North Korea News Podcast by NK News - New Year’s in North Korea and a ‘nuclear’ submarine on Christmas Day

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

This week, Korea Risk Group Executive Director Jeongmin Kim kicks off the podcast by discussing North Korea’s upcoming plans for New Year’s Day, including the possibility of a special message from leader Kim Jong Un. NK News’ Kim discusses how the DPRK leader has retreated from the tradition of delivering a dedicated New Year’s Day […]

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Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Wetsuit, and I am recording this episode today on Tuesday, the 30th of December, 2025, the next to last day of the year. And I'm joined by Jong Min Kim on the show via distance on stream yard. Jong Min, welcome back on the podcast. Thanks for having me. It's meaning for its last episode. Yes, that's right. you are the last episode for the year.

How do people in North Korea plan to celebrate New Year's this year? Usually there are like a youth celebration. There are marches. There are concerts. I think it might be the same this time around. But the New Year's Eve have been quite similar, but New Year's Day have been sometimes a bit different from ear to year. If you remember the good old days, there used to be speeches, right?

Kim Jong-un would deliver a big speech on television about the year ahead and reviewing the past year, sort of like starting the year together under like one motto sort of thing. But that sort of dialed out in recent years, really. Yes, he used to, I remember that famous video a couple of years ago of him in a massive study or library that we hadn't seen before. And a lot of people were sort of analyzing the background and the portraits of, I think, father and grandfather or one of the two in there.

That was a big moment. But, yeah, as you say, they don't seem to do that much anymore. Yeah, I think that was 2020 or something. It sort of gave him like a statesman sort of normal country sort of look. I think we were analyzing at the time like that. But then after that, it was mostly like letters on the first day, on Rodong Shimon, a letter, like little letter to the people basically saying things for going through all the challenges in the past year.

And then he would usually keep the main important juicy material for the speech for either the big end of December party meeting, which is not happening this time because it already happened early December or mid-December or other party meetings in coming weeks. And in this case, it would be party congress. So our guest's time is something similar like previous years, something like a written thing on Rodong, but keep the actual really important speech. war at the party congress probably okay so we'll come to the party congress at a moment but basically so what we can expect to see on new year is probably some kind of outdoor show in piongyang right they tend to do that each year no matter how cold or warm it is that's correct right and possibly an impressive drone show and maybe some some laser lights and some fireworks and a bit of uh north korea version of a k-pop performance yeah sort of song and dancing and one outlier in recent uh

I think it was 2003 right after North Korea announced that South Korea is a separate country. They did like a missile test, which was kind of new to do on a New Year's Day. But it was particularly related to their new postures against the main enemy, South Korea, the separate state. So that was, I think, a different situation compared to now. Right. And that's a posture that still continues. So we can still expect to see absolutely no mention of anything like unification or, you know, Korean Brotherhood or that kind of thing. Yeah.

And then on New Year's Day, perhaps a letter from Kim Jong-un on the front page of the Rulong Shimon, but then all eyes will be on the preparation for the party Congress. And that's, is that the largest of the kind of party meetings that they regularly have in North Korea? Right. Party Congress is the most high profile. And the, it's very official, I would say. It usually does get followed up after the party plan on to sort of go through the agenda. they said in the plenum. And party Congress is where we see major announcements, usually. And this

time around, it would be reviewing of the five-year plan and potentially a new one as well. Ah, a five-year plan. Okay. So we've got that to look forward to probably in mid-January, right? I believe so. Okay. Now, we've got some, a couple of recent stories. One on, I want to start with the with the massive nuclear-powered submarine that North Korea has unveiled? The Christmas gift. So we are usually preparing for really low news cycle during holidays. But when we woke up, especially when Colin woke up, and there was this big, massive nuclear-powered submarine photo

