North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Death of Russian ambassador to DPRK, forgotten detainees and Halifax Forum

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

This week’s episode opens with the news of the sudden death of Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, who died at 70 on Saturday following decades of diplomatic service on the Korean Peninsula. NK News founder Chad O’Carroll then discusses his recent appearance at a high-profile press conference with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, […]

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Each design is a conversation starter. Find yours at shop.m.nknews.org. Again, that's shop.m.knews.org. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jacko's Wetsud, and today it is Tuesday, the 9th of December 2025, and I'm joined here in the studio by Chad O'Carroll. Chad, welcome back on the show. Hi, good morning, Jacko.

Now, we have so much to cover. It's been a busy two weeks. for news around North Korea, and for you especially. Should we start with, I don't want to bury the lead. Actually, let's start with a big overnight story. So overnight we heard that last Saturday, Russia's ambassador to North Korea, Matsugura passed away. Yeah, yeah.

I got a call from someone yesterday with the news and quickly found some information on Russian media and we put a story together. But it was very sudden. Matzegro was 70. And, I mean, by, you know, visual accounts, he looked pretty healthy, pretty active. So he hadn't been ailing for a long time. No, this is very sudden.

I mean, I would imagine something like a heart attack. Right. But, yeah, very sudden, very unexpected. I was quite shocked to hear the news. Do you know where he died? Pyongyang, as far as I understand. Okay. But that hasn't been officially confirmed yet or stated?

No. Right. He spent about half of his life altogether in North Korea, didn't he? I mean, a lot of, he went there as a junior diplomat in the Soviet Union era, and then again, you know, as a Russian diplomat and then became an ambassador. Yeah. And he was ambassador all through COVID. Yeah, yeah, he was. I believe in total around 35 years. That's what I got some comments from Georgi Toleroya, who is a good friend of Matsugura after he passed away. and Gilgi said that, yeah, he'd been there for about 35 years combined during his life. Goodness me, so that's the end of an era. Maybe it was more, actually. I'm just now thinking it might have been something close to 50.

Wow. And that's not long. I mean, I remember talking to British diplomats that always say that after, you know, every six weeks or two months, they'd try to get out for a little spell and come back in again. and certainly I don't know anyone who's spent more than I remember the Palestinian ambassador he was there for a decade yeah yeah he was he was there a while but I think the difference with Massagora obviously is he was in and out yeah wasn't wasn't like but except during COVID yeah there was one big longston recently obviously so yeah incredible so yeah that's a real passing there any idea who the Russians might send in his place

no idea quite yet basically there could be someone from the foreign ministry but it might also be that they decide to pick someone much more politically significant given the you know the sheer scale of the relationship these days right right could be someone former military former uh foreign ministry it may be political i don't know but yeah we need to watch out who that that's going to be well and also watch who who from north korea goes to the funeral presumably there'll be a big bit of pomp and ceremony about that yeah right exactly okay sorry i may i misspoke there so georgie knew him for 52 years but i believe he had been in and out many many times i don't know where i got that 30 figure from but yeah anyway certainly certainly has a lot

of experience uh with with north korea and that that i think that's the key thing right is that tacit knowledge right institutional awareness you know he was very close to kim jongan in recent uh personally yeah i mean they met a lot There was an obituary today in the Rolong Shindman from Kim Jong-un quite long. So there was a lot of personal connection here that other ambassadors would be far from ever getting close to having. A story that's been the talk of the town in the last week and very close to home here in Seoul. During the previous South Korean President's administration, you famously asked Yunson Yuzon Yolo question in a press conference. We have done it again and you've become the story again, chance.

So you are in a press conference with President E. Jam Yong last week, and you asked him a question about something that we who listen to and make the NK News podcast, we're all familiar because we've talked about this before, the fact that for over a decade there have been a handful six to seven South Korean citizens who have been held in detention or in actual prison, serving prison sentences, in North Korea, right? This is not a new topic. No. Anyone who's a fan of NK News will know about this.

What did you ask, President Lee, and how did he respond? Well, yeah, I listed out the names of all these men and the years that they were detained and given life sentences of hard labor for the most part. And I pointed out that the Pakkenhe, Munjayin, Yunso-Kyo administrations had all failed to bring these guys back. And I asked, though, what are you going to do differently? Like what can you tell us about how you're going to resolve this issue? Good question, fair question. Yeah, I mean, in hindsight, I guess, you know, the whole event,

the whole presser was designed to promote the fact that one year had passed since the failed martial law did. So maybe he was thinking if you'd only get questions about that. But, yeah, he was caught off guard and basically said he didn't know what I was talking about and had to ask his national security advisor, we sung lac publicly yeah um what's that all about is this true um as if i'm just making the question up yeah and then we sung lack got the mic and he didn't seem very i mean he he knew something but he didn't he didn't know many details and then somehow i got the microphone back

