Tanks and trucks carrying North Korean troops rolled down the streets of Pyongyang Thursday in a highly-anticipated display of military might on the eve of South Korea’s Winter Olympics.
International media wasn’t invited into North Korea to see the military parade, but images have begun trickling out on social media.
Michael Spavor, who runs a cultural exchange business that facilitates trips into North Korea, shared images showing what appears to be hundreds of bystanders standing by a main thoroughfare in Pyongyang, with soldiers in trucks and atop tanks waving to them.
South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that as many as 50,000 people gathered in the city’s Kim Il Sung square to watch the event, which included around 13,000 soldiers.
Diplomatic sources told CNN last month that “hundreds” of rockets and missiles would be featured during the display.
The parade began at 10:00 a.m. Pyongyang time, a diplomatic source with deep knowledge of North Korea’s activities told CNN.
Pyongyang did not invite foreign media to attend the event, but Spavor was able to live-stream parts of the parade.
Better images will likely come if North Korean state television airs footage of the parade, but those will be tightly controlled by the government.
Analysts say Pyongyang’s decision to hold a military display so close to the start of the Games is a poke in the eye to the administration of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, which has gone to extra lengths to present these Olympics as a symbol of peaceful cooperation.
The parade was held around the same time hundreds of North Koreans who are in South Korea for the 2018 Winter Olympics attended a welcoming ceremony in Pyeongchang.
Band members dressed in white suits and red coats played traditional music, and North Koreans, wearing red, white and blue uniforms, waved at the crowd.
