ANALYSIS: Kim Jong-un and the destructive posture: why North Korea chooses calculated escalation

ANALYSIS: Kim Jong-un and the destructive posture: why North Korea chooses calculated escalation

Introduction: The destructive posture as state doctrine

A dictator who theorises violence

On June 25, 2026, according to ABC News, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un explicitly called on his armed forces to adopt a "destructive military posture" against South Korea. This formulation — deliberately provocative, carefully chosen from the vocabulary of North Korean propaganda — is not a slip of the tongue. It is a doctrinal declaration. Kim Jong-un does not engage in corridor rhetoric — he publicly builds a military doctrine that justifies a posture of permanent escalation against his southern neighbour, against the United States, and against the alliance system that guarantees security on the Korean Peninsula.

This declaration comes in a context of particularly elevated tensions. US-South Korean joint exercises have intensified. North Korea has just marked the second anniversary of its mutual defence treaty with Russia — a treaty that has already produced the deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, some of whom have been taken prisoner. And Seoul has made the bold choice to open the door to the repatriation of those North Korean prisoners held in Ukraine. Every element of this puzzle — the destructive posture, the Russia-North Korea treaty, the prisoners in Ukraine — fits into a coherent strategy that this article will decode. Kim Jong-un does not improvise — he strategises.

Why calculated escalation is Pyongyang's preferred policy

To understand Kim Jong-un's destructive posture, one must grasp the fundamental logic of the North Korean regime. North Korea does not have the economic means to compete with South Korea — whose GDP is approximately 50 times larger. It cannot rival the conventional military capabilities of the American-Korean alliance. Its only lever of real power is the asymmetric threat: nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, cyberattack capabilities, and escalation rhetoric that maintains permanent uncertainty about its true intentions.

The "destructive posture" fits that logic. It signals to Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo that Pyongyang is prepared to pay a high cost to maintain its position as a threatening power. It deters maximum pressure options by reminding all parties that any escalation carries a cost that no one wants to pay. And it consolidates the regime's domestic legitimacy by maintaining permanent national mobilisation against foreign enemies. The threat is Kim Jong-un's primary resource — and he cultivates it with remarkable consistency.

North Korean military doctrine: evolution toward destructiveness

From deterrence to proactive destruction

The North Korean military doctrine has evolved significantly under Kim Jong-un. Under his father Kim Jong-il, the central doctrine was "deterrence" — using the nuclear threat to discourage any attempt at regime change or American attack. This defensive doctrine, coercive as it was, remained primarily reactive: you deter, you do not initiate.

Kim Jong-un has progressively shifted this doctrine toward something more proactive. The increasingly frequent missile tests, the declarations on the capability to use nuclear weapons first (first strike), and now the call for a "destructive posture" against the South signal a doctrine that is no longer merely defensive but overtly offensive in its rhetoric. It is no longer "do not attack us or we will respond" — it is "we can unleash destruction if our interests require it." The rhetorical shift changes the nature of deterrence and creates new instability on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea's nuclear arsenal in 2026

Current estimates credit North Korea with a nuclear arsenal of 40 to 60 warheads, with a growing capability to deliver them against regional and intercontinental targets via ballistic missiles of various ranges. Recent missile tests have confirmed strike capabilities against Japan (Hwasong-12), the Guam base (Hwasong-12 at maximum range), and the American continent (Hwasong-17). This expansion of delivery capabilities accompanies the destructive posture doctrine — one can only display an offensive posture if one has the means to back it up.

Furthermore, Pyongyang is working on SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) that would considerably complicate regional missile defence. An operational North Korean nuclear submarine would fundamentally alter the strategic equation in Northeast Asia. The apparent objective is to build a credible second-strike capability — the ability to survive an enemy first strike and retaliate with nuclear weapons. Once that capability is established, North Korean deterrence becomes virtually indestructible. Nuclear invulnerability is Kim Jong-un's terminal objective — and he is dangerously close to it.

The Russia-North Korea treaty anniversary: two years of military complicity

A treaty that simultaneously transformed the Korean Peninsula and Ukraine

On June 22, 2026, according to Ground News, North Korea marked the second anniversary of the mutual defence treaty signed with Russia, pledging deeper ties with Moscow. This treaty — signed in June 2024 during Putin's visit to Pyongyang — is the most significant military agreement concluded by North Korea since the Cold War. It provides for mutual assistance in the event of aggression — a clause immediately interpreted as a Russian commitment to support North Korea in the event of a conflict with the United States or South Korea.

