A large vessel entering and leaving a North Korean port believed to be a hub for shipping arms to Russia was spotted Friday, according to a news report, heightening concern that trade banned by the United Nations continues.
U.S. media outlet Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported Monday that a 110-meter-long (360-foot-long) ship docked at North Korea’s Rajin Port in Rason, near the border with China and Russia, was captured in satellite images provided by Planet Labs, an Earth imaging company based in San Francisco.
The images also captured a line of containers about 100 meters long on the pier next to the ship.
The ship appears to have arrived at the inner side of Rajin Port’s pier on Thursday and moved to the outer side on Friday. This indicates that the vessel unloaded containers on the pier’s inner side and loaded new containers on the outer side before departing.
Rajin Port was previously designated by the White House as the site of suspected arms transactions between North Korea and Russia. Containers carrying North Korean military equipment and ammunition appear to have been shipped from here to a Russian port and then delivered by train to the Ukrainian front line.
This is the third time since U.S. President Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January that a large ship has appeared at Rajin Port, following detections on Jan. 1 and 20. Counting the appearance of a ship on Jan. 10, before Trump’s official inauguration, there have been four appearances this year alone.
The United States estimates that North Korea and Russia have traded a total of over 20,000 containers so far.
Meanwhile, North Korea has been busy strengthening its aviation capabilities recently, apparently building a new drone hangar and testing a new large reconnaissance drone, according to a separate report by RFA on Saturday.
Satellite photos taken by Planet Labs on Jan. 9 of Uiju Airfield in North Pyongan Province showed 34 fighter jets deployed, with frequent changes in the number of fighter jets detected since then, according to the RFA.
Uiju Airfield was used as a quarantine facility during the Covid-19 pandemic, and it is believed that fighter jets were redeployed there after the quarantine facility was dismantled.
![A drone hangar at North Korea's Banghyon Airfield, as photographed by Radio Free Asia via the U.S. commercial satellite company Planet Labs. [PLANET LABS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/24/55f6bde4-5a79-4c3f-8225-a9d58272118f.jpg)
Similar signs were observed around Banghyon Airfield in North Pyongan Province. When RFA checked Planet Labs’s satellite photos from Feb. 21, North Korea appeared to be building new drone hangars and testing a large version of a reconnaissance drone modeled after the U.S. Global Hawk.
On Jan. 19, a red roof the size of one hangar was detected, and the following day, a second red roof the size of a hanger was spotted, RFA reported.
NK News, a North Korea-specialized media outlet, reported that a new drone was spotted outside an old hangar at Banghyon Airfield during analysis of high-resolution satellite photos from Planet Labs.
NK News said the new vehicle resembled the Saebyeol-4 reconnaissance drone North Korea unveiled in 2023. In particular, the drone’s shape and color match the U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk, as did the Saebyol 4.
NK News said the new North Korean drone’s wingspan grew from the Saebyeol-4’s approximately 35 meters to 40 meters, reflecting the U.S. transition to the upgraded RQ-4B, with a wingspan of 39.8 meters.
It added that North Korea was installing roofs on seven new hangars at Banghyon Airfield to hasten the aircraft’s deployment.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the performance test of a suicide drone last year and ordered the establishment of a mass production system. Accordingly, experts believe North Korea will likely use drones on the battlefield soon.
BY BAE JAE-SUNG, LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]
