ANALYSIS: Kim and the Destructive Stance: Pyongyang’s Calculated Escalation

Maxime Marquette

2026-06-29 14:38:56

A Treaty Signed Amid the Turmoil in Ukraine

On June 22, 2024, during a visit by Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang, Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense treaty. Two years later—on June 22, 2026—Kim Jong-un’s regime celebrated this anniversary by promising even deeper ties with Moscow, according to Ground News. This treaty was far more than symbolic. It formalized what Western intelligence agencies had been observing for months: the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Ukraine to fight alongside Russian forces.

Estimates vary, but the most credible figures suggest that between 10,000 and 15,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia since the fall of 2024. These soldiers are fighting primarily in the Kursk region, where a Ukrainian incursion had caught Russian defenses off guard in the summer of 2024. Several hundred have been killed or wounded. A few have been taken prisoner—which has created the delicate diplomatic situation that Seoul must now manage.

What Pyongyang Got in Return

This deployment is not a free favor. In exchange, North Korea gained access to several categories of technology and resources it desperately needed. Spy satellite technology—which North Korea had been seeking to develop for years. Energy resources—oil and gas—at a time when sanctions were cutting off its supplies. And what analysts consider the most valuable: real combat experience for thousands of North Korean soldiers who, prior to this deployment, had never seen a real theater of war since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

This combat experience may be the most lasting strategic gain for Pyongyang. North Korean officers who observed how drones are transforming warfare, how logistics operate under real enemy pressure, and how air defense systems respond to new threats—all of these officers are returning to Pyongyang with a wealth of practical knowledge that will permanently enhance the North Korean military’s combat capabilities.

This Russian-North Korean treaty is one of the most far-reaching decisions for Asian security in decades. And the West has watched it take shape without a proportionate response. Thousands of North Korean soldiers gaining their first combat experience in Ukraine, learning the ways of modern warfare, and returning home with technology and experience—this is a direct threat to South Korea, Japan, and the stability of the peninsula. We shouldn’t need another major incident to realize this.

The “Destructive Posture”: A Strategic Analysis

What This Approach Changes in Practice

In modern militaries, military postures are not merely rhetorical. They define rules of engagement, alert levels, and investment priorities. A “defensive posture” means that forces are primarily trained to absorb an attack and counterattack in a measured manner. An “offensive posture”—the term used by Kim—implies forces trained to strike first, maximize damage to the enemy, and operate within a framework of preemptive attack rather than a graduated response.

This distinction has practical implications for South Korean and U.S. forces in South Korea. If the Korean People’s Army (KPA) is officially in a preemptive strike posture, military planners in Seoul and Washington must recalibrate their own rules of engagement. The risk of a “strike of opportunity”—a North Korean attack if an event is interpreted as a favorable window—automatically increases. And the joint U.S.-South Korea exercises, which Moscow denounced on June 25 to TASS as a “cause for concern,” take on an additional dimension.

The Message to Allies and China

Kim’s June 25 statement comes exactly 76 years after the start of the Korean War—on June 25, 1950. This timing is no accident. Pyongyang is obsessed with historical commemoration and uses anniversary dates as vehicles for political messaging. For North Koreans, June 25 marks the anniversary of “U.S. aggression” and the start of a war that the regime has never officially ended—the 1953 armistice is not a peace treaty.

But this message is also directed at China. Beijing is keeping a very close eye on stability on the Korean Peninsula—a North Korea that collapses or triggers a major conflict would be a catastrophe for China’s border security. By announcing a “destructive stance,” Kim is telling Beijing: I need your support to maintain this regime, or the consequences of destabilization will be on your doorstep. This is sophisticated diplomatic blackmail.

China is the only actor that could truly rein in Kim Jong-un, and it is not doing so. It prefers a nuclear and provocative North Korea as a geopolitical buffer to a reunified peninsula under pro-Western democratic control. This calculation is understandable from Beijing’s perspective. It is unacceptable from the perspective of regional security. And as long as China maintains this calculation, Kim will be able to act with a relative impunity that nothing else guarantees him.

