North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Seeing the future: What to expect from North Korea in the new year

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

This week’s podcast features a panel discussion with NK News journalists on what to expect from North Korea in the year ahead, taking stock of what they got right about 2025 and making new predictions for 2026. The panelists discuss why DPRK leader Kim Jong Un doubled down on military development last year but didn’t […]

Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O'Swetzlut, and today it is Wednesday the 7th of January, 2026, and we're doing something very special for this podcast. You won't be hearing much from me. This morning I had the privilege of attending an NK Pro subscriber's online and offline hybrid breakfast briefing here in Seoul, at which various predictions were made for the coming year, news about North Korea, as well as a review of predictions made exactly one year ago. And so it'll start off with a presentation from Chatt O'Carroll

and then get into a moderated discussion, moderated by my colleague Jong-min Kim. There was a Q&A session, but that was conducted under the Chatham House rule so that hasn't been recorded and won't be part of this podcast. But I do think that you'll get a lot of value out of the presentation and the moderated discussion about the predictions made for the year.

So without further ado, let me hand over now to my colleagues, and I'll be back next week with another interview. Thank you very much for listening. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today for the NPPro 2026 forecast briefing. My name is Chungman Kim, Executive Director at Korea Risk Group, when we produce NK News, NK Pro and Korea Pro. Today's event is part of our annual forecast series

where we sort of step back from daily coverage or cable writing to assess key trends and risk areas that will shape North Korea's trajectory and do a bit of collective thought experiment on what could happen and how we can all prepare for handling the North Korea portfolio in our respective areas because let's face it,

and a lot of things that not many people comfortably predicted happened in the past year or past week or past 24 hours because, let's face it, we do need to think about black swan scenarios that we never really explored before and so on and so forth in this sort of new security dynamic sort of era. And this is a hybrid invitation-only briefing. So hello to everyone joining online as well. The moderated discussion in Chad's keynote presentation will be published as podcast later, but the Q&A section will be fully. off-record in Chatham House, so it won't be published. To kick us off, Charles, CEO of Korea Risk Group, will walk us through this year's

2006 North Korea forecast, and his slides will basically begin with a brief look back at how our predictions performed last year, including not only what was accurate and wrong, but also what the new variables were in the past year, and he will then outline the key themes and risk area shaping our outlook for the next year, which will serve as a basis. of the discussion that follows. And over to you. Good morning, everyone. Yes. So we're going to start with a quick description of why we do these predictions. Review where we were right and wrong and then look at what might be coming ahead. So I think most of you are familiar with NK Probe right by now, but for those of you who don't know, it's our basically government business level service,

for those of you who are watching the Korean Peninsula. We have a lot of research tools on the website. We deliver newsletters every morning to help you on your way to work so you can sound smart when you meet your boss. We have a mobile app that's delivering all of our news in real time. And I really want to flag this today. We launched this yesterday. We've now built what's called the Intelligence Suite. So I'm sure you've all used chat GPT. And you know one of the flaws with chat GPT is it's sucking in basically everything from the Korea Herald to Fox News to Trostenil

bow to random blogs. And so the quality of what's going in is not necessarily great. So what we've taken is Google's Gemini product and basically layered it on top of the NCO Pro and K News databases. So you can query basically everything we've published over the last 15 years and you get very, very good high quality answers that are including citations, much more reliable. What's more, we've also layered this on top of our entire archive of North Korean State Media. So, if you want to look into like how many times Kinjue has appeared, well, you're not going to get many results because she's only been mentioned a handful of times, but it can help you search and find things pretty easily. So I really encourage you to give this a go. We're going to be investing

a lot in its ongoing development. And if you've got feedback, do let us know. Of course, NKPro members getting invites to briefings like this. And so if you've not yet tried the website, do drop us align membership at nknews.org and we can set you up with a free trial so let's get started what's the point of talking through predictions uh on the korean peninsula so unlike some we don't have crystal balls on our team for predicting the future um and while this event is always popular there's a lot of downsides for us to host this frankly because when we get things right in hindsight it looks like it was obvious when we get things wrong people never forget and tell us that we were wrong But the purpose of these predictions isn't really to just be right. It's to spark conversations. It's to help us discuss trends, pattern, expert judgment, assess evidence and give you guys another perspective on how things might be playing out. And unlike the world of North Korean agricultural accountability, where everything is always great, we believe it's important to reflect on what we did wrong and as well as what we got right.

So let's look back at 2025, what we said here last year. I'm going to start with everything we got right. Okay, firstly, we said North Korea's military would get a lot of spotlight in 2025. The main reason is this has been the last year of North Korea's five-year military development plan. We predicted lots of short-range missiles, MRI-related ICVM activity. We guessed, too, that the nuclear-powered submarine would not be completed on time, but we'd see new pictures. We saw those just a few weeks ago, and this was all correct with the exception of an ICBM launch, which didn't take place, but we did see ICBM engine tests. Prediction two, we said we would see much more investment by the Kim regime in enhancing Kim Jong-un's cult of personality.

And in regards to this, we mentioned that we would start seeing badges, lapel badges with Kim Jong-un's face on. This has actually started to happen. We said we'd start to see a third portrait emerge. You can see this has started to happen in very, just one or two locations, but this could roll out further, and that his daughter would play an even bigger role in state media, and as you all know, that's been the case. Jong Min here, she predicted that we would see an election in Ije Miang win

that took place six months after her prediction, and she forecast that we would see Yijem Yang try and reverse Yun-Sukyal-era policies, but Kim Jong-un give the cold shoulder. And this is exactly what's happened. We saw a lot of angry Kim Yo-Jong statements, claims the North Koreans, the South Koreans, rather have been insincere and so on and so forth. Tourism, this was my accurate prediction. I did get one wrong, which I'll touch on in a minute.

But I forecast that we would see a flip-flop kind of approach to tourism by the North Koreans, that they would open and then suddenly close. And this is exactly what we saw. They opened for tourism in Rasson back in January, and they closed, I think it was February or March. Then there were a number of tourist delegations that were cancelled last minute before trade fairs, etc. And we predicted there would be no Westerners at one San Kalma.

