As North Korean leader Kim Jong Un faces down a potential existential crisis for his regime amid a large COVID-19 outbreak, he also appears to be doubling down on expanding his nuclear weapons program.
New satellite imagery has indicated that the isolated North has resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon complex, analysts said in a new report released Friday.
Images taken April 20 and May 7, which show the connecting of a secondary cooling loop at the Yongbyon complex’s 50 megawatt reactor to a pumphouse on a nearby river, “is the first unambiguous indicator that North Korea is moving to complete the reactor,” experts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who analyzed the photos said.