Small four-legged dog-shaped robots, escorted by reconnaissance drones, simulate an assault on Kim Jong-un's secret tunnels. The South Korean army has been testing its new war toys in a joint exercise with U.S. soldiers. Burying North Korea's fortified tunnels was the goal this week after a round of naval and aerial exercises, including the accidental incident in early March when two South Korean fighter jets mistakenly dropped four bombs on a village near the North Korean border.
While the South Korean military trained with their new robot dogs, in the North, they tested their new anti-aircraft missile system. On Thursday, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised this defensive weapon. Hours later, the North Korean KCNA agency released a statement in which the Ministry of Defense of North Korea threatened Seoul and Washington with "employing lethal military means" against the soldiers of these countries who participated in the joint exercises. Photographs provided by KCNA showed a column of smoke from a missile rising into the sky and an explosion in mid-flight. Other images showed Kim apparently observing the test and then smiling.
The news in Pyongyang this Friday was marked by the visit of Sergei Shoigu, former Russian Defense Minister and principal security advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin. North Korean media reported that he would have a meeting with Kim. The Russian envoy had already visited the North Korean capital in 2023 and 2024.
In early March, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko also traveled to Pyongyang, where he met with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui. This week, two North Korean delegations, one from Foreign Affairs and another from the Ministry of Public Health, were in Russia, although their agenda did not transpire.
Moscow and Pyongyang continue to publicly show their strong alliance while Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump continue to advance in their rapprochement, as seen in their call this week regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fueled by the dispatch of North Korean regime troops to fight alongside the Russian army.
Trump has also stated on several occasions his willingness to approach Kim to revive nuclear diplomacy, but North Korea has not publicly responded to his proposal. "I have an excellent relationship with Kim Jong-un," Trump said last week when asked by the press during a meeting in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
In late February, South Korean intelligence services stated that around 3,500 additional North Korean soldiers were receiving training in the Russian Far East to soon replace the dead or injured personnel among the 11,000 North Koreans initially sent in October to fight in the Kursk region.
"The army and people of North Korea will support and encourage the just cause of the Russian army and people to defend their sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity," Kim stated a couple of weeks ago, shortly before Pyongyang unveiled its first nuclear-powered submarine under construction. According to local media, the North Korean leader had been visiting the shipyards where the warships are being built.
From Seoul, analysts have suggested that North Korea, an isolated, impoverished, and heavily sanctioned country, has only been able to afford to build this submarine with Russia's help, as this was the agreement reached by Kim and Putin: technological support for the North Korean nuclear program in exchange for supplying conventional weapons and troops in Russia's war against Ukraine.
In addition to Putin's assistance, a crucial source of income to finance Pyongyang's weapons has been the performance of hackers who attack the cryptocurrency industry. In February, they seized over 1.5 billion euros from the Bybit platform.