North Korea Showcases Advanced Hwasong-20 ICBM at Military Parade with Russian and Chinese Officials Present

Throngs of citizens dressed in vibrant traditional attire gathered in the streets of North Korea's capital city.

North Korea showcased its "most powerful" intercontinental ballistic missile during a military parade that was attended by senior officials from Russia and China, according to state media reports released Saturday.

The celebration marking 80 years under Workers' Party rule occurred as Kim Jong Un has gained confidence from the Ukrainian conflict, receiving crucial backing from Russia after deploying thousands of North Korean soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and close Putin ally, was present at Friday's parade together with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Vietnamese leader To Lam - all positioned near Kim Jong Un, as shown in images distributed by the Korean Central News Agency.

The display featured some of the nation's most sophisticated weaponry, including the new Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which KCNA described as the country's "most powerful nuclear strategic weapon system."

Thousands of North Korean citizens wearing colorful traditional clothing filled Pyongyang's streets for the nighttime event, waving national flags and applauding as military hardware rolled down the main thoroughfares.

Among the weaponry on display were long-range strategic cruise missiles, drone launching vehicles, and various ground-to-air and ground-to-ground missiles that paraded in sequence, KCNA reported.

The country's "invincible" military "has always added doubled strength to our Party's efforts to overcome difficulties and bring earlier a bright future," Kim stated during his address.

He made an apparent reference to North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

"The heroic fighting spirit displayed, and the victory achieved, by our revolutionary armed forces on the foreign battlefields for international justice... demonstrated the ideological and spiritual perfection," Kim declared, according to KCNA.

Approximately 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded while fighting for Russia, according to South Korean authorities.

The parade exhibited the isolated, nuclear-armed nation's "inexhaustible defense technology potential and its astonishing pace of development that the world can no longer ignore," KCNA stated.

The celebrations in Pyongyang come after Seoul indicated that a meeting between North Korea and the United States "cannot be ruled out" on the sidelines of this year's APEC summit in South Korea.

US President Donald Trump met with Kim three times during his initial term and once remarked that they had fallen "in love," but ultimately failed to secure a lasting agreement regarding North Korea's nuclear program.

Since then, Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear state.

Last month, Kim appeared alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin at an elaborate military parade in Beijing.

In a joint statement from Moscow and Pyongyang released by KCNA earlier this week, Russia's ruling party "expressed firm support for the measures taken" by North Korea "to bolster up the country's defence capabilities."

Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at the Harvard University Asia Center, told AFP: "It is crucial to see this parade not as an isolated event, but as the culmination of a deliberate, structural shift in regional geopolitics."

"It serves as a stark warning that Seoul's strengthened alliance with Washington will be met with a consolidated and powerful trilateral bloc on its doorstep."