North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, has toured a museum featuring public display of a long-range nuclear-capable missile able to strike the mainland U.S., according to images published by state media on Tuesday.
Kim cut the ceremonial tape and the soundtrack of the national anthem blared to officially open the Defence Revolution Museum on Sunday, the state-run KCNA news agency reported. Kim's wife and daughter are captured in the images, walking past the towering weapons.
Photographs published by the outlet also appear to showcase the Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which Pyongyang's state-controlled media previously described as the secretive nation's "strongest nuclear strategic weapon system."
President Donald Trump said on Monday he could meet with Kim during a planned trip to China for an Asia-Pacific economic summit next month—despite North Korea's refusal to engage with the U.S., its most senior officials shrugging off persistent overtures from Trump.
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Experts say the Hwasong-20 is a road-mobile, long-range ballistic missile which could feature multiple independent-targetable warheads, meaning several targets could be hit at once if the missile is fired.
The Hwasong-20 is thought to be very inaccurate, but powerful enough to painfully hit major U.S. cities and American military bases, said William Alberque, a former head of NATO's nuclear non-proliferation center currently with the Pacific Forum nonprofit.
North Korea offered the first glimpse of the Hwasong-20 during a sprawling military parade through the country's capital in October 2025, but a lot of the information about the weapon still isn't known.
Information placed in front of the launcher for the Hwasong-20 looks to show a design for multiple warheads and a map of countries as far away from North Korea as the Middle East and South America, Shin Jong-woo, the secretary-general of the Seoul-based Korea Defense and Security Forum think tank, told Reuters.
"It gave the impression of propaganda aimed at gaining a strategic advantage ahead of a potential North Korea-U.S. summit," Shin said.
North Korea's first ICBM test in mid-2017 was quickly followed up by a trial of another ICBM design just four months later, although there are questions about how effective and accurate North Korea's weapons are, including its nuclear arsenal. ICBMs travel upward of 5,500 kilometers (about 3,400 miles).
"North Korea’s nuclear forces are increasingly capable of targeting the U.S. Homeland, and its missile forces can strike South Korea and Japan with nuclear or conventional warheads," a top U.S. defense official told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April this year.
The Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-18 ICBMs are already operational, analysts say, with more designs under development.
United Nations sanctions have largely failed to halt Pyongyang's nuclear testing and cut off its ballistic missile programs, while international observers and U.S. government officials say North Korea has benefited from Russian help, particularly since the two countries inked a defense pact in mid-2024.
Separately, North Korea test-fired an upgraded tactical ballistic missile on Monday, state media reported.
South Korean officials had said on Monday Seoul had detected several ballistic missiles being launched from Pyongyang toward the East Sea.
One type of missile flew more than 900 kilometers (nearly 560 miles), although it's not clear whether this was a short-range missile or an intermediate-range weapon that didn't travel its maximum distance, a South Korean military spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday.
U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials spoke on Tuesday and "called on North Korea to cease such provocation," the government in Tokyo said.
This comes little over a week after North Korea said it had tested an intermediate-range strategic missile able to travel more than 1,000 kilometers. Pyongyang has overseen nearly a dozen missile tests so far this year.
An Attack on the US?
The U.S. has for years said its missile defenses would be able to intercept an ICBM attack from North Korea.
The U.S. currently has 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) deployed around the country, most of which sit in silos in Alaska. Four are housed at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in southern California.
The U.S. plans to add new missiles, dubbed the Next Generation Interceptors, to the GBIs in the next few years. Anything the GBIs don't knock out would likely fall to the U.S. Navy's Aegis system, analysts say.
Yet as it stands, the U.S. does not have a joined-up system for intercepting large-scale ICBM strikes launched from Russia or China, with their far bigger stockpiles.
The planned Golden Dome, announced by Trump last year and currently being sketched out by defense officials, will better protect the U.S. from advanced threats like fast-traveling missiles, government officials say. However, non-partisan estimates say the system is likely to be hugely expensive.