We've seen Russians go there, but really very low numbers. Now, I'm bending the rules here a little bit. Shreyes here two years ago predicted that we would have North Korea reveal an air-based nuclear deterrent. So aircraft armed with nuclear assets. And it didn't take place when Tres thought, but it has emerged in the past year. So I wanted to flag that he more or less got this one right. We saw in November Kim Jong-un reveal new strategic assets and, quote, a important duty for nuclear deterrence in the Air Force. So this one, we predicted, this one we got partially right. Basically, the prediction was North Korea would conduct a seventh nuclear test with the support

of Russia. Russia would abandon all pretense of denuclearization and frame weapons cooperation as peaceful energy cooperation. Now, that seventh nuclear test did not happen, as you all know, but Russia is inching towards recognition. Senior Russian officials recently called North Korean newts a quote, open secret and denuclearization, quote, meaningless. So there is movement towards this, but it stopped short of any formal acknowledgement. We also forecast Russia would officially declare an end of UN sanctions enforcement. The reality, however, is that evidence shows Russia is effectively implementing selective compliance on UN sanctions. Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson even said, quote, so-called denuclearization.

has lost any sense in the new geopolitical political realities. So there is a de facto shift, but it has stopped short of being that official abandonment of UN sanctions. Peter Ward forecast, our economic analyst, that we would see in the wake of foreign currency chaos, rising food and fuel prices leading to social unrest in North Korea. Now, that's all taken place, except there's been no evidence of the social unrest part. The price volatility has been pretty extreme. Forex rates are very, very high. Just to give you perspective, it used to be about $8,000 to the dollar.

And we're now looking at $40,000, mainly due to salary increases, we believe. But there's been a lot of turbulence here. The reality is, though, it's impossible to know whether or not there has been any social unrest because foreigners have not visited probably 95% of North. Korea's landmass now for over six years. Pyongyang, maybe Chongjin, Rasson, we know foreigners have been there once in, but large parts of the country, no one has been for now six or seven years since the pandemic. We also forecast we'd see another space launch failure. You may remember in 2024, this was the year I was in four seasons hotel at 6.30 a.m. and I got a text alert

saying a North Korean rocket was about to land in Seoul and that we should evacuate. It was a wartime alert. That alert was wrong, but the basis of it was right that North Korea's rocket launches in 2024 were going wrong on a regular basis. But in 2025, we've seen no space launch rocket effort. And so, and we've seen very little attention to the space program this year. So this prediction was partially correct. We also forecast we'd see North Korean propagandists using AI technology. We know they've been using it in some areas, cyber hacking. You may have got these impersonation emails. The English has improved dramatically on these. They're almost certainly using LLMs. However, if you read KCNA, if you read Rodong-Schindman, English

translation, it's clear they've not yet decided to use this for official translation purposes. It's still very cumbersome language to read. So partially right here. Yifang, our human rights specialist last year, forecast we'd see the I Jemyang administration kill financial support for defector resettlement, cancel things like North Korea Human Rights Day, Defectors Day, in order to try and get goodwill from Pyong. Everything okay? Yeah. The reality is the Ije Myeong administration has downplayed human rights, but it hasn't crossed

those boundaries of canceling things like Human Rights Day, etc. Now, this is where I have to eat my hat. I forecast we would see a Trump Kim Jong-un meeting before the year's end. I thought that we would see this kind of bromance, reinvigorate via truth social, maybe an exchange of letters, and a surprise Trump visit to Pyongyang. It didn't happen. I got it wrong. But we know that Trump was making efforts at APEC. So I feel I can get a small bit of course. We also forecast we would see North Korea dipping its toes into election meddling, cyber operatives, leveraging Korean fluency and AI to launch election interference.

This didn't happen. And the reality is, this is a big shift change from maybe five, ten years ago. The reality is South North Korean hackers, North Korea, doesn't seem to really care anymore about who is the president of South Korea. Like many, many years ago, it would have tried to influence potentially more progressive candidates to favor, curry favor, but now they just seem to view both conservatives and progressives pretty much the same. So that's a critical review of where we were at last year. Now, what's going on in the year ahead? Okay, so prediction one, Kim Jong-un is going to meet Putin

and he's going to speak to Trump. We forecast Russia will be prioritized in terms of foreign policy. You may remember a couple of years ago, Putin invited Kim Jong-un to Moscow. It's not clear if he'll go that far. He hasn't flown since, as far as we know, he hasn't flown since around 2019 internationally. But a far-eastern Russian meeting could be on the cards. However, after or sometime this year, we forecast that there will be some communication between Trump and Kim Jong-un. Now, there may be a summit. They may not. Whatever happens, it's likely that at this point, any contact is going to be very superficial, high in spectacle, but low in substance.

Prediction number two, North Korea will remain very hostile to South Korea, but paradoxically, we are going into a period of pretty robust inter-Korean stability. So while the absolute enemy kind of language is going to be institutionalized further inside North Korea, the reality, certainly from my perspective, is that the real reason that the real reason Kim Jong-un is doubling down on this South Korea enemy status issue is to provide cloud cover for ideological crackdowns inside North Korea on South Korean information. It's less so about the military threat that South Korea poses. So while E.J. Myeong is going to continue with symbolic outreach and we're going to see Kim Jong continue with these denunciations. But the truth is

Kim Jong-un is pretty much all his bandwidth is consumed by Russia right now, succession, potential talks with the US at some point, and I think deliberately soaking an inter-Korean crisis, as we've seen North Korea do in 2015 with the landmine incident and other periods in recent history. I just don't think this is on the cards. Prediction three, now this is not exactly rocket science. We're going to see huge new construction quotas announced. We know this for a fact because the five-year construction quotas from the last Congress of 2021 are about to expire, so we can expect very big new quotas to be introduced soon. I'd also watch for potential of a major new infrastructure project.

