Welcome to North Korea, where making a very public mistake can potentially cost you your life.
That’s at least the worry for two senior officials involved with the sinking of a destroyer during its botched loss last month. According to multiple reports, the two men have been erased from state photos — and many fear they’ve been killed.
The ship was the second of a new class of destroyer to be launched by the hermit state from the shipyard in Chongjin — only things didn’t go as planned, as indicated by the fact they tried to cover it up with tarps:
The North Korean propaganda video of Kim Jung Un boasting of his new warship’s pending maiden voyage (with Russian music).
And the warship sunken, covered with blue tarps to hide from the humiliating inevitability of satellite photos.
Loser. pic.twitter.com/GRbSw1zbIM
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) May 22, 2025
North Korea was about to launch its second destroyer but the navy messed it up and the vessel tipped over on its side and was severely damaged.
A furious Kim Jong Un was present at the site when it happened.
Heads will be rolling… pic.twitter.com/ckBIgmpRn2
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 22, 2025
And heads weren’t going to roll figuratively, but literally. The state-run Korea Central News Agency described the damage as “not serious” (going to disagree there) but “an unpardonable criminal act” (which, in North Korea, it definitely is).
Kim Jong-un, who was in attendance and watching when the sinking happened, said that the act “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride” and resulted from “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism.”
Will the United States go to war with North Korea again?
Now, according to the New York Post, two of the high-ranking officials involved have been retconned out of existence in old photos — a clear sign that wherever they are, things ain’t good.
Admr. Kim Myong Sil and Hong Kil Ho — who are responsible for operating the shipyard in Chongjin — have been “expunged from the North Korean photographic record on orders of Kim — who blames them for the hermit kingdom’s inability to launch,” the Post reported on June 18.
The ship had become unbalanced as it was lowered into the water, which wrecked parts of the hull while leaving the bow of the 5,000-ton vessel still on the shipway.
This has led to fears they were executed for this:
Kim Jong Un erases two officials from months-old state photos, prompting fears they were executed over botched warship launch: report https://t.co/bhVnqp8T2K pic.twitter.com/v62panZWnG
— New York Post (@nypost) June 19, 2025
The two North Korean honchos were originally pictured on the left side of the photo released by North Korean state media, near Kim.
In the edited photos released by North Korean state media, there is now a conspicuously empty space where Myong Sil and Kil Ho once stood.
The move was reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s brutal dictator Joseph Stalin, who made common practice of erasing political adversaries from notable pics, including the infamously overt erasure of Nikolai Yezhov.
Yes, well, this is what happens when you leave things to one of the last pure adherents to a form of Stalinism, the scion of the brutal Kim cult of personality.
The Post reported that Kim was also making it seem like everything was hunky dory after the ship was righted, saying that it was “convincing proof of the rapid transformation of our Navy. …
“No one will doubt, I think, the rapid transformation of our Navy as they have witnessed the launching of another new-type destroyer less than two months after a similar event at the Nampho Shipyard.”
“The super-radical growth of our Navy’s operations capability is now being proved by powerful entities, not by a prediction or possibility, and this has already become an unstoppable, powerful current of history,” Kim added.
And, of course, if you don’t make sure that the “unstoppable, powerful current of history” doesn’t prevent your destroyer from capsizing when it’s being lowered into the water, you could end up dead. Motivation!
In all seriousness, this is more proof why North Korea cannot be dealt with on a rational basis. From all indications, this accident happened because the facility simply couldn’t build and launch a destroyer the way that the regime wanted it to. Because of that lack of resources, men will be jailed and probably executed.
Communism in action, yet again.
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