Kim Jong Un visited the Wihwa-do Greenhouse Farm in Sinuiju on January 2nd, marking his first provincial visit of 2026, which demonstrates his significant interest in the area. North Korean state media propaganda reported that construction was nearing completion and that Kim Jong Un highly praised the youth construction workers mobilized for flood recovery. However, just three days before his visit, Wihwado Station was still undergoing roof construction, and numerous personnel were mobilized nearby to plant windbreak trees. Furthermore, actual images released by North Korea show that Kim Jong Un held a mass rally not at Wihwado Station, but on the railway slightly north of it. Such a deviation is unheard of in the North Korean system, suggesting that Kim Jong Un’s primary interest is not the greenhouse farm construction, but rather the Uiju Airport improvement project. It was detected that over ten thousand personnel and equipment, which could not be mobilized without leadership approval, were deployed there to carry out runway expansion work at the military airport during the cold December.

These activities can be seen as preparatory work for the introduction of new Russian fighter jets to this airbase or for the deployment of North Korea’s indigenously produced NK-A50 airborne early warning and control aircraft.