert military to civilian" again.

In this regard, South Korean media have analyzed that Qingjin Shipyard is connected with Luojin Shipyard, the most important military shipyard on the east coast, through Pingluo Railway, and at the same time close to Russia. Therefore, the factory has innate advantages in integrating resources, and it is the shipyard with the best infrastructure and the largest scale on the east coast of North Korea, which can make great contributions to the shipbuilding of the North Korean navy in the future.

In 2018, Kim Jong-un put forward a number of civil shipbuilding requirements when inspecting the Qingdao shipyard, but since then, the shipyard really responsible for the development of the new type of fishing vessel, which was the main manufacturer of military goods in the past, was the new Pudong shipyard in Salzburg.

In March 2025, North Korean media that Kim Jong-un inspected the development of the new destroyer of the "important shipyard", and the outside world identified the Qingdao shipyard from the image, and found that the factory was building a new destroyer, which was later named Qingdao class, together with the South Korean shipyard. The ship's discharge was more than 5,000 tons, and the largest military ship previously independently developed by North Korea was only 1500 tons. However, it was hard to imagine that the Qingdao shipyard-responsible "Qingdao" class 2 ship would occur when such a number of senior cadres were involved.

On May 22, the Central Military Committee of the Labour Party pointed out to the accident investigation group that even if the ship is in a good condition, the fact that the accident is an intolerable crime will not change, and the responsible person must not escape their crimes.