North Korean POWs: A Hot-Button Issue for Seoul

Prisoners in an Unprecedented Situation

Among the North Korean soldiers deployed in Ukraine, a number have been taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces. These prisoners find themselves in an unprecedented situation from both a legal and diplomatic standpoint. They are not soldiers of an army engaged in a declared war—North Korea has not officially declared war on Ukraine, nor has it formally acknowledged the deployment of its soldiers. They find themselves in a legal limbo: neither citizens of a recognized belligerent state, nor civilians, nor mercenaries in the strict sense of international law of armed conflict.

According to Caliber.az on June 23, 2026, South Korea has “opened the door” to these North Korean prisoners held in Ukraine. This decision by Seoul is politically courageous and strategically sound: welcoming North Korean soldiers who will testify about their living conditions in North Korea—and how they were sent to fight for a foreign dictator—is a valuable political communication tool in the battle for hearts and minds in the region.

Pyongyang’s Predictable Irritation

Kim Jong-un has every reason to ensure that these soldiers never speak to South Korean officials. Their testimony—about living conditions in the DPRK, how they were conscripted, and what they were told or not told before deployment—could be devastating to the regime’s propaganda. It could also reveal operational information about the military and the exact nature of cooperation with Russia.

Seoul’s decision is therefore a calculated provocation in the context of the information war with Pyongyang. And it is precisely in this context that Kim’s June 25 statement about a “destructive stance” must be understood: at least in part, it is a response to South Korea’s openness toward these prisoners. “Come near my captured soldiers, and you’ll see what ‘destructive’ means.”

Seoul’s outreach to North Korean prisoners in Ukraine is one of the most courageous and intelligent decisions in South Korean diplomacy in a long time. These are no ordinary prisoners—they are firsthand witnesses to Kim’s regime, to the clandestine deployment, and to Russian-North Korean collusion. Every testimony collected is a building block in documenting a reality that Pyongyang is trying to deny. Seoul is right. We must continue.

Moscow's reaction and the U.S.-South Korea military exercises

Moscow Condemns Military Exercises

On June 25, 2026, the Russian news agency TASS reported that Russia had expressed concern over joint military activities between the United States and South Korea near the DPRK. This statement reveals the logic of the Moscow-Pyongyang axis: U.S.-South Korean defensive exercises are portrayed as provocations, while the deployment of North Korean troops in Ukraine is brushed aside as an “internal matter.”

This rhetoric of double standards is Russia’s standard modus operandi in its relations with its authoritarian partners. It allows Moscow to defend its own expansionist actions while denouncing its adversaries’ defensive responses as provocative. It is a consistent strategic posture, even if it is deeply dishonest. And it is particularly effective in multilateral forums such as the UN, where Russia’s veto power protects Moscow’s allies from the formal consequences of their behavior.

What TASS Doesn’t Say

What the Russian statement to TASS omits, of course, is that U.S.-South Korean military exercises are publicly announced, conducted in recognized legal areas, and aimed at maintaining the capacity to respond to a real and documented threat. North Korean exercises, by contrast, are often conducted in secret, include unannounced missile strikes over the Sea of Japan or the Yellow Sea, and regularly violate United Nations Security Council resolutions—resolutions that Russia itself voted for before switching sides.

This asymmetry in the application of international norms—where Russia tolerates in its allies what it condemns in its adversaries—is one of the most corrosive elements for the rules-based international order. It sets a precedent: norms apply only to the weak. For the allies of revisionist nuclear powers, anything goes. It is precisely this normative counter-world that the Moscow-Beijing-Pyongyang-Tehran axis seeks to normalize.

