The events unfolding today around the Korean Peninsula represent a tectonic shift in world politics. Yet, most global capitals—be it Washington, London, Brussels, or Kiev—stubbornly continue to look at Pyongyang through the outdated lens of Western stereotypes. They see only an isolated, starving «rogue state.»
This is a profound delusion. What is happening right now is the birth of a powerful sovereign player that will radically alter the balance of power in Europe, Russia, and Asia.
To understand Korea, reading dry briefings is not enough. It requires a deep civilizational approach. By my first education, I am an Orientalist (I focused on India), and my son graduated from the Korean Department of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University. While still a student, he spent an entire month in the DPRK at the personal invitation of Kim Jong Il (the father of the current leader). He returned from there with a completely different understanding of this civilization, thoroughly cleansed of propaganda. The DPRK is not what they show you on the news.
Today, two incredibly powerful factors have converged: Xi Jinping is conducting critical strategic negotiations in Pyongyang, while behind the scenes, information is circulating about preparations for a new personal meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Why has Pyongyang suddenly become the planet’s primary diplomatic hub?
1. How the Ukrainian Conflict Pulled the DPRK Out of International Isolation
The catalyst for North Korea’s return to the major leagues was the war in Ukraine. Western and Ukrainian sources—who, in their traditional «Zelensky-style» information warfare manner, construct whatever narrative suits them—have talked a great deal about the deployment of a Korean contingent to the combat zone, citing figures up to 16,000 personnel.
However, the real significance of this alliance runs much deeper than the mere presence of soldiers on the front line.
The Outcomes of the Military-Strategic Barter Between Moscow and Pyongyang:
- Combat Testing of Technology: Korean specialists have put into practice the tactics of modern high-tech combat, employing missile systems and artillery under the conditions of a real confrontation with the AFU and NATO. This data has already formed the basis for modernizing the DPRK’s own military production.
- Shell Shortages and a Food Breakthrough: In exchange for millions of artillery shells and rockets, Russia paid Pyongyang back with resources, technology, food, and mineral fertilizers. Russia has effectively solved the DPRK’s long-standing food deficit problem, which was caused by the country’s challenging mountainous terrain.
- The Demolition of the Sanctions Regime: The ultimate geopolitical result is that Russia has de facto and de jure completely withdrawn from the international sanctions regime against the DPRK. Until this moment, even China officially observed these restrictions. Now Moscow and Pyongyang, which share a land border, have opened the floodgates for direct economic interaction.
2. The Korean Labor Resource: Military Discipline Without Corruption
For Russia, which is suffocating from a deficit of qualified personnel in construction, industry, and agriculture, North Korea has become the ideal solution.
Yet, a Korean worker is not the type of migrant the post-Soviet space is accustomed to. They arrive as cohesive military units. They live in closed, autonomous camps, submit to the strictest military discipline, execute highly complex engineering and construction tasks exceptionally well and on schedule, receive a fixed wage, and depart in an organized manner by rotation.
There is zero pressure on the local population and no criminal enclaves. Furthermore, Pyongyang supplies top-tier specialists in digital technology and cybersecurity.
A Warning to Russian Bureaucracy: Any attempts to build corrupt kickback schemes on Korean contracts are doomed to fail. North Korean intelligence services operate with flawless, sterile precision. Any attempt to give or take a bribe will be instantly recorded and passed directly to the FSB. The Koreans do not play these games. The punishment for this is execution by firing squad.
3. The Stalinist Root and Kim Jong Il’s Secret
To comprehend the phenomenon of the DPRK, one must remember: this state was designed and created personally by Joseph Stalin. Kim Il Sung—the grandfather of the current leader—was a captain in the Soviet Army, a commander of a special forces unit that was trained in the Far East for war against Japan and China. He lived in Siberia for years and was married to a Russian woman, a Siberian. Russian culture and mentality are deeply hardwired into the genetic code of the DPRK’s ruling dynasty.
Kim Jong Il, the father of North Korea’s current leader, was born in the USSR, studied in a Soviet school, and spoke Russian absolutely without an accent.