The concrete effects of this treaty are now visible and documented. Thousands of North Korean soldiers have been deployed in Ukraine to fight alongside Russian forces — an unprecedented development since the Korean War. In return, Russia has provided North Korea with sensitive military technologies — notably missile technologies — and diplomatic protection at the UN Security Council. This partnership fundamentally changes the security equation in Northeast Asia and on the Ukrainian front simultaneously.

What Russia gives and receives

The equation between Russia and North Korea is mutually beneficial in the short term but laden with long-term risks for both parties. Russia receives: artillery munitions in massive quantities (estimated at several million 152mm shells delivered since 2023), soldiers trained for combat missions that reduce Russian casualties in Ukraine, and political support from a regime that never condemns it in any international forum. For a Russia besieged by sanctions and short on munitions, this support has had real operational value.

North Korea receives: ballistic missile and atmospheric re-entry technologies that accelerate its intercontinental missile programme, space reconnaissance systems (it has launched military satellites with presumed Russian technological assistance), and hard-currency revenues for the North Korean economy. Putin's visit to Pyongyang in 2024 — the first since 2000 — gave Kim Jong-un international legitimacy from which he had been deprived for decades. The Russia-North Korea relationship is not an ideological friendship — it is a strategic transaction between two regimes that the West has isolated.

North Korean prisoners in Ukraine: the diplomacy of the uncomfortable

Seoul opens a strategically bold door

One of the most significant pieces of news in the week of June 21, 2026 is the report from Caliber.az on June 23 indicating that Seoul has officially "opened the door" to the repatriation of North Korean prisoners of war held in Ukraine. This decision is remarkably bold politically. North Korean soldiers sent by their government to fight in Ukraine have been captured by Ukrainian forces. Their eventual transfer to South Korea — via Ukraine — would represent a considerable diplomatic embarrassment for Pyongyang and a precious intelligence source for Seoul.

Pyongyang would want to "wall shut" this door — no return of prisoners who could testify to the real conditions of their deployment, the instructions they received, the promises made to them. North Korean propaganda even denies the presence of its soldiers in Ukraine — the return of prisoners contradicting that official narrative would be a devastating diplomatic blow. Seoul, by opening this door, forces Pyongyang into a defensive position and exploits a vulnerability created by its own military alliance with Russia. The geopolitics of prisoners can be as powerful as the geopolitics of missiles.

What the prisoners could reveal

The North Korean soldiers taken prisoner in Ukraine are a source of intelligence of extraordinary value. They can testify to the conditions under which they were recruited and deployed — under coercion, with false promises? Voluntarily? They can describe the equipment provided by Russia, the weapons systems they used, the command structures of the operation. They can provide information on the state of North Korean society, the economic situation, and the internal dynamics of the regime — information virtually impossible to obtain through other external channels.

For South Korean, American, and Japanese intelligence services, these prisoners represent an open window into a country that has hermetically sealed itself for decades. Their repatriation to South Korea — if handled with care — would be an intelligence coup of the first order. And for the prisoners themselves, the prospect of not returning to a totalitarian system that would likely treat them as traitors could create an incentive to cooperate. In modern warfare, prisoners are a strategic resource as much as a humanitarian obligation.

The destructive posture in its regional context

Russian concerns over American-South Korean exercises

Kim Jong-un's declaration on the destructive posture occurs simultaneously with a Russian statement expressing its "concerns" over American-South Korean military activities near the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), according to TASS on June 25, 2026. This rhetorical coordination — Kim adopting a destructive posture, Moscow declaring concern over allied exercises — is symptomatic of the nature of the Russia-North Korea partnership: both regimes mutually support each other's victimisation narrative against an aggressor West.

The American-South Korean exercises that concern Moscow are the same ones that alarm Pyongyang: high-intensity training that rehearses scenarios of defending the Korean Peninsula, projecting maritime power, and coordinating with Japan. These exercises — legitimate, defensive, necessary — are invariably presented by North Korean and Russian propaganda as preparations for invasion, thus justifying Pyongyang's aggressive posture. The same narrative mechanism operates for Russia in Europe and for North Korea in Asia — the defensive exercise becomes evidence of aggression in authoritarian propaganda.

The axis of evil revisited: coordination or coincidence?