So if you think about it, in the last five, six years, we've had the general hospital completed finally, very late. Once on Kalma has been completed, but we've not seen any announcement of any other very, very major project similar to Mashik Ryeong and the ski resort. Just some ideas, maybe we have not seen North Korea invest in renovating railroads or highways for many, very many years. So we could see something along those lines, or it may be some kind of huge facility or resort

or, like huge 150 floor tower somewhere random. Who knows? Another Ryukyong hotel depends what's on Kim Jong-un's mind. Prediction four for military. Three things here. Dron command being announced, lower-profile missile testing, and a really interesting. battleship transfer from the east to west coast. So number one, we may see North Korea's military dedicate a drone unit and begin large-scale drone exercises this year. We've not seen

any very large exercises publicly in state media yet, and we don't know if there being a dedicated drone unit. So given all that's been happening in Ukraine, keep an eye on this. Secondly, North Korean missile engineers have been getting a lot of data from testing in real life in Ukraine. We had a very low frequency year of missile testing last year. It's probable that this will continue. Especially, you know, there were no ICBM tests last year. And you can raise a question now, if you're Kim Jong-un after seeing what's happened in Venezuela and thinking back to Singapore that you had this gentleman's agreement not to do nuclear tests or long-range ICBM tests, would you feel confident after what's happened in Venezuela in poking the bear right now

with Trump. I'm not so sure. Thirdly, and this is a really interesting one, you've got to watch for this because I suspect there'll be a lot of media attention. One of North Korea's new battleships has to be transferred from Nampo around the Korean Peninsula up to the northeast. And that's going to provide a lot of spectacle. So I already told our team we should get a fishing boat and try and get as close to it as possible. I'm pretty sure Japanese media will actually do that. And then the question is, will the US or Rock try and intervene and stop this vessel? I predict no, and we'll just see this flashpoint pass without a flash. Prediction five, North Korea's doors are going to remain closed for most people. Only very sycophantic delegations,

Kim Il-sung Foundation, Korea Friendship Association will be going in. We could see episodic visits by UN agencies, potentially NGOs, but no return of on the ground presence. Tourism, you know, the marathon's coming up. That may or may not go ahead. It may be cancelled at the last minute. We'll have to see. But I think with limited exceptions like that, tourism is not going to be active in any meaningful way. So that means we are going into the sixth year of no Air China flights into North Korea. Air China used to be one of the main airlines into DPRK and I think all this tourism infrastructure is going to be increasingly repurposed for the growing elite inside North Korea which brings me to the next point and I think this is a

really interesting one wealth inequality in North Korea I think is going to be a big issue in the year ahead we're already getting to the point now where you look at photos coming out of Pyongyang and it's increasingly starting to look like a second tier or third tier Chinese city you have have these similar to South Korea, like the tablet-style ordering devices. You have coffee shops similar to Starbucks Reserve. You've got IKEA in a couple of places at least. Grey Market, of course. You've got new car dealerships with loads of fancy cars coming in from China. This is not the North Korea of the 1990s, but if you are living in the countryside, you are still pretty much in the North Korea of the 1990s. And you're increasingly being

force-fed through state television pictures of just how greater it is in Pyongen, and you can't even visit there because you need a special permit to go. So I think this could be a big area of concern for Kim Jong-un, because on the one hand, he has to keep his patronage network happy. At the same time, if they get too far ahead in this top 1% keeps growing in power and wealth and status, and it becomes just so obvious to everyone else that there's a huge gap, I think this could become a bit of a social problem. Prediction seven, so next year, not 2026, but 2027 is going to be Kim Jong-un's 15th year in rule.

So we can be sure that in this year ahead, we're going to see more of what we saw last year. So more visual focus on his portrait, three portrait displays expanding in location, Kim Jueh. She's probably going to play a key role at the Congress, or we'll see her at least walking around the forthcoming Congress a lot. And I'm pretty sure if there's a meeting with Trump or Putin, she'll be there as well. And so just keep an eye on that. This is another one we thought could be, this is the last of our predictions, something that comes out in the Congress. We've got a new five-year plan about to be announced. And so the possibility of a civilian nuclear program announcement is pretty real at this stage.

This could repackage nuclear research as energy development. It could legitimize Russian support at multiple levels. To be clear, it'd definitely be some kind of rhetoric over reality issue because the grid, the North Korean grid system is very fragmented. It would need huge work to be able to take that much energy and smoothly pass it through the entire country. But there'd be a lot of short-term political objectives secured by doing this, and challenges can be largely obscured.

And already there's the Young Gone facility, which could be used to generate some power. Now, those are our predictions, but on my way into work today, I'm reading that it's now the US official policy to take Greenland. Military use is not being discounted. So I think, especially in the wake of Venezuela, we need to talk about black swan events, things that are outside the bounds of normal predictions, just to try and think. a bit. So we've got three here, just to quickly brief you. Firstly, a nuclear or missile accident. Now, that photo on the left is a genuine North Korean ICBM coming down over the skies of Pyongyang.

This on the left is the Yong'on facility being deliberately partially destroyed back in 2007, I think it was. If we have an accident involving this kind of missiles or infrastructure, let's say a missile comes down over South Korea or Japan, or we have a serious radiological leak, similar to Chernobyl. This is, of course, vintage 1960s technology that they're using at Yongyun. This could contribute to a regional humanitarian crisis, a legitimacy crisis for Kim Jong-un. While minor incidents, of course, are easy to bury. A major disaster could really put the government in serious difficulty, which could create a lot of second order consequences that we can't clearly forecast. Secondly, this one I think is really

interesting. So for those of you who don't know, North Korea obviously is mostly disconnected from the outside world, but it has a huge internal intranet. That intranet has a surprising myriad of functions. There are, for example, apps on North Korean cell phones that allow you to get, you know, similar to coupang, same day delivery of like high-end consumer goods. There are dating apps, there are messaging apps. There's basically a huge amount of data within that intranet that if hackers were able to successfully clone and dump onto the regular internet for open source researchers to look at, we would suddenly learn so much about what's going on inside North Korea. It's difficult to do, but who knows, maybe someone will pull it off. And this is not

actually that crazy. So very few people in this room probably know this, but there is, in fact, a North Korean Coriolink cell phone subscriber list that was marketed to very select individuals, including ourselves, a few years ago, which includes every cell phone number in North Korea, the name of the subscriber, the address, and other personal details. So that has already been put out there into the worldwide web. And so if that's been done, who knows, maybe something like this could be done. A security failure like this could really expose weaknesses and loopholes within the government. So I'd keep an eye out for something like that.

