North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a military parade held to mark the 75th anniversary of the regime's founding but he did not deliver a speech at the event.

The North's state media Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that a civil defense parade took place at Kim Il Sung Square on Friday to celebrate the founding anniversary.

Kim was in attendance with his daughter, Ju-ae.

According to the report, also present were a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu Guozhong and visiting members of a Russian army performance band as well as Chinese and Russian diplomats stationed in the North.

Pundits note that Moscow not sending a separate delegation is seen as unusual given the two sides' tightening relations in recent days, and speculate it may have to do with a possible upcoming summit between Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin.

The nighttime event is not believed to have featured strategic weaponry such as intercontinental ballistic missiles and it marks the third military parade North Korea has staged this year alone. It is seen as an attempt to boost internal unity amid economic difficulties.

The parade was mostly led not by the regime's regular army but by the Worker-Peasant Red Guards, a civilian defense group consisting of some five-point-seven million workers and farmers accounting for a quarter of the country's population.