It was only a matter of time before someone in the Trump administration said something that the Kim regime could latch on to, to justify future provocations:
North Korea on Monday condemned U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for calling Pyongyang a “rogue state” and vowed powerful counteraction in its first official criticism against the Trump administration.
A spokesperson at North Korea’s foreign ministry issued the statement after Rubio said the United States has rogue states to deal with, such as Iran and North Korea, during his recent interview with U.S. journalist Megyn Kelly.
North Korea condemned Rubio’s remarks for tarnishing the image of a sovereign state, calling them a “grave political provocation,” according to the Korean Central News Agency.
“It is necessary to mention how absurd and illogical it is that the most depraved state in the world brands another country a rogue state,” the spokesperson said, stressing that Rubio’s remarks reaffirmed the U.S. hostile policy toward the North remains unchanged.
Just like the previous administration the Trump administration is negotiating from a starting point of fantasy if they think the Kim regime will ever negotiate away their nuclear weapons program:
U.S. President Donald Trump will pursue the “complete denuclearization of North Korea,” a White House official said Tuesday, amid questions over whether Trump’s recent reference to the North as a “nuclear power” signaled any policy shift.
National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes made the remarks shortly after the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a nuclear-material production base and a nuclear weapons institute in an apparent move to highlight its military capability.
“President Trump will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term,” Hughes said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency.
Trump has already identified something that many people do not realize about Kim Jong-un, he is not crazy, he is very smart:
As US President Donald Trump has hinted at attempting a fresh summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea is likely to confront more complicated diplomatic developments concerning US relations with North Korea.
When asked during a Fox News interview that aired Thursday, Trump said he would reach out to Kim again in his second term. “He liked me and I got along with him,” Trump said. “He is not a religious zealot. He happens to be a smart guy.”
Trump’s comment marked the first time he explicitly expressed his willingness to resume talks with Kim since he took office Monday.
Trump’s new overture for bromance diplomacy came at a time when the US is expected to try to resolve the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. The situation in Ukraine is already complicated because North Korea has sent its troops to Russia to help fight Ukraine, according to Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.
It looks like the Kim regime may be preparing more Soldiers for the meat grinder in Russia’s war agaisnt Ukraine:
North Korea may be accelerating plans to send more troops to replace frontline casualties incurred fighting Ukraine on behalf of Russia. Pyongyang plans to send Moscow an unspecified number of troops to replace those killed, wounded or imprisoned, according to a Friday report from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The North Korean reinforcements are expected to arrive within two months, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday that cited an unnamed U.S. defense official.
Roughly 12,000 North Koreans may have deployed to Russia as early as October to fight in the nearly 2-year conflict, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have said. Of those, around 3,000 were killed or wounded in fighting in Russia’s western front, South Korean lawmakers Lee Seong-kweun and Park Sun-won, citing a closed-door National Intelligence Service briefing, told reporters earlier this month.
On the North Korean provocation scale, testing a cruise missile is pretty low:
North Korea on Sunday said it tested sea-to-surface strategic cruise-guided missiles, the previous day, in its first provocation since US President Donald Trump officially began his second term.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Missile Administration test-fired the missiles on Saturday, which flew 1,500 kilometers over their flight trajectories for 7,507 to 7,511 seconds before precisely hitting their targets, according to the Korean Central News Agency. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK is North Korea’s official name.
This really is not surprising that the rank and file North Korean Soldiers did not know they were being sent to fight against Ukraine:
One of the two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine this month has claimed that he arrived in Russia without knowing whom he would be fighting, according to another video of his interrogation released by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Earlier this month, Zelenskyy disclosed that his forces had captured the North Korean soldiers in Russia’s western front-line region of Kursk, sharing videos of their interrogation on the social media platform X.
In the latest video posted on Monday (local time), one of the captured soldiers said he arrived in Russia aboard a ship with around 100 others before being transported inland by rail with them.
“Even after coming here, I didn’t know that I would be fighting the Ukrainian people,” the man said in the video in Korean. The video could not be independently verified.
Kim Jong-un decided to have an early fireworks show for the upcoming U.S. Presidential innauguration. It will be interesting to see if Kim decides to fire something next week as well:
North Korea fired several suspected short-range ballistic missiles off its eastern coast Tuesday morning in its second day of testing so far this year, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The missiles were launched around 9:30 a.m. from Chagang province, roughly 140 miles north of Pyongyang, and flew approximately 155 miles before splashing into the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, the Joint Chiefs said in a text message to news agencies. South Korea and the United States had been monitoring the North’s preparations for Tuesday’s launch and “immediately” began tracking the missiles, according to the Joint Chiefs.
Here is a DeepL translation (UA->EN) of that part. It reveals that the soldier’s motivation to fight was not connected to Russia’s war itself but stemmed from his loyalty to the NK regime – loyalty that appeared partly driven by a sense of guilt over something he had done back… pic.twitter.com/Rx0ZDCYm1A
Here is what South Korean intelligence is saying is the estimated casualty numbers for North Korean troops fighting in Russia against Ukraine:
National Intelligence Service chief Cho Tae-yong (C) attends a plenary session of the intelligence committee at the National Assembly in Seoul on Jan. 13, 2025. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
At least 300 North Korean soldiers dispatched to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine have been killed, with some 2,700 others injured, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Monday.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the information with lawmakers during a closed-door meeting by the parliamentary intelligence committee, according to Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party.
The NIS said it attributed the “massive casualties” of North Korean soldiers to their “lack of understanding of modern warfare,” including their “useless” act of shooting at long-range drones, based on the agency’s analysis of a combat video it obtained recently.
I wonder how many of these North Korean Soldiers realized they were going to war when they left their country for Russia?:
One of the two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine has claimed during questioning that he thought he was going for training, not to the war against Ukraine, Kyiv’s security service has said.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine has captured two wounded North Korean soldiers in Russia’s western Kursk region and that investigators were questioning them.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it has questioned the two soldiers through Korean interpreters in cooperation with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) as they do not speak Ukrainian, Russian or English
You can read more at the link, but I wish they would not show these guys faces because this is going to lead to retaliation against their family members back in North Korea for them being captured alive.
