Nuclear weapons of North Korea

North Korea has assembled an estimated 60 warheads and holds enough fissile material for at least 90 in total, produced at Yongbyon and at two further enrichment sites: Kangson, revealed in September 2024, and Kusong, which South Korea's unification minister named in parliament in April 2026 — a single-official disclosure not independently confirmed. It withdrew from the NPT in 2003 — the only state ever to do so — and has conducted six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, the last a claimed thermonuclear device. Its 2023 constitutional amendment enshrines the nuclear arsenal as permanent, and official doctrine allows first use.

Delivery development has been rapid: the liquid-fueled Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 and the solid-fueled Hwasong-18 and Hwasong-19, which first flew on 31 October 2024, give intercontinental reach on paper, though a proven reentry capability remains debated. The larger Hwasong-20, whose motor was ground-tested on 8 September 2025, was paraded on 10 October 2025 but has not been flight-tested, so its claimed multiple-warhead capability is unverified. Shorter-range systems — KN-23-class missiles, the Hwasan-31 tactical warhead, cruise missiles — point to battlefield use.

The sea leg is taking shape. The Hero Kim Kun Ok submarine was launched at Sinpo in September 2023, and on 25 December 2025 Kim Jong Un presented the finished hull of an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine, though analysts put missile trials years away. Two Choe Hyon-class destroyers were launched between April and June 2025 and fired what KCNA calls strategic cruise missiles on 28–29 April 2025 and again in March 2026; the nuclear role Pyongyang claims for them is unconfirmed. Missile testing continued through 2026 with ten ballistic missiles on 14 March, the Hwasongpho-11 Ka on 8 April and a system described as hypersonic on 22 September.

Pyongyang rejects denuclearization talks. At the Ninth Party Congress of 19–25 February 2026, Kim pledged to increase the number of nuclear weapons and expand nuclear operational means, called the country's nuclear status "irreversible and permanent" and listed underwater-launched ICBMs among the five-year goals. The mutual-defense treaty signed with Russia in 2024 raised technology-transfer concerns in both directions, and Russia's foreign minister said in July 2025 that Moscow "respects" North Korea's nuclear status. Estimates of its arsenal carry wider uncertainty than for any other nuclear-armed state.

Washington's own public figures move and are never sourced: Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on 19 August 2026 that Kim Jong Un "has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons", four months after putting the count at 45, without saying what either number rested on or whether it meant assembled warheads, deployed weapons or fissile material held. Both sit below Seoul's working range — the South Korean defense minister told lawmakers in August 2026 that the government generally uses 80 to 120 — and well below the 127 to 150 a Korea Institute for Defense Analyses researcher derived from estimated plutonium and enriched-uranium output. That spread, from 45 to 150, is the honest measure of the uncertainty. The 60 used here follows the Federation of American Scientists, and the remark itself came days after Trump ordered joint exercises with South Korea scaled back, alongside his statement that he expects to meet Kim later in the year.