Russia’s protest against U.S.-South Korean military exercises, one year after sending 15,000 North Korean soldiers to fight in Ukraine, is a level of audacity that defies satire. But behind the rhetorical absurdity lies a serious strategy: to normalize double standards, to wear down democracies through repeated contradictions, and ultimately to ensure that no one takes these norms seriously anymore. It is against this normative fatigue that we must resist, actively and continuously.

North Korea's Nuclear Program: What's the Current Status?

Capabilities That Have Crossed Critical Thresholds

The “destructive posture” announced by Kim Jong-un on June 25, 2026, takes on a radically different meaning when viewed in the context of North Korea’s current nuclear capabilities. The DPRK possesses a nuclear arsenal estimated at between 40 and 60 weapons, according to the most recent assessments by allied intelligence agencies. It has developed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)—notably the Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-18 models—that are theoretically capable of reaching the continental United States. And since the deployment of its military reconnaissance satellite in 2023, it has had an independent surveillance capability.

These capabilities are not mere rhetoric. They are documented by actual tests, trajectory analyses, and performance evaluations. When Kim speaks of a “destructive posture,” he is speaking from a position of real nuclear strength—not from a wishful fantasy. This is what makes his statements qualitatively different from the ordinary propaganda of authoritarian regimes.

The Challenge of Miniaturization and Cruise Missiles

Beyond the spectacular ICBMs, the most concerning development in North Korea’s program in recent years has been the miniaturization of warheads and the development of nuclear-capable cruise missiles. Miniaturization means that intermediate-range missiles—which do not necessarily pose a threat to the continental United States—can now carry nuclear warheads capable of striking Seoul, Tokyo, or U.S. bases in the Asia-Pacific region.

Cruise missiles, less spectacular than ICBMs, are in fact more difficult to intercept with existing missile defense systems, which are optimized for ballistic trajectories. North Korea’s long-range cruise missile program, which has been under intensive development since 2021, therefore represents a qualitatively different threat—one that is more complex to counter and less visible in widely publicized threat assessments.

North Korea’s nuclear program has reached a level that sanctions have failed to halt and negotiations have failed to slow. This is an uncomfortable reality. It does not mean that sanctions and diplomacy were useless—they may have slowed down something that would have been even worse without them. But it does mean that Pyongyang is now a de facto nuclear power. And that we must approach regional security from the perspective of this reality, not from the perspective of the world as it was before.

U.S. Allies in Asia: Japan and South Korea on the Front Lines

Japan: Between Rearmament and Anxiety

Japan is the democracy most directly exposed to the North Korean nuclear threat. Its main islands are within range of Pyongyang’s medium-range missiles, and U.S. bases in Japan—Yokosuka, Kadena, and Misawa—are priority targets in any conflict scenario. The Japanese government has significantly increased its defense spending in recent years, approaching the 2% of GDP threshold and, for the first time, developing a preemptive strike doctrine—the capability to strike enemy launch sites before they launch their missiles.

This shift in Japanese doctrine is historically significant for a country whose pacifist constitution expressly prohibits the use of war. It reflects the level of concern that North Korea’s missile program is causing in allied capitals—a concern that Kim’s June 25, 2026, declaration of a “destructive posture” has only reinforced.

South Korea Under Constant Pressure

Seoul lives under the constant threat of North Korean artillery and ballistic missiles. The South Korean capital is less than 50 kilometers from the border—within direct range of thousands of North Korean artillery barrels. Any declaration of a “destructive posture” by Kim directly affects South Korea’s defensive planning calculations: What is the probability of a preemptive strike? At what threshold of tension must the armed forces go on high alert?

Seoul’s decision to take in North Korean prisoners held in Ukraine—as reported by Caliber.az on June 23—is part of this strategy of applying maximum pressure on Pyongyang in the information war. Every prisoner’s testimony is a weapon in the battle for South Korean public opinion. Kim knows this, which is why he retaliated with his “destructive posture” statement.

South Korea has lived in fear since 1953. It has built a world-class economy under the constant threat of artillery just 50 kilometers away. This collective courage deserves more than our distant admiration. It deserves our active solidarity—clear security guarantees, military exercises that make no concessions to North Korean pressure, and support for all its initiatives to document and expose Kim’s regime.