The simultaneity of provocations from different members of the authoritarian axis — Russia in Ukraine, Iran on the nuclear file, China around Taiwan, North Korea with its destructive posture — raises a fundamental strategic question: are these provocations coordinated or coincidental? The honest answer is: probably both. These regimes share an interest in maintaining Western pressure on multiple fronts simultaneously, thus exhausting the diplomatic and military resources of democracies. But their specific interests often diverge — China is not enthusiastic about a Korean escalation that slips beyond its control, and Russia has its own priorities in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the Russia-North Korea partnership formalised in 2024 introduces a level of real coordination that surpasses previous informal convergences. North Korean soldiers fighting under Russian command in Ukraine, Russian technologies transferred to North Korea, coordinated votes at the UN — this is operational coordination, not merely rhetorical. The authoritarian axis of the twenty-first century is not an ideological fiction — it is an operational reality that must be treated as such.

Kim Jong-un and the calculation of dynastic survival

Regime perpetuation as the central objective

To understand Kim Jong-un's destructive posture, one must start with his fundamental objective: the perpetuation of the Kim dynastic regime. Kim Il-sung founded the North Korean state. Kim Jong-il maintained it. Kim Jong-un — third generation — perpetuates it. Every strategic decision from Pyongyang is assessed against that objective: does it reinforce the regime's survival? Does it weaken the forces that could threaten it?

The nuclear weapon is the ultimate guarantee of that survival. Kim Jong-un drew the lesson of Gaddafi — who abandoned his weapons of mass destruction programme and was overthrown. He drew the lesson of Saddam Hussein — who had no operational nuclear programme and was invaded. The conclusion is limpid in its logic: nuclear weapons are the only absolute guarantee that the United States will never invade North Korea. Abandon the nuclear programme and you die. Maintain it and you survive. This logic is inexorable — and that is why no economic pressure, no diplomatic agreement, no normalisation promise has ever convinced Pyongyang to dismantle its arsenal.

The destructive posture as an internal signal

Kim Jong-un's destructive posture is not only addressed to Seoul and Washington — it is also addressed to the North Korean military and elites themselves. By displaying martial resolve, by showing that the regime is ready for confrontation, Kim signals to his own generals and bureaucrats that no hesitation, no doubt about the hard line, will be tolerated. The belligerent internal rhetoric is a power consolidation mechanism — a permanent reminder that devotion to the Supreme Leader is the condition of survival for everyone.

There is also an economic dimension to this posture: the massive military expenditures, the permanent war economy, the sacrifices imposed on the population in the name of national defence — all of this is explained and politically justified by the "destructive posture" necessary in the face of existential enemies. Without a perpetually dramatised foreign threat, the poverty economy of North Korea would become politically untenable. The destructive posture is the political architecture that allows the North Korean economy to hold together.

Seoul's response: pragmatism, firmness, and paradoxical opening

South Korea's North Korea policy under multiple pressures

The South Korean government is navigating an extraordinarily complex strategic environment. On one side, it faces a North Korea adopting a destructive posture and deploying soldiers in Ukraine. On the other, it must maintain an allied relationship with the United States (notably in the face of the unpredictability of the Trump administration), coordinate with Japan on regional defence, and manage a divided South Korean civil society on what policy to adopt toward the North.

The decision to open the door to North Korean prisoners in Ukraine is symptomatic of a Seoul policy that combines strategic firmness with calculated openings. In opening this door, Seoul is not seeking to negotiate with Pyongyang — it is seeking to exploit a strategic vulnerability created by Kim Jong-un's own choices. This is offensive-defensive foreign policy: seizing the initiative on terrain where one holds an advantage. Seoul demonstrates that a democracy can be as tactically agile as an authoritarian regime — while remaining within the framework of its values.

The available pressure instruments against Pyongyang

What are the real levers that Seoul and its allies can use to respond to Kim Jong-un's destructive posture? The first is the maintenance and strengthening of joint military exercises — a credible deterrence signal showing that the American-Korean alliance is ready. The second is increased missile defence capabilities — notably THAAD systems and Aegis naval systems — to reduce the military value of the North Korean arsenal. The third is pressure on China, North Korea's main economic partner, to maintain sanctions and not compensate for the economic pressures placed on Pyongyang.

