North Korea News Podcast by NK News - The first Lee-Trump summit, and North Korea’s commemoration of war dead

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

In this week’s episode, NK News Deputy Managing Editor Alannah Hill breaks down President Lee Jae-myung’s first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, where Lee appealed for Trump to take on a ���peacemaker” role with Pyongyang.  She also discusses the flood of newly released state media footage showing North Korean troops in combat in Russia’s […]

Looking to stay informed about South Korea's fast-evolving political business and cultural landscape? Join us on Korea Pro, the go-to resource for in-depth analysis expertly curated by top-tier professionals. And now you can pick the membership level that best suits your needs thanks to our new subscription packages. Starting at just $199 annually, you can access daily analysis and our weekly podcast. Or try our premium membership package, which offers additional perks such as executive briefings, monthly reports and forecasts, networking receptions and event opportunities, as well as much, much more. To find the best fit for you, just head to signup.org and become a member today. Hello listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O'Switzland. And today, it is Tuesday the Tuesday, the 26th of August 2025. And I'm joined here in the studio by Alana Hill. Alana, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me again. I don't know about you, but I'm in a signal chat group. I won't say if it's the one with Pete Hedgett and Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance. But overnight, it blew up because President I Jem Yong was having a summit in Washington. And when I went to bed, I was a little bit nervous, having seen what President Trump put on his truth socialists. Oh, no, is he about to be Zelenskyd? But I woke up at the morning. Actually, it looked like it was okay.

Yeah, I also woke up quite early to a plethora of Jan Haap Alerts. and luckily, Jungman... Warning, urgent. But yeah, I think it was an interesting summit comes on the back of Lee meeting Ashiba over the weekend. During that summit, they reaffirmed their commitment to the completed nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Apart from that, nothing really major coming out of that.

This morning we're hearing from the E. Trump summit, there actually was some talk about North Korea. E has basically asked Trump to play the... I'm doing air quotes here for our listeners. peacemaker role in discussions with North Korea. Sort of pick up from where he left off, basically at the end of the Hanoi summit in 2019. Acknowledging that he does have some sort of relationship with Kim Jong-un and asking him to use that relationship to try and get Kim to come back to the negotiating table.

He also made a joke that they should build a Trump Tower in North Korea, potentially play golf there. Oh, yeah. Well, they do have a golf course there. They do. Actually, Anton wrote a great story about it recently. And, of course, Trump was thrilled with these suggestions. Usual, he respects Kim.

They have a great relationship. He was asked about a potential timeline when he could potentially meet Kim. Trump threw out maybe this year. But he also said, the interesting words, what, in the appropriate future, I think was the phrasing that he used, which is, you know, vague. It's a bit like the old in-due course from the Cairo Declaration. So it's kind of like, well, whenever it works out. There was talk about perhaps at APEC in Gungju. Right, late, late October.

So coming up real soon, basically two months from now. It seems unlikely, but you never know. I do recall Unification Minister John. I think it was Jong-Jung, right, who floated the idea of, hey, let's invite Kim Jong-un to come to Kyeongju for the Apex Summit. Yeah, yeah. I wonder has he got that invite or SVP'd. Right.

And then they also talked about things like U.S. troop deployment, base arrangements, in South Korea, shipbuilding, things like that. But nothing really coming out about, specific, about USFK. So, yeah, we'll just have to wait and see with that one. I do recall Donald Trump saying something like, it'd be nice if the Koreans would give us ownership of the land where we have our large fort was the word that he used. Okay. Well, we'll see.

Yeah, that's obviously a sensitive point here in Korea, having gone through colonization before at the hands of the Japanese. Now, I think Kim Yo-Jong has said before, public statement that they'd be interested in talking with the United States as long as denuclearization is not on the table. So when presidents E and Trump were talking in Washington yesterday or overnight and they talked about picking up the negotiations again, did they talk about denuclearization? Was that there? I'm not sure. Actually, I don't know the answer to that, Jacko. Right, so it wasn't one of the major headlines coming out of the meeting, right? No, definitely not. It's basically,

we'll talk. So maybe conditions can be found in which Kim Yo-Jong and Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump can agree to meet and greet and see where that goes. Stranger things have happened. Stranger things have happened. We've lived through it and we hope to live through more of the same. Yeah, I think generally the feeling is that E.J. Myeong handled themselves pretty well, right? And it was a very long meet. It was two hours and 20 minutes longer than schedule.

Yeah. I think overall people would say it went well. And I mean, from the NK News team perspective, we were very happy that we got some North Korea topics to touch on. Of course. So it was a good day. Great. Okay. So that's that one out of the way.

Where should we go next? So our biggest story over the weekend and we're still covering it so, so much has been coming out of North Korea, basically about troops that have been deployed to Kursk. So Thursday last week, the country held, I don't want to say celebrations, events, I guess, commemoration events.

Yeah, to honour the fallen troops that have been killed in Kursk. Friday we saw all this footage on KCTV, a couple of hours worth of footage. Yeah. And we've just been... And there was Kim himself, like Kim Jong-un himself. meeting families of deceased,

meeting soldiers who've returned, honoring war dead. Right. And in honoring the war dead, they brought together all the death portraits, you know, of all the soldiers. Yes. And there was a lot of them.

