The ambition of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to project naval power beyond his country’s coastal waters was boosted this week when he officially commissioned the country’s first naval destroyer, which he said was armed with nuclear-capable missiles.

随着朝鲜领导人金正恩本周正式宣布该国首艘海军驱逐舰入役，并称其装备了可搭载核弹头的导弹，他将海军力量投射到本国沿海海域之外的野心进一步膨胀。

Mr. Kim attended a ceremony for the 5,000-ton Choe Hyon on Tuesday in Nampo, a port southwest of the capital, Pyongyang, according to state media. The largest warship North Korea has ever built, the vessel has come to symbolize Mr. Kim’s drive to expand and nuclearize his navy since its maiden test run in April last year.

据官方媒体报道，金正恩周二在首都平壤西南方向的港口城市南浦出席了为5000吨舰船“崔贤号”举行的仪式。作为朝鲜有史以来建造的最大战舰，该舰自去年4月进行首次试航以来，已成为金正恩扩大海军并使其核武化努力的象征。

Mr. Kim said in a speech at the ceremony that the navy was going into “full-fledged service” and that “the program of equipping the navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly.”

金正恩在仪式的讲话中表示，海军正进入“全面服役”阶段，“海军装备核武器的计划正在准确无误地按照既定路线推进。”

North Korea’s navy has long been overshadowed by its South Korean counterpart and by U.S. naval fleets operating in the region. Its aging fleet — most vessels were designed and built during the Soviet era — has been confined largely to coastal patrols.

长期以来，朝鲜海军一直被韩国海军以及在该地区活动的美国海军舰队压制。其老化的舰队——大多数舰艇是在苏联时期设计和建造的——基本上被限制在沿海巡逻。

Mr. Kim’s naval expansion has coincided with his decision to supply weapons and troops to Russia, in support of its war against Ukraine. Russia is widely believed to be reciprocating with shipments of oil and food, as well as technology and materials to help modernize the North Korean military. South Korean analysts who observed recent missile tests conducted from the Choe Hyon said that some of the weapons, including a supersonic cruise missile, appeared to incorporate Russian technology.

金正恩的海军扩张恰逢他决定向俄罗斯提供武器和军队以支持其对乌克兰的战争。人们普遍认为，俄罗斯正通过运送石油和粮食，以及提供帮助朝鲜军队现代化的技术和材料来予以回报。观察了“崔贤号”近期进行导弹测试的韩国分析人士表示，其中一些武器（包括一款超音速巡航导弹）似乎融入了俄罗斯的技术。

Historically, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has been built around ballistic missiles, as the country lacks nuclear-capable aircraft or submarines. In recent years, however, Mr. Kim has made the nuclearization of his navy a priority — testing submarine-launched ballistic missiles, unveiling the hull of what Pyongyang described as a nuclear-powered submarine and developing unmanned underwater vehicles that it said were capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

从历史上看，由于朝鲜缺乏具备核能力的飞机或潜艇，其核武库主要是围绕弹道导弹构建的。然而近年来，金正恩将海军核武化作为优先事项——测试潜射弹道导弹、公布平壤方面声称为核动力潜艇的船体，以及研发其声称能够携带核弹头的无人潜航器。

The destroyer program has not been without setbacks. In May last year, a second 5,000-ton destroyer — the Kang Kon — capsized during its launch from North Korea’s east coast, a humiliating failure for the regime.

驱逐舰计划并非一帆风顺。去年5月，第二艘5000吨级驱逐舰“姜健号”在朝鲜东海岸下水期间倾覆，这对朝鲜政权来说是一个屈辱的失败。

Mr. Kim ​said Tuesday that the Kang Kon, now salvaged and repaired, would soon be commissioned and pledged that warships would follow.

金正恩周二表示，目前已打捞并修复的“姜健号”不久后将服役，并承诺后续还会有战舰加入。

“We should build, every year, two surface ships whose class is higher than the Choe Hyon, including a 10,000-ton cruiser,” he said.

“我们应该每年建造两艘级别高于‘崔贤号’的水面舰艇，包括一艘10000吨级的巡洋舰，”他说。

North Korea routinely uses the unveiling of major weapons systems to burnish Mr. Kim’s image as a leader who has defied U.S.-led international sanctions to strengthen national security. Yet analysts noted that the Choe Hyon falls short of modern destroyer standards, lacking sophisticated missile defense radar.

朝鲜惯于利用重大武器系统的亮相来拔高金正恩的形象，将其塑造成一位无视美国主导的国际制裁以加强国家安全的领导人。然而分析人士指出，“崔贤号”并未达到现代驱逐舰的标准，缺乏先进的导弹防御雷达。

“It looks more like an attack destroyer chock-full of various missiles,” said Yang Moo-jin, a former president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “We will need to study how well such a ship would survive in modern warfare involving precision strikes and drone attacks.”

“它看起来更像是一艘塞满了各种导弹的攻击型驱逐舰，”首尔的韩国统一研究院前院长梁茂进表示。“我们需要研究这样一艘船在涉及精准打击和无人机袭击的现代战争中能有多大的生存能力。”

Nevertheless, military analysts warned that a North Korean fleet of larger, more heavily armed vessels could heighten tensions in waters around the Korean Peninsula, where the United States and its allies are already contending with an increasingly assertive Chinese military presence.

尽管如此，军事分析人士警告称，由体量更大、火力更猛的舰艇组成的朝鲜舰队可能会加剧朝鲜半岛周边海域的紧张局势，而美国及其盟友在那里已经不得不应对日益强硬的中国军事存在。

Ships like the Choe Hyon could give North Korea a mobile surface platform for launching nuclear weapons, said Hong Min, a North Korean military expert at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. Mr. Hong added that Mr. Kim may be drawing lessons from the recent crisis in the Strait of Hormuz about the strategic value of threatening major sea lanes — a concern of particular relevance to South Korea, which imports all of its oil and gas, much of it through ports near the two​ Koreas’ disputed western maritime border.

首尔韩国统一研究院的朝鲜军事专家洪珉表示，像“崔贤号”这样的船只可以为朝鲜发射核武器提供一个移动的水面平台。他还说，金正恩可能正从近期霍尔木兹海峡的危机中吸取关于威胁主要海上航道战略价值的教训——这一担忧对韩国尤为切身，因为韩国的所有石油和天然气都依赖进口，其中大部分是通过两国在西侧争议边界附近的港口运输的。

North Korea does not recognize the boundary​, which was established by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the close of the 1950-53 Korean War. The two​ Korean navies have fought several deadly skirmishes ​there over the decades.

朝鲜不承认这一由美国主导的联合国军司令部在1950至1953年朝鲜战争结束时划定的边界。几十年来，两国的海军在那里进行过数次致命的交火。

This week, Mr. Kim ​said — without elaboration — that his navy would take on “a different mission” and operate over “a different area of waters.” The era when the North Korean navy just defended its coastal waters, he declared, “has now firmly become a thing of the past.”

本周，金正恩表示他的海军将承担“不同的任务”，并在“不同的海域”开展行动，但他未作具体解释。他宣称，朝鲜海军仅仅保卫其沿海海域的时代“现在已确凿地成为过去”。