The fourth lever — and perhaps the most powerful in the long term — is information. Spreading information on real conditions in North Korea — via leaflet-carrying balloons, radio broadcasts, and increasingly via USB drives and mobile phones that circumvent information restrictions — progressively erodes the regime's legitimacy in the eyes of its own population. The potential repatriation of North Korean prisoners from Ukraine to South Korea is also a form of information warfare: North Koreans who have seen the outside world, who can compare, who can testify. Information is perhaps the most effective weapon against the North Korean regime in the long term — and the Ukraine prisoners are an unexpected manifestation of it.

The impact on regional security in Northeast Asia

Japan between the North Korean hammer and the Chinese anvil

Kim Jong-un's destructive posture has direct implications for Japan — which is within range of most North Korean missiles. Tokyo spent decades calling for negotiations on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, while developing its own missile defence capabilities and strengthening its alliance ties with the United States. Japan's strategic transformation — doubling defence spending, acquiring long-range strike missiles — is partly motivated by the North Korean threat.

For Tokyo, Pyongyang's destructive posture justifies and accelerates its military transformation. That is one of the ironies of Kim's strategy: in seeking to intimidate his neighbours, he accelerates precisely the consolidation of alliances and the building of capabilities that reduce his room for manoeuvre in the long term. A militarily stronger Japan, more integrated into regional defence structures, represents a more serious constraint for Pyongyang than a pacifist Japan. Kim Jong-un's destructive posture strengthens the very alliances it claims to threaten.

The implications for China: a difficult balance

China is in a delicate position facing Kim Jong-un's destructive posture. On one hand, it does not want a North Korea that excessively destabilises the region to the point of triggering a major military escalation or an American intervention on its doorstep. On the other, it does not want a denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula that would strengthen the United States and could lead to a pro-American reunification of the peninsula.

The Russia-North Korea partnership, facilitated in part by Beijing's benevolent neutrality, complicates the Sino-North Korean relationship. Kim Jong-un now has an alternative to exclusive dependency on China — which reduces Beijing's leverage on Pyongyang. China finds itself in a situation where its most difficult ally is developing alternative strategic ties that reduce its influence. The geopolitics of the Korean Peninsula have become more complex for all actors — including those who thought they controlled it.

Diplomatic options facing the destructive posture

What has failed and why

The history of negotiations with North Korea is a catalogue of repeated failures. The 1994 Agreed Framework — a freeze on North Korean plutonium in exchange for energy assistance — held for a few years before Pyongyang secretly resumed a uranium enrichment programme. The six-party talks of the 2000s produced declarations and few tangible results. The Trump-Kim summits of 2018–2019 — with their spectacular images but zero results — were the most recent illustration that showmanship diplomacy does not produce nuclear dismantlement.

Each time, the same pattern: economic and diplomatic concessions to Pyongyang in exchange for promises of nuclear programme limitation. And each time, North Korea used the time of negotiations to advance its programme, collect the economic benefits of the periods of détente, then break the agreement when it became too constraining. This is not situational bad faith — it is a deliberate and consistent strategy. Pyongyang negotiates to buy time and resources, not to defuse its arsenal.

What might work — or not

The uncomfortable truth is that no accessible diplomatic option appears capable of producing genuine North Korean denuclearisation as long as the Kim regime exists and nuclear weapons are its survival guarantee. The available options reduce to: deterrence (maintaining response capabilities to make any North Korean nuclear use suicidal), missile defence (reducing the effectiveness of North Korean missiles if used), and risk management (avoiding involuntary escalation through direct military communication channels).

Increased economic pressure via China is theoretically possible but practically unlikely as long as Beijing does not perceive the denuclearisation of the peninsula as in its interest. The military option — preventive strikes — is too risky with an arsenal of 40–60 warheads whose locations are partially unknown. There is no good option facing Kim Jong-un and his destructive posture — there are only options less bad than others.

The Russia-North Korea treaty of 2024: two years of an alliance that worries the world

What two years of military cooperation have produced

In June 2024, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un signed a treaty of "mutual assistance" that included provisions for aid in the event of aggression against either signatory — language echoing the mutual defence clauses of NATO's Article 5. Two years later, the concrete effects of that treaty are measurable: Ukraine has captured or identified thousands of North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk and the Donbas. North Korea has supplied Russia with millions of artillery shells, short-range ballistic missiles, and combat manpower that Moscow no longer had in its own depleted ranks.