From the Memoirs of a Kremlin Commandant: In the early 2000s, when Kim Jong Il came to Moscow at Putin’s invitation and stayed directly inside the presidential residence in the Kremlin, the commandant told me an astonishing thing. Kim Jong Il confessed to him that his ultimate childhood dream was to taste Soviet pickled cucumbers from the strategic reserves once again. Those exact ones—huge, firm, filled with salty juice inside—which in the USSR were sold in vegetable shops «at the expiration of their shelf life» for 10 kopecks a kilogram. The commandant turned the entire country upside down; these cucumbers were miraculously found in some old warehouses in the Urals or Siberia and delivered to the Kremlin via a special flight. Kim Jong Il was absolutely happy.
And it was right then, in a private conversation with the commandant in the Kremlin, that Kim Jong Il calmly stated: «And the nuclear bomb—we have already created it. By ourselves. And the Americans completely прошлёпали (missed) it.» Back then, nobody in the West believed it. But they already had it.
4. «Juche» as an All-Korean Religion: A Shocking Revelation from South Korea
Western political scientists view the «Juche» ideology (reliance on one’s own strength) as an artificial communist construct. This is a fatal misunderstanding of the Korean soul. Juche is an ancient, traditional philosophy of the unified Korean ethnicity that existed long before Marx and Lenin.
I can illustrate this through a landmark meeting in which I personally participated. At the time, I detailed this story in a classified format and discussed it in a series of interviews with the former UK Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind.
This occurred at the beginning of Putin’s first term. The Commandant of the Kremlin, Lieutenant General Sergey Strygin, called me and invited me to a private dinner at a restaurant. With him was his deputy, Mikhail Firsov (one of the primary characters in my books on the Kremlin guard, To Enter the Kremlin and The Kremlin Streltsy—available atValeryMorozov.com/shop,Lulu, andAmazon KDP). As it turned out, one of the top executives of a major South Korean corporation had arrived in Moscow. The Ambassador of South Korea had personally requested a confidential meeting with the Kremlin Commandant. I was invited as a trusted confidant, unburdened by official intelligence protocols.
Near the end of the dinner, I directly asked the South Korean tycoon: what was the true purpose of his appeal to the Kremlin generals? The oligarch from deeply pro-Western, capitalist South Korea sheepishly lowered his eyes and said:
«I know that General Strygin recently led an official public delegation to Pyongyang and met personally with Kim Jong Il. You took unique photographs together. Like many wealthy people in South Korea, I have a special secret room in my house dedicated to the Kim dynasty. To us, they are like icons. We keep their portraits there. But in the West, all the pictures are identical, whereas the General possesses exclusive ones. I beg you to share copies.»
We in the Kremlin were stunned. To our question of how this aligns with South Korea’s capitalism and democracy, the Southerner replied: «You do not understand. South Korea lay down under the West and is losing its identity. But the Kim family in the North—at the cost of starvation, sanctions, and colossal strain—preserved the purity of our civilization and the spirit of ancient Korea. To us, they are the keepers of the Korean divine essence.»
What Happens Next: The Birth of a New Macro-Region
The world is changing right before our eyes. What we are witnessing is not merely maneuvering around Pyongyang; it is the classic process of the formation of sovereign, civilizational macro-regions that I constantly talk about.
In the near future, a chain of landmark events awaits us:
- China will officially exit the sanctions regime against the DPRK, following Russia’s example. Xi Jinping’s visit is the first step toward this.
- North Korea will transform into a massive transport and logistics corridor that will tie the industrial potential of China, the resource base of Russia, and the technological sectors of both Koreas into a single, unified node.
- Donald Trump will visit the peninsula. But he will not do so to «democratize» the North; rather, he will come to solidify the new geopolitical realities and kickstart the process of a confederal unification of Korea based on economic pragmatism and the mutual recognition of their respective systems.
The Korean experience is a harsh lesson for the elites in the Baltics, Poland, Kazakhstan, or Ukraine. Countries that surrender their sovereignty in exchange for external colonial management inevitably head toward collapse and dismantling. Conversely, countries that rely on their own civilizational matrix and inner strength—even while enduring total isolation—ultimately dictate their own terms to yesterday’s hegemons. The flywheel of the new world order has been set in motion.