on the first front page of Rodon, Colin used the Christmas gift image and saying it's happy Christmas. So, yeah, there was a big revelation that day. context there. There was a, I think was it back in 2019 that North Korea threatened to give an unfriendly or unpleasant Christmas gift to South Korea and the US. And that kind of ended up being a bit of a fissor. But now we've got this Christmas gift being a nuclear-powered submarine. And I mean, I don't know about the insides of it, but just by the the photographs, judging by the scale. Once again, North Korea has surprised and impressed us all by what it's able

to achieve despite international sanctions. Right. And what it's able to achieve, at least on the surface, I would say. There needs, I think at this point, needs to be a caveat because we just don't know how developed it is. It's quite big. It's 8,700 tonne. It's nuclear power, non-nuclear armed, but strategic guided missile summary. So, like, just who knows what you could actually do. Kim Jong-un actually inspected himself as well. And the context is really interesting because, not only that it comes after South Korea getting the approval from Mr. Trump for getting the fuel for its own nuclear power submarine, Kim directly framed it around it, saying that this is South Korea also did this nuclear submarine development plan, and Washington approved it, and it's a very aggressive act, and so on and so forth. That was very, very interesting. Right. But of course, I mean, a submarine of this size and scale could not have been worked up in the last couple of.

of months since Trump gave the green light on South Korea to have nuclear-powered submarine. So this was clearly on the way for a long time, right? Right. I think the context itself, it was probably a strategic timing sort of promotion rather than they just built up in the past couple of weeks. It was probably in the military multi-year plan as well. But it seems it just made good sense for them to review it now before South Korea does anything and also there are like important omissions that you can tell that they maybe rush this

a little bit or they are intentionally hiding maybe a few details like the naval reactor they're not saying anything about it no photo signs of it either have not demonstrated any possession or function of naval reactor either in the past so experts are actually saying that it could be partially just completed hull just sort of used to show it's it's a purpose progress under the new under the old fiber defense plan uh but anyway that would not be unusual yeah yeah of course we have on in in past parades for example past north korean military parades we have seen things that in the end looked like they were probably prototypes rather than actual working models right right like there there are usually like mock-ups for a very good

sense as well because they probably don't want to roll out something completely expensive into the into the Kimmelston square sometimes like when it's raining right and also they don't want to show too much details to you know the zooming party for the oh scent experts basically right right right and also it should be borne in mind i mean you've already mentioned the caveat there that we don't know what's on the inside of it but uh north korea if anything if we've learned anything over the decades it's that north korea can put on uh can construct a very nice looking facade i mean just going around the streets of Pyongyang, you know, we see these very modern looking buildings, but often we find out that they're made with old-fashioned construction

techniques, just basically bricks, concrete and some reinforced steel, and then with a nice modern sort of glossy facade put on the front to make it look more up to date than it actually is. Right. They are very good at the, what do you call it, the window dressing when it's necessary. They can do it very quickly and very well, but also vice versa. They know how to hide something very well as well. And also Kim Jong-in, maybe this is not related, but he also did reference, you know, underwater secret weapons they have been developing, like hail, nuclear and underwater drones as well on the same occasion. Right.

Now, almost at the same time, the KCNA released a statement criticizing the arrival of a U.S. nuclear power submarine in South Korea. the U.S.S. Greenville, which it called an act, sorry, a grave act of causing instability and escalating military tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the region. Does it see any irony in this at the same time as unveiling its own nuclear-powered submarine? I think from North Korean perspective, it's not irony at all. And it's probably the very convenient justification that I can use. Well, they have it and they're using it against us. We feel threatened. Why not us? their logic. They're saying that Seoul and Washington is forming a nuclear

confrontation block and that the countermeasures I think they did this before when there was an aircraft carrier visiting. They said that they will respond when they perceive a threat and now they are also saying something similar

saying a countermeasure could include symmetrical and asymmetrical response which basically means conventional and nuclear. So I think from their perspective, building something like nuclear power strategic guided missile system sort of submarine makes good sense, especially when something like USS Greenville is coming nearby. Also worth mentioning just as a final point there, that on his visit to the Pongda or Bongdeer