In exchange, Kim Jong-un has received Russian military technologies, potentially shared reconnaissance satellites, and international legitimation giving him access to forums that his diplomatic isolation had closed to him. Putin's visit to Pyongyang in June 2024 — the first in twenty-four years — signalled that Russia considers North Korea a serious strategic partner rather than an embarrassing client. This diplomatic revaluation is perhaps the most dangerous benefit Kim has derived from two years of alliance with Moscow.

The impact of cooperation on North Korean military capabilities

The technologies transferred from Russia to North Korea within the framework of this alliance remain partially opaque — both regimes maintain secrecy around their exchanges. But several indicators suggest significant transfers in at least two areas: atmospheric re-entry systems for intercontinental ballistic missiles and precision guidance technologies. These transfers could significantly improve the reliability and accuracy of North Korean missiles — shifting from a rough weapon of terror to a more predictable strike tool. This is an evolution that Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington are following with intense attention.

North Korea's cooperation with Russia has also had effects on the operational readiness of the Korean People's Army (KPA). Tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers have acquired real combat experience in Ukraine — a rarity for an army that had not fought since the Korean War. These veterans, on their return, represent a capital of military experience that Kim Jong-un can integrate into his forces. Nothing trains a soldier better than a real war — and Putin has offered Kim Jong-un a full-scale training ground.

North Korean prisoners in Ukraine: a window onto the regime's opacity

What the captures reveal about the North Korean army

The capture by Ukraine of North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces is a diplomatic and military event of considerable significance. These prisoners constitute the first direct source of information on the Korean People's Army (KPA) accessible to Western intelligence services in decades. The interrogations — extracts of which have been made public by the Ukrainian government — have revealed fascinating elements: soldiers who did not know they would be deployed to Ukraine before their arrival, men who had never heard of the ongoing war, a profound ignorance of the outside world consistent with the total information isolation of Pyongyang's regime.

These revelations confirm what North Korea specialists had been documenting for years: Kim Jong-un's regime maintains its population — including its army — in an extraordinary state of ignorance about the reality of the outside world. This ignorance is functionally useful for the regime: soldiers who do not know what they are fighting for obey better than soldiers who question. But it also produces less effective combatants, less capable of tactical adaptation, more dependent on centralised orders than the decentralised doctrines of modern warfare tend to require. Disinformation is a weapon — but it also carries an operational cost that real war reveals without mercy.

Seoul's offer: a diplomacy of reconciliation through prisoners

The Seoul government's proposal to take charge of the North Korean prisoners captured in Ukraine is a bold and symbolically powerful diplomatic gesture. By offering to repatriate these soldiers — or to welcome them in South Korea if they refuse to return to Pyongyang — Seoul is simultaneously sending several messages. To the North Korean population, it says: we recognise you as Koreans, not as enemies. To the international community, it says: Korean reunification is a reconciliation objective, not a conquest. And to Kim Jong-un, it says: your soldiers can choose.

This last message is precisely the one Pyongyang most dreads. North Korean soldiers who choose not to return, who testify about their experience in Ukraine and their discovery of the outside world, represent a potential informational bomb for a regime founded on its population's controlled ignorance. That is why Pyongyang's reaction to this offer will be one of maximum diplomatic and rhetorical violence — the existential stakes for the regime permit no concession on this terrain. A regime that survives through ignorance cannot survive witnesses who have seen something else.

North Korea and the nuclear programme: irreversibility as doctrine

Why the denuclearisation of North Korea has become a fiction

The international community officially continues to pursue the objective of "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation" of North Korea (CVID). But non-proliferation experts are increasingly willing to admit privately — and some publicly — that this objective has become diplomatic fiction. North Korea now possesses an arsenal estimated at between 40 and 60 nuclear bombs, intercontinental ballistic vectors capable of reaching the United States, and an employment doctrine that integrates nuclear weapons into its low-intensity military planning. This is no longer a programme to stop — it is a reality to contain.

Kim Jong-un's decision to enshrine in North Korea's Constitution the irreversibility of the country's nuclear status is an explicit formalisation of that reality. By making denuclearisation a constitutional impossibility, Pyongyang eliminates all negotiating space on its arsenal — while maintaining the rhetoric of availability for "constructive discussions" to buy diplomatic time. This is the mastery of deliberate contradiction: say yes to discussions, no to their contents. Constitutionalising the nuclear programme announces the end of CVID as a realistic objective while preserving diplomatic appearances.