And thirdly, post-Venezuela, what if an adversary attacks North Korean assets? Now, we know North Korea is not making friends right now in certain parts of the world. It's supplying a lot of munitions to Russia. It could be on the wrong side of proliferation in the Middle East. what if an adversary at one point decides enough enough and thinks about drone strikes inside North Korea towards munitions factories, anti-region broadcasts, or cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. Now, we know North Korea's defenses are not great because the South Koreans already pulled this off last year. And 2025, frankly, has shown us that borders mean

less and less when it comes to laser-sharp offensive operations around the world. The risk for North Korea. Frankly, I think an attacker would have a pretty good chance of embarrassing Kim Jong-un quite seriously, especially if it was times to a major military parade or something like that. It would be humiliating. And Kim Jong-un could have quite limited response mechanisms, because if the attacker stays silent and there's no accountability, what's he going to do? Imagine a swarm of drones launched from a fishing vessel on the West Sea. I'm talking like hundreds of drones, similar to what the Ukrainians have been doing. you would, it would be difficult for the North Koreans to handle that and they might not know

for a long time who is responsible. So those are a few things to marinate the conversation today. Before we start, I just want to quickly introduce my colleagues. So Anton, our data correspondent, he's been doing pioneering work on Russia, North Korea, shipping and sanctions related issues. Colin, our eye in the sky, who does very detailed satellite imagery analysis, keeps close relations on China, North Korea and a clear focus on the military of DPRK. Needing no introduction is John Min Kim, our moderator and executive director of Korea Risk Group. She specializes in inter-Korean relations and geopolitical issues relating to North Korea's

foreign priorities. And then Shreyes Reddy, who's our lead correspondent, focuses a lot on North Korea-related cyber issues, state media and more. Just a reminder before I pass over the mic again, you can subscribe for a free trial membership at nknews.org, just send us an email and we'll handle it. Thank you very much for listening to this long presentation. Thanks very much, Chad. Sounds like the New Year is like the point of a year of pretty managed stability,

maybe not major escalation or major breakthrough, but more related to North Korea and China law gains across front relations and military signaling domestic legitimacy, succession. you name it. It sounds like Kim will focus more on consolidating existing external partnerships, particularly with Russia. We did not really touch on China all that much, but we've discussed very moderated part of this, maybe reopening of limited engagement with the U.S., all of this unless there is a Black Swan event that really changes the calibration from Kim Jong-un's end. We'll now move on to the moderated discussion for 35 minutes or so, with our staff who

all contributed to the analysis for this forecast. And before deciding on these forecasts, we did do a bit of our own collective brainstorming, pushing back against each other, sort of exploration and cross-checked our respective bets on these predictions per sector. So the stage is ready, it seems. And the first question goes to you, chat. Seems you are predicting that the New Year looks calmer-ish, not because tensions are like really easing fundamentally, but because Kim is trying to manage risks more carefully considering

what's going on in the world. But if you have to choose, what's the one area where that strategy or that calculation looks most fragile, if anything goes horribly wrong for Kim this year? And to put it in another way, if you were advising Kim as a party secretary or whatnot, what is his most critical assumption that is sort of based, that he is basing a strategy on. And if he's proved wrong in the new year, he will get a big hit. Thanks, I mean. I think the biggest issue is really internal, internal cohesion and loyalty towards the government. So I've spoke to three recent visitors to Pyongyang, and all of them independently, these are businesses that speak relatively good Korean and fluent Korean in one case.

And they all said that they were surprised, shocked that in cafes, in restaurants, they are hearing lots of South Korean style Korean, like this kind of stuff. And officially, this is being highly disenguraged by the North Korean government. If you read Roderun or other state media, you'll see there's all this Pyongyang language laws being imposed. and this is part of a much broader trend by the government since the pandemic to clamp down on South Korean cultural infiltration. So laws imposed to stop people consuming South Korean dramas, music, cultural products, etc. So the thing is, it sounds like this isn't really working.

It sounds like there are examples being made and the government is trying to coerce people out of using this much more modern form of Korean that is associated with this half of career, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. And I think that combined with this growing inequality that we are starting to see, it's a very difficult issue for the government in North Korea to handle in the medium to long term. So if I was advising Kim Jong-un, I mean, frankly speaking, I think he's doing the right thing, which is probably the wrong thing from most of your perspective, which is keep all foreigners out, restrict anyone coming in, minimize contact, minimize global internet access, just all of the above so that we can do our best to plug this.

The thing is, I don't know if you've ever seen that meme of someone trying to sweep the ocean back into the sea, right? this is kind of what he's trying to do right now, and it can work only so long. But I think over the years, this is his biggest challenge, because once the country is pierced in a number of ways and this information more clearly flows in, combined with this wealth inequality issue that I discussed, I feel like it can become a legitimacy crisis in the medium to long term. By the way, I strongly encourage my colleagues to push back against each other if you hear or anything that you don't disagree, especially with your head. And speaking with Colin, when you were monitoring a state media in the past year, you know,

in 2024, the anti-socialist culture law thing was such a big deal in media headlines. What was 2025 like? How much focus was there on trying to consolidate, like, North Korean style way of thought and language and all that. So we've seen the expansion of this Kim Jong-un revolutionary ideology throughout society. It's on slogans everywhere in the country now. It kind of came subtly. People were expecting this Kim Jong-unism to be the keyword following along from his predecessors. But we don't exactly know the full extent of what this Kenjungan-revolutionary ideology is.

seems to be internal education about it, and they have published some summaries about it. So we know internally they're pushing it quite hard, and it's also about the cult of personality, like many more mosaic murals of Kim Jong-un around the country. It's become standard now. He's pushed past whatever obstacle he thought he had in the prior years, and now he's like, okay, I'm going to put these everywhere, so people have to worship me everywhere. So it's really on the law front, less insight into the full text of such laws and how they're being implemented. But we know we can see peripherally how much he's pushing that people need to follow his orders no matter what. And there's also a whole thing about building more prisons, which I've covered a lot in the last year.

