Propagandists of the North Korean Juche regime have released footage of the construction of a new military ship, which was visited by Kim Jong Un along with his entourage.
From these clips, it appears that North Korea is building a missile frigate with a displacement of 3000 tons, whose design bears some resemblance to the unrealized Russian project of the "stealth" corvette 20386 "Daring," as reported by the portal Naval News.
The authors of this publication emphasize that, in this case, North Korea is constructing a ship that is fundamentally new for them in several aspects. Notably, this ship will be the largest for the DPRK: the most modern North Korean combat vessels, the Amnok-class frigates, have a displacement of only 1500 tons.
Furthermore, this missile frigate may become the first North Korean ship equipped with vertical launch systems for surface-to-air missiles and/or cruise missiles as well. Previously, the most advanced air defense systems on DPRK naval vessels were simply launchers for the MANPADS "Igla."
The presence of certain features from the design of the unrealized Russian corvette 20386 "Daring" in this DPRK frigate, according to the publication's authors, may be indicated by the visual similarity of the superstructure elements.
From Defense Express, we would like to highlight the following points in this story. In this case, the assumption regarding the presence of traits from the Russian project "Daring" in the design of the frigate currently being built by the DPRK may be somewhat exaggerated. Moreover, this concerns ships of different classes and sizes; we discussed the history of the 20386 "Daring" project in a separate publication.
On the other hand, one should not rule out the possibility that Russia may have provided North Korea with the necessary technologies for constructing a frigate with vertical launch systems, and that North Korean engineers simply "creatively reinterpreted" the received material.
It is also worth recalling that in October 2024, it became known that DPRK is building a mysterious ship in a new dock measuring 170 meters, and Russia was once again involved. Judging by everything, this case was indeed about the 3000-ton missile frigate that North Korean propagandists have currently "revealed."
