Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center

went on to make medical isotopes, and North Korea really started that way.

In 1965, with Soviet support, North Korea installed its first research reactor at Yongbyon, north of the capital Pyongyang.

It wasn't big enough to produce nuclear weapons, but it was a start.

In the 1980s, North Korea's nuclear program really took off.

It went on a shopping trip to Europe to procure the design plans it needed to build this five-megawatt production reactor at Yongbyon.

North Korea diplomat, Yeonho Jin, who doubled as a spy, was based in Vienna.

he had no trouble gathering from various European countries the plans and components needed to build the bigger reactor at Yongbyon.

North Korea acquired declassified British designs for its reactor, Belgium plans for fuel reprocessing, and German-made aluminium components vital for building the bigger reactor.

Exactly, and that radically alters the deterrence calculus for both South Korea and the United States.

Pyongyang is becoming more confident, not less, and concurrently, we are seeing reports of them expanding their Yongbyon uranium enrichment facility and advancing their ICBM testing.

So they're exploiting the West's strategic distraction in Ukraine to just rapidly accelerate their own capabilities.

That's exactly what's happening.

In twenty twenty-six, the IAEA is watching from satellites.

A second enrichment hall at Yongbyon, Kaesong, still spinning.

The old five-megawatt reactor running another cycle and saying out loud that weapons-grade production is a cause for serious concern.

Experts now put the odds of actual denuclearization by the mid-twenty thirties in the low single digits.

Currently, it is estimated by an institution like SIPRI that North Korea has about 60 nuclear weapons, and we are not really sure about the exact number of nuclear warheads it has, but they need to really make sure that it has credible second-strike capability, like Edward said.

And according to recent IEA assessment, North Korea has recently expanded its fissile material production in Yongbyon area, and it will give North Ko- Korea additional capacity to produce about four to six nuclear warheads per year, which is combined to the existing capability.

It may produce about 16 to 20 nuclear weapons a year.

That means within 10 years it will possess as many nuclear warheads as the UK or France, at which point it will get a more diversified and more credible second-strike capability.

I think they do like satellite imagery and stuff.

New excavations at the Yongbyon.

facility in North Korea where they're making plutonium.

So that is still going on.