Trump Says North Korea Has 112 Nuclear Missiles, Praises Kim
President Trump said North Korea possesses 112 nuclear missiles and that he gets along well with Kim Jong Un, as Pyongyang deepens military ties with Russia over Ukraine.
President Donald Trump said North Korea now possesses 112 nuclear missiles and claimed he “gets along great” with leader Kim Jong Un, according to The Standard (HK). The remarks arrive as North Korea deepens its military relationship with Russia over the war in Ukraine.
The claim
The 112-missile figure is Trump’s own characterization, and the report does not say what intelligence or methodology underlies the number, nor whether it refers specifically to nuclear-capable missile systems, available warheads, or deployed launchers. The White House has not released a corresponding assessment, and independent bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency do not have access to North Korean nuclear sites. Outside estimates of North Korea’s warhead stockpile have historically varied widely depending on the research institute and the assumptions used, and this reporting cycle has not yet produced an independent figure to compare against the president’s claim.
Trump’s comment on his relationship with Kim is consistent with his public posture since his first term, when the two leaders held a series of summits beginning in 2018. He has repeatedly described a personal rapport with the North Korean leader, even as formal denuclearization talks stalled and North Korea continued expanding its missile and nuclear programs through subsequent years.
A deepening alignment with Moscow
The nuclear claim comes alongside separate reporting on North Korea’s expanding role in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Diplomat reported on what Pyongyang has gained in exchange for its military support to Russia, framing the relationship as a calculated trade that has cost North Korean lives. The outlet’s reporting underscores a pattern that has drawn concern in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington: North Korea supplying personnel and materiel to sustain Russia’s war effort, while receiving in return technology, fuel or diplomatic cover that could accelerate its own weapons programs.
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has publicly tied Trump’s 112-missile claim to intelligence derived from North Korea’s battlefield cooperation with Russia. The two threads, the nuclear claim and the Russia alignment, are being reported separately, and this article does not assert a causal link between them beyond their shared timing.
Why it matters now
The remarks land as Washington manages overlapping security fronts rather than a single crisis. The Pentagon this month ordered a third carrier strike group and up to 10,000 additional troops toward the Middle East amid the standoff with Iran, detailed in our earlier report. Iranian forces have separately turned back tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, as covered in our coverage of this week’s incident. Analysts have described the administration as entering a period with no clear exit from any of its active confrontations, a theme explored in our broader analysis of the October standoff.
A renewed public focus on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal adds a fourth axis to that picture: a nuclear-armed state aligned with Russia, at a moment when U.S. military attention and resources are already stretched across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Whether that is Trump’s intent in raising the 112 figure now, as leverage, as a statement of concern, or simply as a conversational aside, is not established by the available reporting.
What remains unverified
Three things are not yet confirmed in public reporting: the source and accuracy of the 112-missile figure, any specific link between North Korea’s Russia cooperation and its weapons development timeline, and whether Pyongyang or Seoul will respond to Trump’s remarks. South Korea’s government has not issued a public statement addressing the claim as of this writing, and North Korean state media has not responded to Trump’s characterization of the relationship as “great.”
The administration has not announced any new policy step tied to the remarks, such as sanctions action or a request for an updated intelligence assessment. Readers should treat the 112 figure as the president’s stated claim rather than a confirmed government estimate until an official assessment, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or an equivalent body, is made public.
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