North Korea’s Kim calls on military to bolster frontline defences against ‘arch enemy’

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North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un called on top military officials to bolster frontline units and turn the border with the South into an “impregnable fortress,” state media reported on Monday.

Kim gave the instruction at a meeting on Sunday where a photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) showed him presiding over commanding military officers wearing full dress uniform.

The North Korea leader told the military officials that a “great change” would be made in an effort to deter war and that the commanding officers should raise their “outlook on the arch enemy,” an apparent reference to South Korea.

Kim “set forth plans for…strengthening the first-line units and other major units in military and technical aspects as an important decision to more thoroughly deter war,” the KCNA report said.

The plans come at a low point in relations with South Korea and Pyongyang unresponsive to Seoul’s repeated offers for dialogue.

Members of North Korea’s football club Naegohyang Women’s FC team arrives at Incheon International Airport in Seoul, 17 May, 2026

The meeting took place the same day the North Korean women’s football team landed in South Korea, the first such visit in eight years, which raised hopes of a slight thaw in frosty ties.

Projects to modernise the military “should be stepped up to newly define the concept of operations in all spheres,” he was also quoted as saying.

Hong Min, a senior analyst at Korea Institute for National Unification, said the instructions apparently reflected lessons learnt from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in which Pyongyang has supported Moscow by providing troops.

“This phrase reflects awareness of drone warfare, precision strikes, electronic warfare and multi-domain battlefields observed in the Ukraine war and Middle East conflicts,” he told the AFP news agency.

Kim’s plans also “suggests a multi-domain operational concept extending beyond land, sea and air to include underwater, space, electronic and cyber domains.”

Earlier this month, North Korea removed all references to reunification with the South from its constitution, underscoring Pyongyang’s push for a more hostile policy towards Seoul.