and explained like in uh higher fidelity what what had happened and maybe i shouldn't have done this as a journalist we're always meant to be objective by I couldn't help, but say, you know, it's quite surprising you don't know about this. It's quite telling because it really is. Well, exactly. I mean, they are citizens of South Korea. Now, say what you will about Donald Trump, but when they're American citizens under detention in North Korea, I mean, that was something that they weren't going to let go of any Americans,

right? They kept working until they got all of them out. Yeah, Canada did the same. Right. Even Japan, there was a tourist arrested. a few years ago they got him back pretty quickly right just south korea has uh not you know be it through pressure or negotiation they've just they don't seem to all to do it and um and i think what was telling about his response is the fact that it's just so low on the right political agenda

some of these people have been there for over a decade yeah and it's just wow no one no one ever talks about it right and that's why i wanted to ask a question because jong min kim and i about five years ago he wrote a big investigation about the six or seven right you and interviewed the relatives yeah and so it's always been in the back of my mind and I always think it's good to find out what the administration will do but you know one one guy I know said actually to his credit he was honest he didn't know about it and you know he didn't like bullshit bullshit about like his awareness but and that is a rare moment for a politician to openly say oh I don't know about that that's the

first I've heard about it yeah so I guess you could you could view it positively and presidents are not they don't know everything mm-hmm but at the same time yeah I just feel like you know when you look at the lengths I mean you you might not disagree you might not agree with how they've done it but the lengths that the Netanyahu government has gone to to get back bodies hostages I mean it was like the number one issue for Israel for the last what two years three years now what and yeah South Korea I think not only the president, but most citizens don't really care about this issue either or have

even awareness about it. Okay, so you asked the question, you got an answer back that was, basically, we don't know. What's been the aftermath? What's the government done since then? What's it announced? What's it said? What's it? Weissung Luck done.

Well, okay. So the day after the presidential office put out a press release confirming the validity of the question saying that there are these detainees, we're working to get them back, blah, blah, blah. The secondary consequence was that during the presser Wieselak said to me that they were working, they like seeking negotiation and he interestingly raised the fact that there were like unconverted communists prisoners who South Korea could send back. I've talked recently to somebody on this podcast. I can't know who it was about the 95, 90 something year old gentleman who was a.

a spy sent from North Korea down during the latter part of the Korean War and has been in prison. Now he's out of prison, but he wants to go back to North Korea and the South Korean government says nothing doing. And so now what, they're raising the possibility of maybe an exchange of long-term unconverted prisoners? Well, they clarified after, we did a story that mentioned the prospect of there being at least interests in exchange

because those two issues were mentioned side by side. But the Unification Ministry and Presidential Blue Office, both sought clarification immediately after our article that no we're not proposing a an exchange those are separate things you know everything in in fairness to to we every everything happened very very quickly i don't think he expected to be on the mic no i don't think he expected to be briefing me immediately at the end about so it was there was all uh very fast moving yeah and um i can appreciate if what was said didn't actually represent official positions anyway i think it's all being cleared up now.

But that was the first part. But then the second... Hold on a bit of historical context. They're going back, I think it was in 2000 when Kim DeJung was president. Yes. They sent a large number of long-term unconverted communist prisoners from South Korea and North Korea. I forget the exact number. I think it's like 56 or 75.

It's in the two figures, more than 50, less than 100. And they were sent not as part of an exchange, but unilaterally by South Korea. Now, in that whole debate around that before it happened, a lot of people in South Korea said, don't send these people without asking North Korea to send. somebody back but ultimately Kim de Jong sent these folks without asking for anyone to be sent back and so if the Blue House would do the same thing in this case it would be repeating form from 2000 basically sending prisoners would not asking for some sort of reciprocity by bet the key differences the North Koreans would not want these people back well that and that is a question we've talked

about too isn't it that yeah they may not be yeah so anyway um next day wake up I had gone viral in South Korean media and, yeah, just a deluge of messages and articles about the topic and all sorts of... Right, I mean, your names in South Korean press now, everyone knows you. Yeah. If they didn't know you from the Yun-Sung-Yil question time, they know you from this way. Yeah, but I didn't, some of it I really didn't like the, you know, like ultra-conservatives jumping on it. Like, as if I'm a poster boy for their cause, and then on the flip side, one of the former Moon, Jay-N, senior official. accused me of spreading fake news because...

Yeah, do you care to name that individual? I know the Chaucinil were reported on this one, right? Yeah, I think it was Yun, something... I can't remember that. Not going to have mine. I'm sorry. So you're accused now by a former Moon official of spreading misinformation. Because I said, when I had the mic,

when I picked up the mic the second time, I said, you know, the Yoon and Park administrations had raised the issue, I think vocally, but nothing had happened. and then I said, I think I, like, I mischaracterized Moon's F. I said something like, I think the first time I said Moon did little, and then the second time I said did nothing, which is, wasn't true. But what was interesting is this, this official revealed that it was raised at the Pyongyang Summit and the Panmenjom Inter-Prin Summit.