They're improving a lot of prisons and they even built a brand new prison. And this is all about we can expect about enforcing these laws, some of which are about. social behavior and maybe tangentially related but I found the apartment provision for the families of the dispatched soldiers dispatched to Ukraine I thought that was interesting it was sort of framed like a reward but it was also to contain them into a certain town so that they only live next to each other yeah I think so Kim Jong-lin promised or he's built a bunch of apartments for specifically the families of the soldiers killed in Ukraine or

killed in Russia fighting Ukraine. And that would be anywhere from 400 to potentially a couple thousand people, soldiers, families being moved into one apartment complex in a kind of secluded area of eastern Pyongyang. So yeah, my interpretation of that was it's about controlling the narrative, making sure they're all in one place. They can watch them and that's understood that they should not be saying anything about about this war. Thank you. Anton, related to that, I remember last year when we were doing this event, I think someone mentioned potential foreign culture,

influence, sort of risk with the soldiers going to Ukraine, to fight for Russia, not just soldiers, but minors and other staff as well. Are you seeing any of that risk actually coming true or anywhere near that? Well, there have been multiple rumors about North Koreans, North Korean soldiers getting in touch with Russian culture, with the Internet, right? Of course, we've seen those reports about North Koreans watching porn. Of course, you browse in the web. Of course, there is no direct information right now. We haven't been in touch with any of the soldiers. I hope one day Seoul manages to get those POWs over here and make. Maybe there will be a press conference where we can actually ask the questions, what kind of access they had, what they could see online, how they interacted with the locals. But there are other reports, for example, about North Korean soldiers being treated at Russian hospitals. So there is at least some low-level communication there. There are sporadic reports coming from eyewitnesses from Kursk, such as, for example, there was this nurse that interacted with North Korean soldiers.

Of course, there's a language barrier. Sometimes they have to use, of course, digital translators, right, to communicate. And that is a bit hindered by the fact that most of them are wired to translate from South Korean. And, of course, there's lots of mistranslation. So there is definitely that. They are definitely getting in touch with Russian culture. Now, of course, we're seeing even more because, well, as you might have seen, Russian pop singers performed in Pyongyang.

So the Russians are now claiming that the Russian language is on the rise in the country. Now it has become mandatory in North Korean schools all the way up to grade 12. So there's definitely that. Thank you. And I'll stay with you for a while throughout 2025. Russia was the biggest headline when it comes to North Korea-related coverage on our website. as well. And we saw the relationship sort of deepened from a just transactional arms deal to into something more broad, more strategic sort of alignment. There were a lot of high-level

visits, expanded cooperation, not just military. And from outside, it sort of looked like it's sort of a durable for a while, anti-West block sort of alignment. And looking ahead into the new year, what could be some of the observable indicators that you might be monitoring? could watch to gauge how resilient the partnership might be beyond just symmetry and optics? All right. Yeah, well, of course, it's always a mix, right? It's always a mixture of things. But if I had to choose one, I would probably say the depths of their military integration. That is one indicator that can help us gauge where this well, so-called alliance is going. Well, we've seen, of course, the deployment, right? But I think the course deployment is as unlikely

the end of the story. What we now need to focus on tracking, monitoring such things as more sustained weapons transfers, technology sharing, even potential Russian North Korea military exercise, maybe alongside China. Particularly military exercises are important because this is something that allows partnering countries to access real-time data while collaborating on certain training grounds and applying that data back at home. So if North Korea gets that access, that kind of access, it can actually propel its military even further without participating in direct conflict. Well, now also we are seeing this kind of indicators that,

well, Russia is devoting a lot of symbolic and propaganda capital to glorify North Korean soldiers their sacrifice. There is going to be songs. There is going to be movies. It's all in the cars. They already announced those. And, well, that kind of narrative building matters because, well, it will be remembered.

You can't just sweep it under the rug and forget about it when political winds shift. At least it makes it harder to do so. And conversely, what would be something like a trigger that could expectantly or unexpectedly weaken the Russian nuclear relations. Right. That's an interesting question, and it's important to highlight that, well, for Russia, while Russia watches Washington, like the most probably,

it's the most watched capital in the world in Moscow, and U.S. policy matters. So if Russia, of course, sees an opportunity to extract tangible gains from the Trump administration, be it like sanctions relief, I don't know, joint economic projects, you name it. It will definitely explore that opening. It doesn't necessarily mean an abrupt break with North Korea, though, but it does raise the possibility of the practical cooperation winding down, while the propaganda element still remaining in place and keeping up the appearances of the alliance being intact for a while at least.

And, well, those cultural attributes, propaganda attributes that I mentioned before will be of great help, of course, movies, glorification, posters, exhibitions, etc. Thanks, Anton. Let's move on to US, North Korea and China a little bit. I'll go to Shias. President Trump is visiting Beijing in April, right? And the South Korean side, the NIS have been saying that they see some sort of preparation, like intel and preparation on the North Korean side for a potential. potential dialogue for after the period of the U.S.-S.-South Korea springtime annual drills that are supposed that's supposed to happen around that time. And Chad's forecast mentioned that North Korea may look to re-engage with the U.S. and the New Year for, you know, maintaining the options diplomatically. But based on what you saw throughout 2025 overall, not just with the U.S., but, you know, China, U.S. competition, like all the other dynamics involved, what are

your thoughts on that and what kind of signal will you be watching for well when it comes to anything related to so when it comes to anything related to north korea as well as of course uh normal trump all bets are off and i think we're certainly seen plenty of that this week that said i'm less optimistic about the prospects of uh reengagement between the u.s and north korea than uh chat's predictions of course i think just it's one of those situations where if I think there's a certain reasoning to why it would make sense for North Korea to engage with the US while Trump is president,

because no one else is going to be willing to completely throw aside the conventions that Washington has operated under for years. But as of now, the situation is still unchanged since Trump came to power, which is North Korea has consistently said it will not engage with the US until and unless it drops denuclearization as a point on its agenda.

Now, Trump has called North Korea a nuclear power multiple times, but that's not the same as formal acknowledgement. And until and unless Trump actually decides he is going to completely shift how Washington approaches North Korea and does it in a way that a future administration cannot reverse, there is still nothing that can really convinced North Korea at this point at least that it is worth reversing course on that.