The international community's response options

What Can Still Be Done

Faced with a nuclear-armed North Korea adopting an offensive posture, the international community’s options are limited but not nonexistent. Strengthening missile defense systems—THAAD in South Korea, Aegis in Japan—can reduce the likelihood that a North Korean strike will reach its targets. Regular and visible military exercises maintain the credibility of deterrence. And stepping up autonomous sanctions targeting the networks supporting the nuclear program can increase its economic cost, even if Security Council sanctions are blocked by Russian and Chinese vetoes.

Cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea in intelligence sharing and joint defense planning has deepened considerably in recent years. This trilateral alignment, formalized through regular summits, is the most sustainable response to the North Korean threat: not the elimination of the threat—which is no longer possible without a military catastrophe—but its collective management and containment.

Diplomacy as a Last Resort

Diplomacy with North Korea is difficult but not impossible. The exchanges of Ukrainian and North Korean prisoners, the issue of North Korean POWs held in Ukraine—all these issues create indirect points of contact between Pyongyang and the democracies. These contacts do not replace a strategy of complete denuclearization—a goal that most experts now consider unrealistic in the short term. But they maintain channels of communication that can prevent accidental escalations.

Kim’s “destructive posture” is a rhetorical escalation. It may also be an invitation to negotiate—a way of saying, “I am capable of destruction. Negotiate with me on that basis.” This interpretation is not naive. It is a recognition that even the most belligerent authoritarian regimes sometimes use threats as a diplomatic opening. The response must be firm on deterrence while leaving the door slightly ajar for dialogue.

I am skeptical about diplomacy with Kim Jong-un. Two decades of experience show that he uses negotiations to buy time and extract concessions, without ever making any substantial concessions on his nuclear program. But I am even more skeptical about a total absence of dialogue. Détente is not capitulation. And in a context where the DPRK is a de facto nuclear power with a declared offensive doctrine, détente is preferable to constant escalation with no prospect of resolution.

Conclusion: Calculated escalation should not be ignored

Pyongyang in the Larger Mechanism of Authoritarian Threats

Kim Jong-un’s “destructive stance” on June 25, 2026, is not an isolated North Korean anomaly. It is part of a broader dynamic: the Moscow-Beijing-Pyongyang-Tehran axis is coordinating its provocations to overwhelm the West’s capacity to respond. While RIMPAC mobilizes Pacific allies against China, and while U.S.-Iran negotiations absorb American diplomatic attention, Kim is ramping up pressure on the Korean Peninsula. This timing is likely not entirely coincidental.

The strategic lesson is simple: Pyongyang exploits periods of divided attention to cross new thresholds. Every provocation that goes unmet with a strong response becomes the new baseline against which the next provocation will be measured. Kim did not decide overnight to send troops to Ukraine and call for a destructive stance. He crossed thresholds gradually, testing his adversaries’ resolve each time. And each time, that resolve seemed insufficient to deter him.

What Democracies Must Do

Faced with this calculated escalation, democracies—the United States, South Korea, and Japan—must maintain several things simultaneously. Robust joint military exercises that do not yield to protests from Moscow or Pyongyang. Solidarity with Seoul on the issue of North Korean prisoners—their testimonies are a valuable tool for raising awareness. Close diplomatic coordination between Washington and Seoul to ensure that distractions involving Iran or the Indo-Pacific do not create a blind spot on the Korean Peninsula. And preparation for the fact that Kim’s next provocation will likely be even more serious than today’s.

This work of documentation, deterrence, and preparation—it is the very definition of what democracies do best when they act like democracies: anticipating threats, naming them, and responding with action before the crisis imposes its own logic. It’s never perfect, often too slow, and sometimes contradictory. But it’s incomparably better than the complacent silence that all too often preceded the great catastrophes of the past century.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist