North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects military factories, as he urges ramp-up in shell production to meet modern warfare demands, at an unknown location in North Korea, Friday 13 June 2025;
Credit: Reuters, KCNA
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected military industrial factories, calling them to expand production of shells that meet modern warfare needs, state media KCNA said on Saturday 14 June 2025.
Kim visited lines for pressing metals and assembly on Friday 13 June 2025, checked the progress of shell production in the first half of 2025 and suggested new tasks for improvement, KCNA said.
"If we are to increase the production of new, powerful shells of that meet the needs of... modern warfare, we need to expand and reinforce our production capacity, arrange the production process more rationally and constantly increase the level of unmanned production," Kim said, according to KCNA.
In recent months, Kim's publicised moves have focused on strengthening the military and improving ties with Russia, while North Korean state media has mostly stayed quiet on criticisms against South Korea as the latter picked a new liberal president this month.
North Korea has supplied Russia with more than 20,000 containers of munitions, according to a report by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, a group comprising eleven UN members, in May 2025.