Yeah, about 101. Now, interestingly enough, Colin's work, or eyes in the sky yesterday, noticed that in other footage, there was actually additional troops that weren't on this wall. So he has found,

in addition to the 101, another six. And so I think that it's not, you know, 101 doesn't seem to be the correct number, per se. Not from what we've heard. Right. So a lot of the soldiers that were featured on this wall, I want to get this right, they got a, they were awarded, let me find it. Yes, I think we saw on the footage there that Kim Jong-un was applying something, affixing something to the portraits.

The Hero of the Republic title. Right. So we spoke to a defector who has actually served in the army and basically told us that this title is it sets you up for life in North Korea. Or in this case, your surviving relatives. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of these soldiers were awarded with this title.

Very touching scenes. You know, it's family's crying. It was very, it's sad. And then also a lot, a lot of footage of troops actually fighting in Kursk, which we're still learning a lot about. Yeah. Wow. Wait, filmed by whom though? So a lot of them are actually like first

person filming. Well, like a body cam? Yeah. Yeah. I really. interesting footage. We're still, you know, dissecting it, basically, but a lot of information about the weapons they've been using, the systems, they've been using what they're learning in combat. Interestingly, there wasn't much footage of North Koreans fighting alongside Russians. Right. Well, we have heard that they've kind of been, I don't know, in many circumstances, sort of cut loose to operate on their own, right? Right. And I, an expert that also spoke to us, kind of said, the point, of course, with all this footage is propaganda. So they want to

exhal the North Koreans as the heroes in these situations, so they wouldn't really want to be putting, you know, Russian soldiers in these, in this footage. Right. Right. Well, that's true. To touch on the weapons briefly, a lot of systems, I'm useless with weapons and names and things, but what we've heard the most important thing that's coming out of this is how much experience North Korean troops are getting with UAVs, how to use them, how to respond to them. Unmand aerial vehicles or drones as we... Or drones, yeah, yeah. So that's definitely in A lot of footage showing them using drones and defending against drones. Right.

Which is, I mean, we keep hearing in tales from the war, excuse me, Russia's war on Ukraine, that this is the future of modern warfare. Yeah, this is modern warfare. It's cheap, easily replaceable drones, either with explosives attached to them or just as a means of pointing out where somebody is and helping a sniper or something like that. So, yeah, drones are very important, and North Koreans have been. We've been talking about that over the last year, but how North Koreans are able to use one of them in a small group to sort of lure a drone

and then the other to basically throw everything they have at it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and again, speaking about warfare and tactics, another thing that become very, very clear from all this footage is how North Korean soldiers are basically being instructed to commit suicide, whatever happens. Don't get captured. Don't get captured. A lot of the names on the wall that you had mentioned with the portraits have a brief description of their combat.

What happened to them? And I'll just read one, for example, a young man 19 years old, a youth league member, his description, it's while retrieving the body as a fallen comrades, what were severely wounded and surrounded by enemies. So they embraced each other and courageously self-definated with grenades. Boy. There's a lot of these talking about self-denated with grenades. or took their own lives. And we had heard that in the past

from Ukrainian intelligence that this is what North Koreans had been instructed to do. And but yeah, it's just become very, very evident now that they've been told do not get captured. Wow.

And at 19. 19, yeah. Yeah. Colin compiled a really interesting, he compiled a list in the pictures. He did a really great job. So, I mean, it's very sad to read, but it's interesting to go through

and see these different people and names, faces, ages, wide range of ages and, yeah, their experiences. So, yeah, I'll link that one. All to be found on our NK News website. And, of course, this is the first time that large numbers of North Korean soldiers have been in combat on a battlefield since 1953. So it's such an important topic.

And we will see, I think, the ripple effects through North Korean society for a long time. Absolutely. People have their sons coming home in Coffin, sadly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It feels like here at Encanus, we're basically, as you said, the picture you're painting the last week, we've been drinking from the fire hose of information. They've just been a floods of pictures and stories and texts coming out in the last week or so, right? Yeah, I mean, Friday was crazy.

For how long were we dealing with almost no information? Are there, you know, has North Korea acknowledged that the result of it? And now we're just like, oh, here we go. Here's the data dump. Yeah, yeah. And we're still covering, you know, we still have analyses coming on the kinds of weapons we're seeing. It's just, it's so much information that we're seeing, yeah, like you say, Jacob, basically for the first time, from the North Korean perspective, so. Well, it's good to be busy.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so let's move on then to a story that we talked about last week, this 95-year-old convicted spy for North Korea, born in the south in Kanghua Island, just past Kimpo, but sent, well, he went to North Korea and then sent back, got arrested in 1953, spent many, many years in prison, 45 or something, 40-something years in Britain, was released in 1995, had the opportunity to go back,

would be repatriated to North Korea in 2000, but said, no, I'm going to stay here until the American leave I'm going to continue the struggle and now he's 95 and he says all I want to do is go north and be buried with my comrades at the Marta Cemetery. He had the press conference recently in which she said send me back what's the update what's happened? Yeah so last week he made that attempt to go back him and a committee that are supporting his wish to return marched towards the unification bridge unsurprisingly were stopped at a military checkpoint and told them you do you not have the permissions to go any further and sent back.

