North Korea releases footage of soldiers demonstrating feats of strength

North Korea has released footage of special operations troops performing martial arts and other stunts, with soldiers appearing to withstand blunt weapons and blades with their bare bodies in a theatrical display of strength.

A special operations drill takes place at a training base in North Korea in this footage still released by the Korean Central Television on March 29. [YONHAP]

North Korea has released footage of special operations troops performing martial arts and other stunts, with soldiers appearing to withstand blunt weapons and blades with their bare bodies in a theatrical display of strength.

The state-run Korean Central Television reported on the training footage on Sunday and stated that the special operations subunits “fully displayed their crack-shot marksmanship and military technical and physical ability in a competitive way.” The drill took place with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in attendance.

One clip shows shirtless soldiers, without protective gear, using their abdominal muscles to repel pickaxes and axes and lying face down on beds of nails. In another, stone slabs on top of soldiers’ backs are smashed with hammers, and tiles broken by axes strike their outstretched arms.

One scene even depicts soldiers gripping knife blades with their bare hands, looking like something out of a strongman performance.

Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea’s newspaper, reported on Sunday that Kim visited a special operations training base directly under the Operations Bureau of the General Staff Department of the Korean People’s Army.

“All the participants broke into enthusiastic cheers, looking up to the ever-victorious, iron-willed brilliant commander who is ushering in a great heyday of building a powerful army with his outstanding military strategic ideology and extraordinary commanding art,” said the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday.

The footage also includes a live-fire demonstration by troops wearing night vision goggles and a knife-fighting demonstration by a women’s unit. In particular, women special operations troops performing group drills and posing for commemorative photos are given relatively long amounts of screen time, drawing unusual attention to their presence.

A special operations drill takes place at a training base in North Korea in this footage still released by the Korean Central Television on March 29. [YONHAP]

“While watching with pleasure the training of women special warfare soldiers full of self-confidence, [Kim] warmly encouraged them,” reported the KCNA.

Watching the drills, Kim allegedly clapped and emphasized that the North Korean “army at all levels should get fully prepared” to engage in “the trend of modern warfare.”

No Kwang-chol, the North Korean minister of national defense, and Ri Yong-gil, the chief of the Korean People’s Army general staff, accompanied Kim that day. His sister Kim Yo-jong, a department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, was also seen in the footage, but she was not officially mentioned.

Experts say the report appears intended to showcase the military’s loyalty and combat readiness at home and abroad while reinforcing regime unity.

Experts also say the emphasis on women soldiers highlighted the regime’s line of arming the entire population and could reflect efforts to manage messaging tied to Kim’s daughter, who has repeatedly appeared at recent military events.

A special operations drill takes place at a training base in North Korea in these footage stills released by the Korean Central Television on March 29. [NEWS1]

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY BAE JAE-SUNG [kim.minyoung5@joongang.co.kr]