Category: North Korea

I once saw Mt. Kumgang through a telescope along the DMZ on South Korea’s east coast. It looked like a pretty amazing mountain. I hope to visit it one day when the Kim regime is no longer around:

North Korea’s Mount Kumgang, noted for its striking natural beauty, has been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site on Sunday.

During the 47th session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Paris, the decision was made to inscribe the mountain and the historical relics in and around it on the list of protected landmarks and sites of internationally recognized cultural, historic or scientific value.

For more than a thousand years, Mount Kumgang (Geumgang in South Korean romanization) has enchanted artists, lyrists and travelers alike with its breathtaking panorama of craggy granite peaks, tumbling waterfalls and mist-veiled gorges.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully Ukraine’s allies are keeping pace with Russia’s allies in the production of artillery rounds:

North Korea has continued to provide Russia with artillery shells to support its war against Ukraine, which amounts to more than 12 million rounds of 152 mm shells, according to South Korea’s military intelligence authorities Sunday.

North Korea is believed to have provided around 28,000 containers containing weapons and artillery shells to date, according to a report by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) submitted to a lawmaker of the main opposition party.

“If calculated with 152 mm single shells, (the number of supplied shells) are presumed to have reached more than 12 million,” the DIA under the defense ministry said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Russia has exported to North Korea and air defense system that failed to shootdown any Israeli jets that executed the bombing campaign over Iran. After the Israeli bombing campaign, Kim Jong-un cannot possibly have much faith that this system will protect his capitol against a U.S. bombardment:

North Korea has already been using the Pantsir-S1 air defense system provided by Russia to defend the North’s capital of Pyongyang, a Ukrainian online newspaper reported Wednesday, citing Kyiv’s intelligence chief.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR), made the remark in an interview with Hromadske Radio the previous day (local time), according to The Kyiv Independent.

The Pantsir missile system is made up of self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery systems.

Budanov said the first Pantsir-S1 installations have already been deployed in Pyongyang and are on combat duty. He added that the Russians are retraining North Korean personnel, who will soon be working autonomously on this technology.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The North Korean media for the first time is showing that North Korean Soldiers have been killed in Ukraine:

North Korea’s state media aired Monday images of its leader Kim Jong-un mourning over his soldiers believed to have been killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The images, released by Korean Central Television, showed Kim solemnly placing a North Korean flag over a coffin during a ceremony for the return of the remains of North Korean soldiers who were deployed and killed in Moscow’s war against Kyiv.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As long as the Ukriane-Russia war continues there is no reason for Kim Jong-un to pursue any diplomacy with Trump. Kim is getting the money and military aid he needs from the Russians for now. If he started diplomacy with Trump it would look like he is backstabbing Putin:

Joseph Yun, the acting U.S. ambassador in Seoul, said Tuesday that any renewed talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hinge on mutual willingness.

“I have no doubt that President Trump considers his engagement with North Korea during his first term as unfinished business, and he wants to reengage with North Korea,” Yun said. 

“But it takes two to tango,” he added. “We have not really heard from the North Korean side whether they too want to reengage. And to me, that’s the bigger unknown.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this news that North Korea is discharging enriched uranium wastewater into a river that flows into the West Sea potentially polluting South Korean waters:

North Korea operates a critical uranium refining facility in North Hwanghae province’s Pyongsan county that serves as a critical link in its nuclear weapons chain. The plant converts mined uranium ore into yellowcake concentrate—essentially purified uranium ready for the next stage of weapons production. This yellowcake then travels to the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex, among other facilities, where scientists enrich it to the high levels needed for nuclear bombs.

Waste generated at the Pyongsan uranium facility has historically been sent to a reservoir across the river for sedimentation. However, satellite imagery has captured evidence that as the sedimentation pond reached capacity, North Korea began discharging wastewater directly into the river system.

Daily NK

You can read more at the link, but interestingly I have heard nothing from the Korean left denouncing this pollution unlike what we saw when Japan discharge far less dangerous wastewater from their nuclear facility far from Korean waters.

It appears that the North Koreans are doubling down on their military cooperation with Russia:

North Korea will send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers to Russia’s Kursk region, Russian media reports said Tuesday, in another possible sign of their deepening military alignment as Moscow’s security chief visited Pyongyang for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The announcement came as Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu visited the North Korean capital on a special mission from Russian President Vladimir Putin and held talks with Kim earlier in the day, as the two countries prepare to mark the first anniversary of their mutual defense treaty. 

“Chairman of the State Affairs of the DPRK Kim Jong-un has decided to send 1,000 sappers to Russia to clear mines on Russian territory, as well as 5,000 military construction workers to restore infrastructure destroyed by the occupiers,” Tass quoted Shoigu as saying, referring to the North by the acronym of its official name.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I think it can be argued that North Korea’s involvement in the war with Ukraine has been highly successful for them. The Kim regime has received much needed monetary and military aid from Russia and their troops received much needed combat experience. Additionally when their troops do eventually return they can say they defeated the Ukrainians which they have actually largely done in Kursk province.

With the Ukrainians largely defeated in Kursk province now it will be interesting to see if the North Korean Soldiers are used anywhere else on the frontlines of this war:

A wounded soldier, suspected to be North Korean and captured by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s western Kursk region, is seen in this file photo posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s X account on Jan. 12, 2025. 

North Korea is estimated to have sustained more than 6,000 casualties in fighting against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, more than half of the troops Pyongyang initially deployed, according to Britain’s defense ministry.

The ministry shared the assessment in an X post Sunday, two months after its earlier estimate of over 5,000 North Korean troop casualties in Russia’s western front-line region of Kursk in early April.

“The total casualties amount to more than half of the approximately 11,000 DPRK troops initially deployed to the Kursk region,” it said. “Significant DPRK casualty rates have almost certainly been sustained primarily through large, highly attritional dismounted assaults.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

THey may have relaunced the destroyer, but it is unclear how much damage this ship still has to be repaired:

North Korea says it has repaired and relaunched a naval destroyer that capsized during a failed launch attempt last month, but defense experts remain skeptical about the regime’s claim of a quick recovery. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the relaunch of the 5,000-ton warship Thursday at Rajin Shipyard on the country’s northeastern coast, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.

The event came just three weeks after that vessel capsized and sustained hull damage during a launch attempt at Chongjin Shipyard, about 50 miles south of Rajin. In a rare admission, KCNA acknowledged the failure, quoting Kim at the time as calling it a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Despite the setback, KCNA on Friday portrayed the relaunch as a testament to North Korea’s maritime strength. The rapid repairs are proof of the communist regime’s “progress and lead of the warship-building industry,” the report said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This guy is definitely rotting away in a gulag somewhere judging by these actions:

 North Korea appears to have edited recent state media images to remove a top naval commander after last month’s failed launch of a new warship, NK News has reported.

In state media footage aired Friday on the relaunch ceremony of the 5,000-ton Kang Kon destroyer, Kim Myong-sik, the North’s former chief navy commander, was notably absent from images showing leader Kim Jong-un’s earlier inspection of the warship’s construction.

Hong Kil-ho, manager of the Chongjin Shipyard — where an incident involving the destroyer reportedly occurred — also appeared to have been deleted from the images.

NK News said state media has not commonly deleted officials from photos since the 2013 execution of Jang Song-thaek, an uncle of the North’s leader who was purged from senior leadership.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.