And we saw ahead of APEC, for example, there was a lot of talk. Would Donald Trump meet Kim German while he was around? He certainly expressed an interest in it, but there were two factors that came into that. One, North Korea was low on the priority list for Trump compared to China, Russia, other themes. And that's still the case. The other factor is the, the, the talk from Washington hadn't really changed. And so Kim Jong-un had no reason to change his mind. Otherwise, it would just make him look weak in some ways if he spent all year talking about how they would not deal with the US for now and how they would have the most hostile anti-U.S. policy, as he put it, only to then go and meet Trump with no change in

the situation, with no change in the calculus. That said, who knows? In the future, Like I said, Kim Jong-un would be aware that they'll probably not get a better shot than Trump if they want a U.S. President to engage with. If at some point Trump decides he really wants that Nobel Peace Prize and wants to be willing to set aside how Washington has traditionally operated just to broker a peace deal with North Korea to get that big win, then North Korea might want to look into that and might consider the opportunity to think. with Trump. Okay. Let me push both of you guys a little bit, excuse me, with the China factor. Because when we talk about U.S. now within the Pacific strategy, we cannot really talk about without mentioning China and the, you know, factor around that.

One, throughout the year I saw the trend from the Western blog, not just the U.S., that when you mentioned deprioritization of North Korea issues, it's part of a broad shift, right? They see North Korea strategy as part of something related to Russia or extension of how they deal with China. It's not a standalone issue anymore if you look at the NSS from the US as well. And second, North Korea has a bit of an awkward relationship going on with China right now because China sort of want to, I think, want to keep North Korea around its corner, but doesn't want to push it too much away towards Moscow, but also at the same time doesn't want to get involved too much. Third, South Korea just we saw yesterday is trying to improve its relations a lot

with China, with Egypt, with Xi, with the Xiaomi phone, and not really mentioning North Korea at all or unification, denuclearization sanctions, UNSC. We used to see that in the past decade, but that was all absent yesterday. Considering all those in, what would be North Korea's calculation when it comes to, you know, engaging with U.S., China, Russia, all at the same time. Yeah, I think that's a good question. And a lot of it comes back to Trump's first term. In the wake of that failed Hanoi summit,

Kim Jong-un realized, or at least came to the conclusion that perhaps trying to prioritize engagement with the US and South Korea wasn't necessarily going to get the results it wanted. And so in the last few years, particularly since the last party Congress, five years ago, they prioritized an approach of dealing with old allies, members of the non-line movement, other socialist countries, and when we say old allies, obviously China and Russia are at the forefront. As you mentioned, North Korea's relationship with China is a little awkward. It's in some ways a marriage of convenience, but at the same time,

they also have a lot in common, certainly have a lot of mutual interests. And what we're seeing from North Korea's perspective and China and Russia as well is for the foreseeable future, it makes sense for them to at least be on the same page, even if they're not going to be 100% in agreement on everything, as part of a broader shift against the US-led global order. And that is what we're probably going to see keeping them together, even when they disagree. And obviously, the nuclear issue is a big factor.

China has, for long, been very openly opposed to North Korea's nuclear program. But in the last few months, starting with Xi Jinping Summit with Kim Jong-un in September, China's been unwilling to even talk about denuclearization. It's no longer really what they want to do. So it's more about just keeping North Korea at the negotiating table, but not actually pushing too hard. And North Korea is also aware that it now has a few friends in its corner that it can turn to more reliably than actually going to former adversaries or current the last time China involved statement mentioned in your characterization was i believe may 2024 after the trilateral between japan south korea um and japan south korea and china

after that no mention of that but the thing is north korea doesn't have much to really offer china for any support chad what are your thoughts um firstly i i want to point uh respond to something Shreya said about North Korea's allies or non-aligned countries that it's being, it's trying to carry favor with and be in this kind of block with China and Russia. So I think very differently about what that means for Kim Jong-man because of those partners, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, they're not looking in great shape right now for being part of that non-line movement. Cuba, you've seen what Marco Rubio said over the last few days. And how has China and Russia helped any of those countries, right? Russia has this same, has a strategic partnership agreement, albeit one without a military clause with Iran.

It did very little after the US and Israeli strikes on the nuclear program. And frankly, I think the North Korean missile launch that we saw over the weekend in response to the capture of Maduro was really out. I think a kind of like an instinctive launch out of some kind of fear that we could be next. We already know from New York Times reporting, if accurate, that the Trump administration tried to send commandos into North Korea in 2019. And going back to the internal security thing that I raised earlier and the pressures inside North Korea, the huge corruption that we know is growing. If I was Kim Jong-un, it would be more important to at least play cake. the US so that I know for the foreseeable few years, Trump is in, I'm in the good books with Trump

and I don't have anything to fear about some kind of midnight operation whisking away one of my generals and my daughter or whatnot. Very, you know, low, low potential, but high risk situation. Now, when it comes to China, I think it's really interesting if you see what's happened over the last few years, we've had a period where China clearly was. unhappy with North Korea over the deployments to Russia. But then starting last year when we had the Victory Day parade and Kim Jong-man went to Beijing, we felt that there might be a new door opening in China-North Korea relations. But speaking to a recent Chinese visitor to Pyongyang, who's quite close to the party,

he said that the only reason that visit happened was because Ije Myeong didn't go. But it wasn't like Kim Jong-un was the top priority guest. And if E.J. Mion had gone, Kim Jong-un wouldn't have been there. And we'd be discussing China-North Korea relations in a very different way. And he pointed to the lack of follow-up from that meeting, which is being that, you know, this should be an era of like delegations shuttling back and forth between the two countries. We did have Chinese high-level observation at the military parade on October 10th. But there's really been not that much going on in that relationship.

And it seems that there's still some kind of mutual distrust, disdain. So, yeah, I don't know. If I was advising Kim Jong, and I'd say at least write a letter to Trump or, you know, take a phone call. You keep saying that I hope that, I actually is listening to that in the past few years. I actually do wonder what you all think about the U.S.-China-related aspect of it. So when you get the post event form about, you know, how you enjoy the event, maybe take, get your bets in as well. We have five more questions and we have 10 minutes left for moderated. So let's pick up the speed a little bit.

