Sigh... do people still think that the statements have any other point than to spread fear within NK and to get people to rally behind Dear Leader?
Traditionally they've also been to get more aid from other countries.
That snake avatar.
Is a thing of beauty.
Meanwhile North Korea threatens that the threat of shooting down missiles will be met with the threat of missiles.
So NK just announced in front of their own people that they will start the war. Now the war will have to happen, or NK's leaders will lose face in front of the people. Dammit.
Nonsense. They'll just claim they were never at war with Eastasia and move on.
TIL North Korea is a mass enactment of 1984.
In all seriousness, they do still have flagrant lies. This is probably the next level of their "I'll do it! I'M SERIOUS HERE! REALLY REALLY REALLY SERIOUS THIS TIME!" rhetoric, since their current stuff isn't working. If that doesn't work for real, they can always claim it worked internally ("The US has granted us generous concessions to be spared from our military might!"*), though obviously their external image could be a problem.
*Oh god NK is run by Civilization AI that's been refused a cease fire.The issue, of course, is just when they're going to do that. If their bluffing passes the point where another nation declares it an act of war, we could end up with an escalation all the way up in very short order. NK fires a missile or something, US decides that's it, NK panics and presses all their buttons or doesn't, gets annihilated immediately either way. Problems all around.