In the totalitarian nightmare that is North Korea, making a single mistake in public isn’t just a career-ender — it may be a death sentence.

Two senior naval officials are feared executed after a newly launched destroyer sank during its unveiling last month in front of none other than Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. The regime’s infamous pattern of purging "undesirables" appears to have continued, with both men quietly disappearing from state-published photographs in the wake of the debacle.

The vessel — the second in a new class of North Korean destroyers — was launched at the Chongjin shipyard in a ceremony meant to showcase the country’s supposed military prowess. Instead, it turned into a humiliation for the regime. According to satellite images and leaked photos, the bow of the 5,000-ton warship remained embarrassingly stuck on the shipway while the hull sustained visible damage as it listed awkwardly into the water. State officials attempted to mask the incident by draping tarps over the scene, but the truth got out.

The Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), the official propaganda arm of Kim’s regime, called the damage “not serious” — while in the same breath declaring it an “unpardonable criminal act.” In North Korea, such phrasing is ominous.

Supreme Leader Kim was present during the catastrophe and reportedly watched it all unfold in real time. His response was swift and harsh, stating the mishap “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride” and blaming the failure on “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism.”

In a country where leaders rule through fear and erasure, this was a clear death knell for those responsible.

According to the New York Post, two high-ranking officials — Adm. Kim Myong Sil and Hong Kil Ho — were not just removed from duty, but scrubbed from history altogether. “Expunged from the North Korean photographic record on orders of Kim,” the Post reported on June 18, the two men vanished from official images that originally featured them standing near the dictator during the launch ceremony.

The edited photographs now show conspicuously empty space where Myong Sil and Kil Ho once stood — a brutal throwback to the Stalinist days of the Soviet Union, where enemies of the state were not only executed, but erased from the historical record. Stalin’s infamous deletion of secret police chief Nikolai Yezhov from public images is one of many such chilling precedents, and Kim seems to be following the same playbook.

After the destroyer was righted and floated, the regime attempted to spin the disaster into a “success.” In a surreal statement, Kim declared it “convincing proof of the rapid transformation of our Navy,” and added:

“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.”

He went on to call the failed launch evidence of “the super-radical growth of our Navy’s operations capability,” insisting it had become “an unstoppable, powerful current of history.”

The irony, of course, is lost on no one. If this is the “unstoppable current of history,” it's one that drags high-ranking officials to their graves over structural failures caused by poor engineering and insufficient materials. But in a country where fear governs everything, accountability is rarely technical — it’s always personal.

This incident is yet another chilling reminder of why North Korea remains completely incompatible with diplomatic engagement on rational terms. The regime doesn't just lack resources — it lacks basic humanity. And while Kim puts on a show of progress, his workers live under constant threat of death for failing to perform the impossible.

In short: you don’t just risk embarrassment in North Korea — you risk being airbrushed from history altogether.