Managing a nuclearised North Korea: toward a containment doctrine

If denuclearisation is out of reach in the short and medium term, the question becomes one of managing a nuclearised North Korea — a containment rather than elimination doctrine. This shift, still politically difficult to acknowledge publicly for allied governments, corresponds to the de facto reality for several years. It requires clearly defining the red lines whose crossing would trigger a direct military response — the distinction between possession and use of nuclear weapons, thresholds for the transfer of nuclear technology to third parties, and escalation levels that trigger military repositioning.

This containment doctrine must also integrate the humanitarian dimension: millions of North Koreans live under one of the most brutal dictatorships in contemporary history. A policy focused exclusively on the nuclear file at the expense of human rights in North Korea misses an essential dimension — and creates a moral inconsistency that democracies cannot afford to ignore indefinitely. Containing the nuclear threat without ignoring the people — that is the difficult balance any realistic policy toward Pyongyang must maintain.

The impact of the destructive posture on the Korean Peninsula and its neighbours

South Korea facing an intensifying threat

Seoul is in the most uncomfortable geopolitical situation imaginable: a capital of 10 million inhabitants within direct range of Kim Jong-un's artillery, tied to an American ally whose commitment can vary depending on the presidency, and facing a neighbouring regime whose official doctrine provides for pre-emptive strikes if it perceives an existential threat. This situation is not new — it has lasted since 1953 — but the destructive posture announced by Pyongyang in 2024 has made it explicitly more dangerous. A regime that officially grants itself the right to strike first no longer needs pretexts to start a conflict.

Seoul's response to this threat has several components. Militarily, South Korea has developed a "Kill Chain" system — a pre-emptive conventional strike capability against identified North Korean missile launchers, coupled with increasingly sophisticated missile defences (KAMD). Diplomatically, it maintains an in-principle openness to dialogue while refusing to make concessions that legitimise nuclear blackmail. And politically, it manages internal divisions on the North Korean question between a left that favours engagement and a right that advocates firmness — divisions that complicate strategic consistency. Governing under the threat of nuclear annihilation while maintaining a vibrant democracy may be one of the most difficult political exercises in the world.

Japan and the security implications of the destructive posture

Japan observes the North Korean destructive posture with particularly acute anxiety. North Korean ballistic missiles — including the Hwasong-18, a solid-fuel ICBM — regularly overfly its territory during tests. Medium-range missiles could strike any Japanese city in under ten minutes. And the employment doctrine developed by Kim Jong-un explicitly envisages tactical nuclear strikes against American military bases in Japan to deter intervention in the event of conflict on the peninsula. For Tokyo, North Korea is not a distant concern — it is an imminent existential threat.

That is why Japan has accelerated its acquisition programme for deep-strike missiles (American Tomahawks, indigenous long-range missiles) capable of reaching North Korean launchers before their firing. This is a major doctrinal shift for a country constitutionally limited to exclusive defence until 2022. The threat of the North Korean destructive posture is precisely what made this strategic turn politically possible in Japan. The best way to understand Japan's strategic transformation is not to look at what Japan decided — it is to look at what Pyongyang forced it to decide.

Diplomatic options facing a North Korea that does not want to negotiate

The exhaustion of traditional diplomatic formulas

Since the six-party talks were abandoned in 2008, multilateral diplomacy toward North Korea has produced disappointing results. Bilateral attempts — including the three spectacular encounters between Trump and Kim Jong-un in 2018–2019 — resolved nothing on substance, even if they created moments of apparent détente. The fundamental reason for these failures is simple: Kim Jong-un has no interest in negotiating sincerely, because the nuclear weapon is his only political survival guarantee. A negotiated denuclearisation would be, for him, signing his own death warrant.

Facing this reality, diplomatic options reduce to a few complementary approaches. The first is continued maximum pressure: tightening sanctions, reducing North Korea's access to markets and technologies, and hoping economic pressure eventually creates fractures within the North Korean elite. The second is conditional engagement: maintaining an open door to dialogue without prior concessions, hoping that a changed context — death of Kim Jong-un, internal crisis, a shift in the alliance with Russia — creates an unexpected opportunity. The third is pure containment: managing the threat without seeking to resolve it, developing defences sufficient to make any use of nuclear weapons suicidal.