So he was actually, I mean, he's an elderly man. He's in his 90s. His health is not great. He said himself and he was hospitalised after that. He said he had some issues of his eyesight. I haven't heard if he's going to attempt to do this again. And he's not the only person. I'm not sure if, I know Jujan, my colleague was speaking with this last week.

I think there's five other people trying to return also. Oh, okay. And so I think we will see more about this story. story, whether it's related to him specifically or these other people. Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video that Peter Ward shared with me by Zhu Songha, the North Korean defect reporter and YouTube broadcaster. And he basically laid out three reasons why he thinks that North Korea would be very unlikely to accept Mr. Unback.

And one of them is, well, it's finished with unification. It's not interested in that anymore. So it won't be calling him a hero for unification of it. Mr. Arn, unlike some of the other repatriates, didn't actually achieve very much in the time that he was a North Korean spy. It was around there for 90 days, got arrested, didn't do much. So lots of reasons there. And also recently we had the precedent of the body of a North Korean soldier

that was washed up in South Korea after a flood. The South Koreans said to North Korea, here, come and get this body, and the North Koreans didn't. So we're not sure. Well, has North Korea expressed any interest? Have they sort of made any messaging at all saying, give this man back? You know, how dare you keep him?

No, and from my understanding, too, I mean, I know it's slightly different, but we've seen in recent months when these North Korean fishermen flowed across the NML, and North Korea apparently has made no attempts to respond to South Korean messages to say, you know, these people want to go back, you know, let's meet and do an exchange. So it's saying... Typically, North Korea would make a lot of noise because, again, it's a propaganda victory for them to make it. These North Koreans, they went to the South and they want to come back, you know. And we had this conversation also in the office last week

because I felt the same. Would someone like this not be a great propaganda tool? But clearly not. They have no interest. Right. And gosh, I mean, I'd hate to be the one to break that news to Mr. Anak's off, but I can imagine that would be quite devastating to hear

after all those years of struggle at 95 that I'm sorry, but your republic doesn't want you back anymore. Bad luck for him. It's a sad story, a sad end to a long life. Yeah. You've also got some news about a defector survey. Yes, absolutely. So we got some defector numbers out yesterday. The total number of defectors arriving in South Korea for the first half this year is at 96. Somewhat similar to the same period last year, less than the second half of last year.

88 women, eight men. And again, just highlights how these numbers have decreased from their height. A lot of these people apparently came through had been in third countries, living in third. countries. Since probably well before COVID, I mentioned. Right, right. And then made the move to defect. And so, yeah, that's the numbers for the first half. Because we know that it's so hard now to cross that border with China, thanks to all the new fencing and the motion detection cameras and all the new tech, basically, that we're now, in a way, it's like going back to the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s when almost all the defections were happening across the demilitarized zone. If you're going to have any defections now that direct from North Korea and South,

They're mostly going to happen at the demilitarized zone rather than over China and then down a much more dangerous or difficult route now. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And then I suppose last DeFactor stories kind of touches on the same one. Jiu Yan actually covered a really interesting study

that was released, I think it was last week, about how North Korean defector children, how they face a much higher risk of psychiatric disorders. Wow. Things like ADHD, depression, PTSD, the study compared, Korean defective children and their South Korean counterparts. And I think what really stood out to me in that one was this wasn't a case of North Korean

children who had recently defected. It had only been here for a short time. Defecting basically can impact these children for 15 years until after they arrive in South Korea. So just again highlighting the support that needs to be given to North Koreans coming to the South, I think. Well, now, I haven't read this study, but I do wonder if the long-term effects have made, malnutrition are in there as well, because we have heard many times over the years

that malnutrition at a young age leads to problems with brain development. And that's going to have a long, long tail. It's not just a couple of years there. The study cited specifically different social and political environments like the, you know, growing up one way and then coming to the south. But as you say, Jack, I'm sure that all those factors

have impacts on these children. So, yeah. Now, Lana, after some years of being a guest on this podcast, you're going to be a host of your own show soon. You're leaving us. Yeah, I'm very excited on going back to KBS, where I started many, many years ago. And I'm going to be hosting Korea 24.

So from next month, yeah. Okay. Will you be competing against us and doing lots of North Korean stories? Maybe a sprinkle, maybe one or two. I'm hoping my lovely colleagues will graciously appear from time to time. Yes, if you're ever looking for a future guest, you know, you have a whole room full of colleagues here.

I'm going to pull me. I myself. I'm willing to come on the KBS. KBS show. Good, looking forward to it. So I'm excited yet, but hopefully I'll be sticking around in NK News in some capacity. You're not going to get rid of me that easily. Excellent. I'm glad to hear that. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and all the best at KBSL. Thank you, Jack. I appreciate it. South Korea, offering bespoke analyses that empower decision makers.

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and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time. Thank you.