SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea‘s newly launched reconnaissance satellite has captured photos of the White House, the Pentagon and a key U.S. mainland naval base, Pyongyang‘s state media claimed Tuesday.

North Korean ​regime leader Kim Jong-un reportedly viewed the photos of key U.S. installations as part of a briefing on the satellite’s operations from the Pyongyang General Control Center of the National Aerospace Technology Administration, or NATA, the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency​ said in a report.

According to the KCNA dispatch, Mr. Kim “received in detail satellite photos of the Norfolk Naval Base, the Newport News Dockyard and an airfield of Virginia, US, taken at 23:35:53 on Nov. 27 (Pyongyang Time) and the White House and the Pentagon in Washington and other objects at 23:36:25 on Nov. 27 (Pyongyang Time). Four U.S. Navy nuclear carriers and one British aircraft carrier were spotted in the photos of the Norfolk Naval Base and the Newport News Dockyard.”

North Korea‘s successful launch into orbit of its first military surveillance satellite has rattled both South Korea and the United States, and has​ sparked a potential breakdown of the 2018 bilateral agreement designed to lower tensions on the divided peninsula.

In response to the November 21 launch of the Malligyong-1 spy satellite, Seoul suspended a key clause of a 2018 bilateral military agreement. Pyongyang responded by saying it was withdrawing from the entire agreement. Two days later, North Korean troops were seen conducting activities inside the Demilitarized Zone in defiance of the de-escalation accord.

The North Korean report Tuesday seemed designed to advertise Pyongyang‘s new ability to monitor its adversaries both close to home and far away. North Korea said it needed the satellite — successfully put in orbit after two earlier attempts this year failed — as a defense against a potential surprise attack from Seoul or Washington.

A leather-coated Mr. Kim, accompanied by his daughter Ju-ae, was shown in state media photographs posing with uniformed staff of NATA. He has dubbed the reconnaissance satellite North Korea‘s “space guard and powerful sighting telescope.”

Mr. Kim‘s apparent exuberance over his new asset is understandable​, given the dents punched into national prestige by the failed satellite launches in May and August.

In September, he took a rare trip to Russia’s Far East to meet with​ President Vladimir Putin at a satellite launch center. Though no details of ​their discussions have been released, it is widely assumed that North Korea offered shells and other munitions to help Russia’s struggling campaign in Ukraine in exchange for technical and other assistance from the Kremlin.

The day after the Malligyong-1 satellite blasted off, North Korean media claimed it had photographed Guam, ​home to the strategic U.S. military base in the Pacific.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has assessed that Russian assistance enabled the successful launch and operation of the satellite.

Separately, North Korean troops were seen Tuesday once again sporting sidearms in Panmunjom, the truce village inside the Demilitarized Zone. Elsewhere in the DMZ, North Korean troops were photographed moving machine guns into newly constructed guard posts.

Both moves breach the 2018 bilateral military agreement, one negotiated as former President Trump was pursuing an unusual personal diplomacy with Mr. Kim in search of an elusive denuclearization deal.

​The North Korean report also came as South Korea — which currently has no reconnaissance satellites of its own and relies on U.S. satellites to monitor development in the North — said it was postponing Thursday’s planned launch of its own spy satellite because of weather concerns, the Associated Press reported. South Korean military officials say the launch will not come until Saturday at the earliest.

South Korea‘s defense ministry has contracted with the U.S. private firm SpaceX to put five spy satellites in orbit by 2025. The first launch using SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to take place at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, the AP reported

Western analysts are divided over the usefulness of the new North Korean satellite in altering the delicate balance of power on the Korean peninsula.

Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on North Korea‘s weapons of mass destruction, said on social media: “Given that North Korea has nuclear weapons, I would prefer it to have better eyes and ears than the opposite.”

Some here in South Korea agree, arguing the spy satellite, by offering accurate data, reduces the odds the isolated Kim regime will miscalculate and start a war.

But others say the satellite will prove a useful addition to Pyongyang‘s offensive toolbox, enhancing the power and accuracy of its formidable array of nuclear and conventional missiles.

The U.S. and its allies have said the ballistic missile technology used by the North to launch the new satellite constituted a violation of longstanding U.N. Security Council sanctions. But the Security Council, deeply divided since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has ​so far failed to condemn the launch.

•​ This story is based in part on wire service reports.

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.