And then he accused me of fake news for not knowing that, but then he also admitted that this was the first time he was sharing it. Right. They'd kept a lid on it, apparently, for security reasons. I also saw the Chaucon, Ilbo, at least the English version, there of the Chaucon Daily, in the headline, journalists face safety warnings and fake news accusations after question presently. What was the safety warning? Yeah, it was weird.

A handful of people on the right reached out to me and said, you want to watch your back with Lee, you don't know what happened, we'll protect you. There were some threads on Twitter or X.com of people like Conservatives offering to protect me. It is... Do you have any hefty fellows following you around with baseball bats these days? No, I'm a, you know, I'll just have to fight. Gosh, what a story. Now, one more I want to talk to you about briefly.

You went to Halifax recently in Canada to the Halifax Forum. That was also interesting. You had some very interesting conversations there. Yeah. I came back with a somewhat jaded perception of the, level of understanding of North Korea's threat in the world, right? Yeah, I mean, I think I'm just more and more jaded when it comes to U.S. and, you know, Western policy towards North Korea. I mean, it just basically is none right now.

But I got to ask on the main forum floor about, you know, the Russia and Ukraine was such a big topic. Sure. Like, look, if North Korea is arming Russia so much, wouldn't it be prudent? Now, what's the reason there's no, no real interest in pursuing a North Korea policy at the moment? Because if you could stop those armaments, it would obviously limit Russia's ability to fight this war in such a significant way.

Anyway, one of the senators responded. So the US senator? Yeah. She said, basically, I don't know. I don't know why we're not thinking about it. And then I just had a number of other. conversations during the forum where you spoke to Ukrainians too didn't you yeah and being honest they they they they didn't really have being brutally honest they didn't know what they're

talking about when it came to North Korea that's surprising isn't yeah it really struck me as like these guys are a party to the war and you you know you don't really know anything about their vulnerabilities um you're you're you're passing the buck to countries like Japan South Korea and U.S. to solve it. And as was reported here, South Korea is giving some form of intelligence to Ukraine, right? I mean, they've got people there on the ground observing, no? Well, one of the, I interviewed a deputy editor from the Kiev independent.

He said South Korea is doing nothing. Nothing. Yeah. I mean, that was, I don't have the ability to fact check that right now for you, but he was saying they're really doing nothing. They've got no one on the ground. And this is very surprising. You'd think they'd be watching their number one enemy on the ground.

That's what he pointed out. He said, look, North Korea is getting a huge leg up on South Korea by having all this training. And why is South Korea just like observing and doing? And why, I mean, I had some Ukrainians on the podcast recently for a longer interview. I'm wondering why they're not. I mean, I know they're calling for armaments and aid from South Korea, but they should also be asking more loudly for people just to come and observe and learn. Yeah.

I mean, one of those people that was in that delegation was at Halifax, and they were talking about sanctions, and I was just like, I really like roll my eyes because we all know that some sanctions on North Korea's munitions industry, for example, it's going to do absolutely nothing. They share a border with Russia. Yeah, yeah. Things can go out by rail from North Korea to Russia without going anywhere through a sanctions enforcement system.

Yeah. So anyway, I found the forum, I mean, it was addressing a lot of different issues, but Ukraine, Russia was by far one of the most prolifically talked about topics. And I just found the absence of discussion of North Korea intriguing. And I couldn't really take many of the panels seriously when they ignored that aspect of this. So anyway, you know, it was mainly, I think one participant who works on career issues described it as being a bit like being at a Democrat convention rally where everyone kind of agrees with each other and there's not much critical discussion. Although I've got to say, Gary Kasparov, the former chess grandmaster, I was there. He's in the political scene now in Russia, isn't he? Or as an exile? Yeah, he's an exile. But he's big in the human rights advocacy community. but I never spoke to him, I interviewed him

and what I appreciated about him, he was one of the only straight talkers I really saw there. There were a lot of European defense ministers like blabbing on about how they'll never accept Russia, blah, blah, blah. But Kasparov just called them all out saying you're basically doing nothing. Like you're making things worse by sending troops to countries like Lithuania who don't have permission to shoot back at Russians. you're creating more of a liability and he even said NATO doesn't exist.

Boy. He was very blunt and very critical. And I kind of, I kind of, I found those remarks refreshing. Wow. Any last thought to leave us with, Chad? Well, we are coming up to the end of the year. And we've got the North Korean Congress coming up in January, maybe February. We don't actually know.

It's not being called yet. But we'll be looking for any sign of new military plan, five-year development military plans, economic plans, et cetera. And all of this could potentially open the lid on discussion with the U.S. if things land in a kind of more neutral way from this Congress. Obviously, Trump is going to be in China in April. Right. You know, it's probably, to be fair, like a one in five chance.

they'll meet or two and five. I did predict at the start this year that they would meet, and I've got that wrong. So ending the year with a failed prediction. My crystal board didn't work. All right. Well, thanks very much for coming on the show today. Chad, see you again soon.

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brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius Gabby Magnuson who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time. Thank you.