North Korea News Podcast by NK News

This week, a former Ukrainian lawmaker and a Ukrainian military official join the podcast to discuss North Korea’s support of Russian forces, and why this poses a threat to South Korea’s security. Dr. Hanna Hopko, co-founder of the International Center of Ukrainian Victory, and Ukrainian National Guard Lt. Volodymyr Vernygora examine the evolving DPRK-Russia military partnership, which they say sh...

This week, NK News founder Chad O’Carroll joins the podcast to discuss the life of Kim Yong Nam, the longtime No. 2 in North Korea’s leadership who died this month at 97.  He also unravels the mystery behind Pyongyang Papers, the website that anonymously published information on North Korea’s sanctions-evading network before disappearing without warning last month. Lastly, he discusses U.S. Defens...

Maarten Jongsma, a senior researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, joins the podcast to discuss his years of collaboration with North Korean agricultural scientists and efforts to help improve potato cultivation in the DPRK. He shares his recollections from his multiple visits to North Korea between 2004 and 2012, describing the country’s push to make potatoes a core part of the nat...

This week, three members of the NK News team unpack their time at the APEC summit in Gyeongju and discuss how North Korea featured in the week’s diplomatic drama.  Despite high expectations, U.S. President Donald Trump did not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his trip to Korea, though Pyongyang still loomed large in many of the summit’s side discussions. This week’s episode features:  J...

In this episode, veteran KBS journalist Bong Seung Shin shares his experience reporting from North Korea and communicating with journalists on the ground in the country. Shin first traveled to Pyongyang in 2008, crossing the demilitarized zone by air as part of a trip organized by an NGO. He describes the excitement of entering North Korea for the first time, the strict media controls he faced and...

NK News founder Chad O’Carroll joins the podcast this week to unpack the busy week ahead on the Korean Peninsula as APEC kicks off and U.S. President Donald Trump heads to South Korea. He discusses the growing speculation over whether Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time in over six years, and explores signs that the DPRK may be keeping the door open for such diplomac...

This week, historian Remco Breuker explores how Pyongyang has built illicit networks that operate far beyond its borders to oversee labor exports, arrange business deals and traffic arms. He reflects on the collapse of the U.N. Panel of Experts that once tracked sanctions violations, warning that the world has lost a vital mechanism for understanding and constraining North Korea’s overseas operati...

This week, NK News Correspondent Jooheon Kim joins the podcast to discuss the North Korean soldier who crossed the inter-Korean border over the weekend, marking the first confirmed military defection under the Lee Jae-myung administration.  He also talks about next week’s APEC Summit in Gyeongju. With former U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expected to attend, speculation...

For a brief period after Korea’s liberation, a cross-peninsula postage system shuttled letters across the 38th parallel, linking the Soviet-led north and U.S.-led south.  This week, postal expert Tony Bard and historian JiHoon Suk join the podcast to explore this forgotten link and the logistics, politics and human stories behind the letter exchanges. They also reflect on the lasting significance...

This week, Korea Risk Group Executive Director Jeongmin Kim and Senior Analytical Correspondent Colin Zwirko unpack North Korea’s military parade in Pyongyang for the 80th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.  They explore how the event demonstrated both a commitment to spectacle and restraint, featuring more than 100,000 soldiers but fewer weapons in years past. They also dig into parade r...

This week, Chandana Seshadri joins the podcast to discuss her RUSI Journal article, “How DPRK IT Workers Exploit Identity Management Vulnerabilities,” which documents how North Korean workers slip through remote-hiring systems to earn hard currency and open doors for bigger cyber operations.  The researcher highlights the case of Christina Chapman — a U.S. citizen who helped DPRK workers get remot...

NK News’ Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko unpacks the key developments ahead of North Korea’s Oct. 10 military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea. He begins by discussing Pyongyang’s latest weapons exhibition, where state media previewed an unmanned surface vehicle — a type of naval drone — and explains that while the display appears designed to showcase t...

James Heenan, the representative of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul, joins the podcast this week to unpack the High Commissioner’s new update on human rights in the DPRK — an effort to take stock of the situation in the country 11 years after the landmark U.N. Commission of Inquiry report. Several activists have argued that the update offers little in the way of...

NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss President Lee Jae-myung’s first speech to the U.N. General Assembly and his debut of a new acronym for his peace road map — “E.N.D.,” short for exchange, normalization and denuclearization. He also talks about Seoul's unification minister’s controversial “two states” remarks, Lee’s calls for greater military self-reliance and North Ko...

This week, Dr. Vipin Narang joins the NK News podcast to unpack how the U.S. and South Korea are seeking to strengthen extended deterrence against North Korean threats under the joint Nuclear Consultative Group, a platform that he helped develop and lead as a key nuclear policy official under the Biden administration. Narang highlights how North Korea’s rapid nuclear expansion drove the creation o...

This episode of the NK News podcast unpacks the unusual loyalty relays taking place across North Korea, where both children and adults carry letters pledging fealty to Kim Jong Un. NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy also discusses new murals of the leader, some of which appear to have replaced longstanding depictions of his father and grandfather, and what this means for his evolving cult of...

This week, Stephen Mercado returns to the NK News Podcast to discuss his new book, “Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons,” and how Japan’s secretive Noborito Research Institute supported covert operations targeting the DPRK during the Korean War.  Mercado is a former CIA analyst and open source officer who worked for most of his career in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, later named the...

This week, NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss newly revealed DPRK state media footage that appears to blame Russia for North Korean casualties during fighting against Ukraine. He also talks about what President Lee Jae-myung said about the DPRK at a press conference to mark his first 100 days, as well as Pyongyang’s criticism of U.S. military drills with South Korea an...

This week, the NK News podcast explores the New York Times’ recent revelations about a 2019 U.S. Navy SEAL mission on North Korea’s coast. The operation reportedly aimed at installing surveillance equipment but went awry, resulting in the death of unarmed North Koreans and raising escalation risks. Mark Sauter, a former U.S. Army soldier with decades of experience investigating POW/MIA issues and...

This week, NK News Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins the podcast to discuss North Korea’s “static firing test of a high-thrust solid-fuel motor” used in long-range nuclear missiles, a week after Kim Jong Un inspected a new ballistic missile design. The conversation then turns to Kim’s high-profile trip to Beijing, his first in six years, where bilateral meetings with China and Russi...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his appearance at a large-scale multilateral event on Wednesday, standing shoulder to shoulder with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at China’s Victory Day parade in Beijing. But was this just optics, or did it mark a deeper realignment of global power blocs? NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy joins this week’s episode to explore what Kim’s presence revealed...

In this episode, Go Myong-hyun of Seoul’s Institute for National Security Strategy returns to the podcast to assess the recent summit between South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. He also looks ahead to Kim Jong Un’s expected appearance in Beijing on Sept. 3 for a Victory Day parade marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, where he sa...

On this episode, scholar Joseph Torigian joins the podcast to discuss his new biography of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s father and Xi senior’s delicate diplomacy with North Korea in the 1980s. Torigian explores Xi Zhongxun’s role in rebuilding ties, navigating the DPRK’s succession politics and nudging Pyongyang toward reform. He also talks about how China and North Korea influenced each other’s po...

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 Kursk region, which have provided a rare look at batt...

In this episode, Tycho van der Hoog joins the podcast to explore how North Korea forged and sustained ties with African liberation movements and governments during and after the Cold War — connections that continue to shape the country’s activities on the continent today. He shares how his interest in the topic began with a trip to Namibia, where he encountered North Korean-built monuments. He als...