Let's move to the military, Colin. 2025 was pretty notable for a shift away from more frequent long-range missile testing and focusing on space capabilities in the previous year toward a more focus on production, stability, tactical drills and other capabilities. We'll see more when the party Congress happens. But based on the developments that you monitored last year, what do you think would be the maybe the most significant shift that you might expect in the new year or continuation? So whenever even in the last missile test a few days ago, Kim Jong-un said it was a hypersonic missile

and that the reason we're testing is because we want to prepare for getting the system to work in an actual war, quote unquote. I think what he's doing is he's admitting openly that everything in the last few years since 2017, since the first ICBM tests, was a lot about signaling, a lot about getting the U.S. and R.K. to back off. And now it's about mass producing. It's about getting the systems to work. He's saying that he's not comfortable with this all working in an actual war yet. So that's kind of where the focus is shifting now. We're seeing potentially some long-range missile bases being built for the first time in a new, in a modern way, according to his new, his, what Kim Jong-un wants, not what they have a bunch of ICBM bases out in the mountains that are very old. And so I think that's one thing. I think we'll probably see a return to satellite launches.

I don't know if it's going to be this year or next, but we are waiting for the Congress to get a clear image. I think we will get a clear image of their priorities, so we won't be guessing for too long. But they are, he's talking about spending all this money as we see in building factories everywhere. What he's saying openly, we need to modernize all of our military factories. We might just see a lot more of that.

And we know that they are putting money into these solid fuel ICBMs. and he's shown the new Hussang 20 ICBM. So I think we will get more ICBM testing, but really it's going to be all about getting the systems to work. Thank you. And Anton on conventional forces, sure, there are a lot of nuclear-related developments in North Korea that grabs media headline,

and those are important, but there were also ongoing smaller-scale conventional modernization efforts in areas like artillery, drones, and so on and so forth, and incorporating lessons probably from foreign conflicts. And if North Korea were to achieve something of a very significant conventional breakthrough, what would be the factor for that? Would that be Russia's technical assistance or battlefield experience or anything else?

Well, of course, well, it's hard to downplay lessons from the Ukraine war that North Korea received. Well, clearly they have seen it all from the miniaturization. of loitering munitions to using fiber optic cables to control drones. Of course, there is now they switch to using mobile units, smaller mobile units, the front lines. So North Korea has seen it all. It probably has done it most of it.

And well, the question now is how much Russia can contribute to this. Well, of course, combining ground experience and Russian know-how can allow North Korea to, well, come up with some new creative solutions in the military field. Right now, what we've seen is North Korea has turned its sides towards a cheaper, expandable UAVs. Well, right now, you know that North Korean specialists are developing this kind of capabilities back at home. I'm talking about the Guaran slash ahead drones. And of course, their colleagues are currently working in, reportedly working in

Russia's Tatarstan, the production base for these kind of drones. So there is that. And another probably element to it, I would say just recently, Kim Jong-in visited this factory producing strategic guided missiles. Well, that's another element and other non-line off-site weaponry. These high-precision weapons, they helped Ukraine specifically target Russian targets on the front line. And if you're a North Korean soldier officer, well, commanding officer general, you are probably going to incorporate that. And now, of course, we're seeing Kim Jong-in's calls for increasing production of this particular weapons. And he by 2.5 times.

And of course, he also mentioned that potentially in the future, they might replace what currently forms the backbone of North Korea's artillery. I'm talking about multiple launch rocket systems with this particular capability. And, of course, it's going to only propel North Korean military even further. So I would say we need to keep an eye on this kind of developments. And, of course, we cannot discount Russia's help whatsoever. Thanks, Anton. Now, let's move on to Domestic for a couple of minutes and then move on to the Q&A section. I'll go to Colleen and maybe share us as well. Like Chad mentioned, one of the key developments last year was Kim Juay's elevation in state media appearances,

not only economic events or some military events, but also diplomatic debut as well, grown super tall, even going to Kim Su-san Palace, but Mom and Dad and standing in the middle. What's your take on, like, all of this? I know that we always ask ourselves every prediction of an issue is successful or not. But is she or what is North Korea trying to say? through these symbolic appearances. I'll just repeat what I say it a lot, but I think North Korea has one strategy

is it's to make us think that she's the successor without having to commit to it yet. And that means we don't know yet if she is or if another child is to be the successor. But the point is to get his inner circle, to get even foreign leaders, his allies, used to the idea of another round of hereditary succession. And so I think with her, she's doing things that look like a potential successor would do.

She's receiving flowers and kissing children at the New Year's event. This is kind of, I think the wife has done that before. So there's always like a counterargument to say that this is just a family thing. But definitely what they want us to think and which is quite successful is that she's the successor. And I think maybe it was Fyodor who wrote on a website that once they decided, it won't be ambiguous anymore. and they will announce it. But some things I would expect just to watch for if she's doing more proactive stuff during appearances,

if she's like taking notes or looking to be more of like an active participant in the events, that might be a sign that she's, you know, studying to be the leader and not just joining dad on an event. Sure. One thought on her, though, If the goal is merely to make others think she's the successor and she's actually not, and Kim Jong-un dies tomorrow, what would be the point of all this?

Because you'd have surely a legitimacy crisis with whoever the next person is. I mean, if you die tomorrow, there's no option anyway. It doesn't matter if they announced her or not. She's still a child or like a teenager. So, I mean, I kind of tend to think that he's setting her up to be this. successor. I just don't think that they don't want to commit to it yet. So that means we kind of have to watch for it. What other signals that you might be monitoring shows about this? Yeah, I think what we've definitely seen her increasingly prominent in state media in the North Korean Public Eye

over the last three years since she's been introduced. But every time we've seen her, it has essentially been as an extension of a father. Sometimes it has been following him around at a formal event, sometimes it's been as part of this family vibe that we've certainly seen a lot in the last couple of weeks. But inevitably, it is fundamentally down to her being part of the family, part being Kim Jong-un's child, and that's also reflected in how state media portrays her. They haven't even given her name yet. So officially, She isn't yet a person. She is just Kim Jong-un's daughter. She hasn't really done. So if we start seeing her handling more solo events, for example, as Colin said, playing a more proactive role,

taking part in her own activities, then perhaps that's something where we can say, oh, she's actually starting to make a name for herself. She's starting to be identified for herself rather than just as Kim Jong-un's daughter and perhaps as chat predicted maybe we could start seeing a more public profile for her at the upcoming party congress but i think we're still a while away from her being positioned for leadership through those more formal mechanisms for example for one thing she's at least five years too young to join the ruling party which means they can't give any official positions yet. So if we actually see her getting an official role of some sort at this party Congress, then that's definitely a sign because that means it's just thrown out

