North Korean prestige, fresh off aiding the Russian Federation on Ukrainian battlefields, suffered a disaster this week in its shipyards.

You see, on Wednesday, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and assorted bigwigs from the ruling North Korean Workers' Party gathered in Chongjin, a port city in the country’s north-east, to attend the launch of North Korea’s second new destroyer.

Kim launched the first 5,000-tonne Choe Hyon-class destroyer less than a month earlier to great fanfare. It’s hard to be sure, but it could represent a legit leap in North Korea’s naval prowess, so a second successful launch would’ve sealed the deal, reported International Intrigue.

But instead, under the watchful gaze of the big dog himself, the warship lost balance as the bow failed to detach from the slipway, crushing part of the hull. According to South Korean intelligence, the ship is now lying on its side in the harbour’s shallows.

Kim Jong-Un declared it a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness”, that “brought the dignity and self-respect of our state to a collapse”.

So the question for Kim then became not whether to allow the story, but how to shape it. And his answer is clear: deflect blame to subordinates to both a) instil fear and authority, while b) protecting his own Juchist myth of infallibility, without c) triggering another international crisis he can’t afford by blaming his mess-up on South Korea next-door.