North Korea has spent up to $650 million on missile tests this year - enough money to pay for a Covid-19 vaccination for the impoverished country's entire population, a government-affiliated think tank in Seoul said today.
Pyongyang has conducted a record-breaking 18 weapons tests this year, and continued to launch missiles even after confirming its first Covid infections in May, with more than four million cases of what authorities term "fever" now reported.
Kim Jong-Un's regime spent an estimated $400 million to $650 million on developing and testing the 33 missiles it fired this year, according to a report by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
The money would "have made it possible to make up for this year's food shortage, or provide a single dose of Covid-19 vaccination for all North Koreans," the report said.