submarine factory in Shinto, up there on the northeast coast of North Korea in South Hong Kong province, Kim Jong-un did take his wife and his daughter along to have a look. Right, and she was quite tall now. She's getting big for her. I mean, we don't know her exact age, but she's in her early teens, so she's quite, I mean, she's almost as tall as a father, yeah? Yeah, and also she is sort of mimicking or maybe getting, developing a sense of Kim Jong-in sort of esk fashion, but with her own taste a little bit, I can see that. But yeah, she has been following inspections related to these really major revelations recently. Yeah, so we'll have to keep an eye on this and see when there's.

submarine is actually launched and tested. Hopefully we'll be able to, I mean, nuclear submarines, of course, have famously quiet underwater, so we may not have an idea, but well, we hope so anyway. Yeah. Now for our final story, let's talk a little bit about South Korea. It's finished up its US, well, its joint forces field training with the US quite a bit behind schedule. Yeah, I think I need to use the Titanic meme, or you say it's been 84 years. But it's not 84 years, but it's been four months. But it's finally completed after four months. It was supposed to be a summertime drill.

Right. But at the time, the reason for delay U.S. and South Korea, more like South Korea, started explaining that half of UFS outdoor exercises were postponed at the time because of extreme summer heat. It was true at the time of the announcement, but then a couple of days later, the heat, sort of dialed down. So it became sort of awkward for the military to maintain that logic. And then when reporters pressed at the time, and also it was smart of the JCS to actually say this in advance too, they sort of framed the delay overall as a way to not just respond to the heat, but to spread out the combined training across the year this time. It sort of, you know, made it sound pretty.

It was to maintain readiness throughout the year's sort of thing the JCS set at the time. But Anyways, it's been all done now. JCS is sort of arguing, emphasizing that the military is retaining the overwhelming capabilities despite the delay. But there were some speculation that this might have been for political calculation because of a lot of South Korean official remarks in recent months. Well, and most famously, the unification minister, John Dong Yong, talking about scaling back exercises. And there was, I think, in the lead. up to, well, as I recall, in a lead up to the APEC meetings in late October, there was such an expectation that Donald Trump might be able to kick off talks again with Kim Jong-un,

that do you think that that's, you know, one of the sort of behind-the-scenes factors, influencing the decision to delay these exercises? I think unification ministry even went as far as to suggest that it was one of the causes. I think one of the officials in the back briefing were like quasi, was quasi, being proud that it was being considered. But I'm not exactly sure how much this would actually persuade the U.S. military side of the logic. And also North Korea, although North Korea talks about, you know, how they hate drills. I don't think this is like a card that will actually move a needle on their calculation.

Maybe it's a good gesture from their perspective. But it's not a such important action compared to 2018. But it wasn't just unification minister as well, but I think in recent weeks, President Lee was also signaling some openness to scale back or postpone, like not definitively saying that it has to be done to ease tension, but he was mentioning here and there that he's kind of open to it. And after unification minister said that and then Lee sort of suggested something similar to that, the National Security Advisor, Riesong, of course, sort of openly reached. that saying the series not considering scaling back. Yeah, he pushed back very explicitly saying the suspending joint drills to restart inter-Korean dialogue is not something that he is willing to do. Right. Well, let's see how that goes with the spring exercises in early 2026. How will you be spending New Year's Eve? Will you be staying home watching the live feed from

Pyongyang to watch the drone show? For sure. That's the classic M-Knews way. This is what we have to do. All right, raise a glass. our listeners. Thank you very much, John Min Kim, and we'll see you on the show next year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. by North Korea's answer to NASA, or toast to tradition with our Tehronggang Gang beer t-shirt, capturing the essence of North Korea's renowned brew. Each design is a conversation starter.

Find yours at shop.nknews.org. Again, that's shop.nknews.org. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Brian Betz 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.