Father and daughter walk hand in hand.
But he is Kim Jong-un and in front of them stands the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, the "monster" with liquid propellant engines capable of carrying up to 11 nuclear warheads - according to Japanese sources - and potentially capable of reaching the United States.
Ap/KCNA
Kim Jong-un and daughter, Pyongyang
The images were released the day after the launch of the missile towards the Sea of Japan-East Sea.
It is the first time that the North Korean leader has appeared in public with his daughter.
The state news agency KCNA merely reported that Kim "personally supervised" the launch "together with his beloved daughter and wife", the North Korean first lady Ri Sol-ju, without providing further details.
In five of the twenty snapshots published we see a little girl, wearing a white padded jacket and red shoes, her long hair gathered in a ponytail: she pauses in front of the shuttle, hand in hand with her father, watches alongside her at the moment of launch and she listens to him give instructions to the officials.
Ap/KCNA
Kim Jong-un and daughter, Pyongyang
The mother also appears in one shot, in an army green jacket similar to the one worn by her husband.
North Korean state media rarely broadcast information about close relatives of the Kim dynasty.
The fourth generation Kims are no exception.
Everything that is known about the family, and especially the descendants of the North Korean leader, is "hypothesized" by experts with connections in the country.
Kim Jong-un, about 38, is thought to have three children - in 2010, 2012 or 2013 and 2017. Of a girl, named "Ju-ae", little more than a baby at the time, he spoke, after a of his visits to North Korea, former US basketball player Dennis Rodman.
It was 2013: the one in the photos could therefore be her or an older sister.
“I held Kim's baby Ju Ae and spoke to Ms Ri as well,” Rodman told the Guardian and said Kim was a good father.
However, it is not the first time that his wife Ri Sol Ju, a former singer, appears alongside the North Korean leader.
Long kept in the shadows - even the wedding was announced three years later - since 2018 Ri has taken on a diplomatic role and her title has been elevated from "respected companion" to "respected First Lady", which has not happened since 1974 , when that title was reserved for Kim Il-sung's second wife, Kim Song-ae.
Ap/KCNA
Kim Jong-un and daughter, Pyongyang
The fourth generation Kims and the normality of "war"
The participation of Kim's daughter in the launch of a missile "so important" for the regime changes the narrative of North Korean politics made so far by propaganda.
According to Cheong Seong-hang, an expert on the North at the Sejong Institute in South Korea, the girl is the equivalent of a "princess", a sort of "heir to the throne" and after her revelation she will probably be able to participate to state affairs.
The fact that she publicly appears alongside her father, on such a significant day, could indicate that she has been chosen as her successor.
Kim Jong-il did the same with his sons: he chose to succeed him the one he considered most similar to him.
"Perhaps - continues Cheong - Kim Jong-un thinks the same about this girl".
Since the beginning of the year, North Korea has carried out a record series of ballistic missile launches which has triggered the reaction of South Korea, the United States and Japan and an intensification of joint exercises.
The missile launched on Friday could have the range to hit the American mainland, according to neighboring Japan.
Therefore, presenting the young daughter to the public is certainly not a gesture left to chance.
"It is a message to the world that the North Korean regime is not ready to disappear," analyst Soo Kim told AFP: "In a sense, this is a symbolic photo of Kim passing the scepter of power to the next generation ".
These images also suggest that the North Korean leader wants to appear in the eyes of his people as a "normal" leader, said Chan-il Ahn, president of the World Institute for North Korea Studies.
"Not a warmonger or a narcissist, not the rocket man, but a good father, who protects his family, as he protects the nation," according to John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University.
Another of Kim's daughters may have appeared in footage of celebrations for a national holiday in September, according to some observers.
The novelty of the appearance of his daughter for the first time alongside Kim Jong-un must not however shift attention to the further increase in tension in the area after the latest launch which - the KCNA announces - confirms "once again that North Korea's nuclear forces have achieved the capability to contain any nuclear threat".
The United States, South Korea and Japan have stepped up joint military maneuvers in recent months since Kim Jong-un said in September that
North Korea's nuclear state status was "irreversible"
.
The North sees these displays of force as rehearsals for an invasion of its territory or an attempt to overthrow the regime so much so that the leader has defined the latest launch as a resolute response to "war exercises of hysterical aggression" and he vowed to "resolutely respond to nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons and all-out confrontation with ruthless confrontation".
The choice could only fall on the Hwasong-17, the 'monstrous missile', which was the flagship of a parade in October 2020 in which "tactical missile" units, tanks, columns of "strategic missiles", a column of "super-large ICBMs" capable of "striking in succession" and other carriers.
26 meters long and 2.7 meters in diameter, the missile weighs up to 150 tons and must be moved by a 22-wheel transporter.
Pyongyang's move also contains a clear reference to the trilateral summit held Sunday between US President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, on the sidelines of the ASEAN regional meetings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The three leaders had agreed to work together to strengthen coordination activities.
Extended deterrence, in particular, refers to Washington's promise to use the full range of its military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional, to defend its allies.
Not only that, in his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the US president, in addition to asking for his mediation in the North Korean question, had specified that if Pyongyang were to carry out nuclear tests, the United States "would undertake certain actions which would be considered defensive and not directed against China".
Meanwhile, today, amid growing fears of an imminent nuclear test, the US once again deployed a B-1B strategic bomber to the Korean peninsula for a joint air exercise with South Korea.