SpaceWar.com reports: ‘North Korea has unveiled a new warship it claims is a destroyer armed with the ‘most powerful weapons’, at a launch ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un, state media said Saturday.

The announcement comes about a month after Kim oversaw the test of new suicide and reconnaissance drones featuring AI technology, adding to concerns over North Korea’s deepening military cooperation with Moscow.

The warship, named ‘Choe Hyon’ after a deceased North Korean anti-Japanese fighter, is a 5,000-ton destroyer-class vessel that took more than a year to build, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Given its size, experts believe the ship can carry both ship-to-surface and ship-to-air missiles, with specialist outlet NK News reporting it is ‘likely to be equipped with short-range tactical nuclear missiles’.

The North Korean navy can now serve as a ‘core service for national defence and a component of nuclear war deterrent’, Kim said, according to KCNA, adding that the ship will ‘enter into operation early next year’.

He also accused Washington of ‘conducting aggressive exercises that simulate nuclear strikes against’ the North through its joint-military operations with the South…”