The path of humanitarian dialogue: the only door ajar

In this desolate diplomatic landscape, the only avenue presenting marginal potential for progress is humanitarian dialogue — an approach that separates security issues from humanitarian ones to create a space for cooperation on food aid, family ties between the two Koreas, and the treatment of prisoners. This approach does not resolve the nuclear problem, but it maintains communication channels that could prove valuable in a crisis, marginally reduces the suffering of the North Korean population, and sends a signal to North Koreans that the outside world does not identify them with their regime.

It is precisely in this space that Seoul's offer on the North Korean prisoners in Ukraine takes its full meaning. It opens concrete humanitarian dialogue around a real question, avoiding the polemics over nuclear warheads and missiles while establishing a precedent for minimal cooperation. In diplomacy with the most closed regimes, progress is measured in millimetres — but each millimetre keeps open the space that could, one day, allow a larger step.

Conclusion: The destructive posture will remain as long as the regime exists

A truth nobody wants to hear

The "destructive military posture" called for by Kim Jong-un on June 25, 2026 is not a situational aberration — it is the explicit formulation of a strategy that has guided North Korean military policy for decades. It will persist as long as the Kim regime exists, as long as nuclear weapons are its survival guarantee, and as long as an international system coercive enough to change that fundamental calculus is not in place.

The deployment of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, the anniversary of the Russia-North Korea treaty, the destructive posture against the South, and Seoul's opening on the prisoners — these elements compose a coherent strategic picture of a Korean Peninsula more unstable and more dangerous in 2026 than it was in 2022. The solidity of the American-Korean and American-Japanese alliances, the strengthening of missile defences, and prudent risk-escalation management are the policies that can contain this danger in the absence of resolving it.

What the world must understand about Kim

Failing to understand Kim Jong-un as a rational actor in his means — even if his ends are odious — leads to ineffective policies. He does not surrender. He does not dismantle his arsenal. He does not transform under economic pressure. What he does is manage his survival with the available tools. The response to that reality is robust deterrence, solid alliances, advanced missile defence, and strategic patience. Kim Jong-un's destructive posture is the most ignored long-term challenge in global security — and the North Korean prisoners in Ukraine are its most unexpected manifestation.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My sources and their scope

This article relies on ABC News (June 25, 2026) for Kim Jong-un's declaration on the destructive posture, Caliber.az (June 23, 2026) for Seoul's opening on the North Korean prisoners in Ukraine, Ground News (June 22, 2026) for the anniversary of the Russia-North Korea treaty, and TASS (June 25, 2026) for Russian concerns over American-South Korean exercises. I do not have access to internal North Korean sources — Pyongyang's internal policy documents are hermetically secret. My analysis is based on open sources and the observations of specialised researchers.

My judgement on North Korean doctrine as strategic rather than impulsive is shared by the majority of Korean Peninsula specialists — but it is an analytical interpretation, not an established fact. Respected experts hold different views on the degree of calculated rationality in Kim Jong-un's decisions. For more in-depth analyses, I recommend the work of the 38 North Project, the Korea Economic Institute, and researchers such as Andrei Lankov.

My biases and what I do not know

I am deeply anti-Kim Jong-un — not out of cold ideology, but out of conviction that his regime represents a political abomination inflicting suffering on millions of North Koreans without their consent. This moral bias colours my analysis without invalidating it — the facts on the nuclear programme, the Russia-North Korea treaty, and the soldiers in Ukraine do not depend on my sympathy or antipathy toward the regime. But my reading of the destructive posture as a deliberate strategy of calculated escalation — rather than a response to real provocations — is an interpretation that other analysts can legitimately contest.

I do not know the real state of Kim Jong-un's health, nor the stability of the North Korean elites around him, nor whether internal tensions exist regarding the regime's strategic direction. These unknowns are fundamental to understanding the durability of the destructive posture.

Sources

Primary sources

ABC News — Kim Jong-un calls for destructive military posture against the South — June 25, 2026

Caliber.az — Seoul opens the door to North Korean POWs held in Ukraine — June 23, 2026

Ground News — North Korea vows deeper ties with Russia on 2nd anniversary of treaty signing — June 22, 2026

Secondary sources

TASS — Russia expresses concerns over US-South Korea military exercises — June 25, 2026

The Guardian — Global geopolitical context on alliances and deterrence — June 27, 2026

ISW — Regional geopolitical analysis in Asia — June 26, 2026