80 years worth of rules for her, which I doubt will happen. Could they make her in the children's union? They could put her something very unexpected. The main children. At the very least, we do know that she is an unprecedented case because no North Korean leader or successor has. has previously been introduced as a child. It was only once they reached adulthood. So whether or not she is a successor, she is at the very least the first child from the Kim dynasty who has entered the public eye,

which means at the valley, she is going to be a prominent face for many years to come. OK, let's touch an econ question for just a minute together and then let's move to Q&A. Anton, when it comes to Russian economic assistance, what are the areas that will actually actually be the most helpful for Kim Jong in the new year. And for Colin or Chad,

2026 economic sort of signal that North Korea might be giving to the domestic audience, what would be priority, like construction, whatever. We will see in the party parks, but if you had to sort of explain in advance, what would it be I'll go to Anton first? Right, very briefly. So, of course, financial resources matter. and North Korea has already been getting a lot of resources from Russia, be it fuel, oil, I mean, of course, high-tech support, and direct cash transfers, military transfers.

So that all happened, but we need to keep in mind that these resources, they are definitely going to be used to modernize the KPA, the current people's army, and, of course, to bankroll the Pyongyang elites. some of it will eventually trickle down to the other parts of the economy, that's for sure. And of course, speaking of sectors of the economy, I would say that construction projects, large-scale construction projects like we've seen before, like the housing projects or farming, they will keep receiving funding. That's true. But of course, Kim Janin is interested in keeping up the appearance that he's interested in bridging

the gap between the gap and wealth between Pyongyang and the other regions. And to do that, of course, resources will be poured, some resources will be set aside to build new factories and farms, etc., in provincial towns. But we also need to keep in mind that all of this is going to come at the cost, because when there is a huge mass, huge sum of money being poured into the economy, it definitely creates inflatory pressures. Of course, we probably going to see further depreciation of the North Korean one, and we will see probably North Korean real income stagnate,

which means that large worth of population will have trouble buying products, right? Especially it concerns those that are coming from abroad, so imported products, because, of course, due to the depreciation, things will get more expensive. And at the same time, it has another fact that the North Korean regime is going probably to be more reliant on foreign currency and will be seeking that foreign currency to continue the economy going. At the same time, there are still big concerns about the extent of how much North Korea can allocate to provincial towns. So most likely these resources are going to be concentrated in Pyongyang, which further might increase dissatisfaction in other towns. And that is something that the Kim regime will have to deal with and have to manage.

Yeah, I would just add that the wealth gap. Kim Jong- has talked about it openly more than five times, I think. He's very concerned about the state of the economy and everywhere, outside of Pyongyang basically so but we have to keep in mind his top priority is still control of the population ideology so everything he's doing i think it's just the the 20 times 10 project where he's saying he'll build three or four factories and a hospital and a leisure complex in 20 places per year for 10 years he's shown us he has the money to do that but But these, you have to look at the photos and what these places are.

They're quite small if you compare it to other countries, but maybe it'll satisfy the local economy. I don't know. But the fact that, you know, these leisure complexes, they have like a, it's supposed to satisfy the county, but it's just in the city center and it's got like a gym and you see the photos and it's like two treadmills and a exercise bike. I mean, it's a little bit strange. And, but one thing about the leisure complexes is they're building these. You know the markets that are in every town in North Korea. They're adding some kind of open-air market to these leisure complexes. So it signals to me some kind of experiment with, I don't know yet.

There's not many details on it, but they're trying to experiment with state control over these markets, even though they already control the other markets. So something to watch for there. Just the main point is that everything he's doing on the economy, is throttling it to make sure he can watch the effect on his control over the people. control over the people at every step of the way. And that's kind of what's making him hold on to more widespread development in the countryside. Bestsellers unveiled at NK News Shop.

Step out in style with our top selling apparel from the NK News Shop, fly high with the Air Cordio T-shirt, celebrating DPRK's golden era of aviation in vintage airline chic. line chic. Explore the stars with our NADA, inspired by North Korea's answer to NASA, or toast to tradition with our Tehronggang 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. A final question to all of you, just 10 seconds each. Let's try to come up with a watch list for everybody in the room. And if you have to tell us one thing, if this happens in early 2026, the first half of 2026,

pay attention, this is really important. What would it be? Anyone, Colin? Just go down the line, I guess. I'll pull something out from, we talked about it before, but I think Kim Jong-in is testing these. surface-to-air missiles, better, longer-range surface-to-air missiles. Just a few years ago, they were talking about shooting down spy flights off the coast. So I think it all comes together to signal that they're going to push, press this issue.

And I think I might have even talked about this last year, but, you know, maybe they didn't do it this year, or maybe they didn't do it in 2025, but they are testing these weapons more frequently. And I really think it's going to come back. I think they will say no more flights off our coasts, we're going to shoot your planes down. And I think that's going to really pose a choice to the U.S. and ROK. Chat? Yeah, just sightings of high-level North Korean officials in countries where Indonesia or other places where the CIA might be in contact with it. First. In one word, Trump, I mean, if he changes, if he decides.

That's easy, sure. Come on. Okay, well, but basically, but basically if he decides denuclearization is not something that really needs to be brought up, especially ahead of that, April summit with Xi Jinping, that is something that would be a game changer. So, and if anyone can really change the calculus on how Washington deals with North Korea, it's strong. Okay, I agree well. Anton. Well, it's going to be military and I think first, the first thing that we need to look into is whether North Korea participates in military exercises or Russian, whether it becomes a regular thing. And then,

we need to see what kind of equipment they bring with them, because we have seen a lot of rare examples in the course graduate. And, of course, we need to also look into the generals or commanding officers that are behind these operations. We've seen quite a few in charge of the course operation, but also it would be nice to know other faces that could be in charge of these military exercises. And also, there is an international element to it. Russia often holds exercises with other countries that are also partners of North Korea,

particularly Laos, and, well, sometimes India too, and Iran. This will also paint a picture of how North Korea interacts with them. I think it will be an interesting development if it happens. Thanks very much, and that's the wrap. Thanks for joining us today. Happy New Year, everybody. And let's continue seeing you hopefully in the New Year for the next. still wants. What are we saying? Thanks for coming. My brain's gross. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, that 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.