# OPEN LETTER: To Kim Jong-un — June 25, 2026 and the Anniversary of a War That Never Ended > Mr. Kim Jong-un, you chose June 25, 2026 to oversee your weapons tests. This was no accident. On June 25, 1950, your political predecessors launched their tanks toward the 38th parallel, triggering a war that killed 5 million people and divided a peninsula for generations. Sevent - Author: Maxime Marquette - Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co) - Section: Open letter - Published: 2026-06-27 - Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/lettre-ouverte-a-kim-jong-un-le-25-juin-2026-et-l-anniversaire-d-une-guerre-qui ## Introduction: Mr. Kim, You Chose This Day to Display Your Weapons ### June 25, the Anniversary of an Invasion the World Has Not Forgotten Mr. Kim Jong-un, you chose **June 25, 2026** to oversee your weapons tests. This was no accident. On **June 25, 1950**, your political predecessors launched their **tanks toward the** **38th parallel**, triggering a war that killed **5 million people** and divided a peninsula for generations. Seventy-six years later, you fire your cannons over that same territory to remind the world — and your own people — that you have not abandoned the Kim family's dream of domination. This is coded political communication, and it is received. ### What Your June 25 Tests Say to Seoul, Tokyo and Washington This letter is not a plea. I am not asking you to abandon your weapons — I know you will not. It is a letter of contextualization: here is what your actions mean for the rest of the world, and here is what you risk by continuing on this path. You oversee in person **24-tube 240mm rocket launchers**, a **tactical ballistic missile with special payload**, and a **155mm self-propelled howitzer**. These weapons do not defend North Korea. They terrorize civilians in **Seoul**, **50 kilometers** from your border. *I write to you not out of naivety but out of a duty of clarity. Someone must name what you are doing for what it is: a show of force designed to mask the fundamental weakness of a regime that has only one thing to offer its people — fear of the outside world to justify fear of the inside.* ## The Weapons Displayed on June 25: An Arsenal of Terrifying Precision ### The 24-Tube Launcher and the Saturation of South Korean Defenses The test of the **24-tube 240mm rocket launcher** — whose range now reaches **90 kilometers** with autonomous precision guidance — is particularly significant. This configuration can saturate in minutes an area equivalent to several neighborhoods of a major city. The newly added **autonomous precision** — documented by experts from the **Sejong Institute** in Seoul — means these rockets are no longer simple indiscriminate terror weapons: they can target **specific infrastructure**, fuel depots, electrical stations, communications nodes. ### The Tactical Ballistic Missile with Special Payload The **tactical ballistic missile with special payload** presented during this test represents what Professor **Lim Eul-chul** of Kyungnam University calls a demonstration of **tactical nuclear strike** capability. Official North Korean imagery shows a missile capable of hitting **airfields, ports and electrical installations** in the forward combat zone. The designation of "special payload" is North Korean diplomatic language for describing a potential delivery capability for non-conventional weapons. Professor **Lim** observes that this presentation corresponds to a doctrine of **integrated tactical nuclear strike** within frontline units — a capability that, if deployed, would considerably shorten nuclear decision timelines and increase the risk of accidental or unauthorized use during a conventional escalation. *A tactical ballistic missile with a special payload in frontline units. This is no longer deterrence — it is a delegation of tactical nuclear authority. If you understand what that means for regional stability, Mr. Kim, you should be frightened yourself.* ## The 155mm Self-Propelled Howitzer: Modernized Conventional Warfare ### A 65-Kilometer Range That Changes the Geography of Conflict The **155mm self-propelled howitzer** tested on June 25 reaches a range of **65 kilometers** — enough to strike from protected positions in North Korean territory targets within the urbanized zones of the **Seoul metropolitan area**, which is home to **25 million people**, half of **South Korea**'s population. This capability is the reason any conflict on the **Korean peninsula** would be immediately catastrophic for civilians, regardless of the military outcome. ### The Modernization of North Korean Artillery: A Priority Program The modernization of North Korean artillery, accelerated since 2022, benefits from an **indirect technology transfer with Russia**: North Korean technicians sent to Ukraine to observe Russian artillery operations have returned with valuable information on guidance systems, precision munitions and employment tactics. This **learning-by-doing program** — in exchange for the **155mm ammunition** that **Pyongyang** supplies to Moscow for the war in Ukraine — represents a significant technological gain for your conventional arsenal. **North Korea has delivered, according to Western estimates, more than 3 million shells** to Russia since 2023 — a contribution that has substantially sustained Russian firepower in Ukraine. In return, you receive technologies, spare parts for your space program, and the assurance of a **Russian veto at the Security Council** against any resolution targeting you. *You supply **shells to Putin** so he can kill Ukrainians. In return, he protects you at the UN. It is a cynical pact between two regimes that survive on other people's wars. I cannot write it any other way.* ## Military Cooperation Between Pyongyang and Moscow: What It Says About You ### North Korean Soldiers in Ukraine — The Broken Taboo **North Korean soldiers** have been deployed in Ukraine alongside Russian forces since autumn 2024 — a fact confirmed by **American**, **South Korean** and Ukrainian intelligence, and by prisoner testimony. This decision, unprecedented since the **Korean War**, constitutes a **major doctrinal break**: North Korea, which claims **military self-sufficiency** (**Juche**), sends its soldiers to die for a foreign country. Your officers return with **real combat lessons** that your military schools could never have provided. ### The Price Paid by North Korean Soldiers South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence estimates suggest that **North Korean casualties in Ukraine exceed 2,000 killed** and several thousand wounded since **November 2024**. These soldiers — recruited in a context of total information control, most likely unaware of where they were going and why — paid the price of your alliance with Moscow. They are not martyrs. They are victims of their own government's diplomacy, sent to die in a foreign war that was probably never explained to them. Your people, Mr. Kim, pay the cost of your ambitions in lives and famine simultaneously. The **resources devoted to this armament program** — rocket launchers, **ballistic missiles**, nuclear programs — are resources diverted from an economy whose **GDP per capita** is estimated at under **$1,800 per year**, according to the rare available data. *Soldiers who do not know why they are dying, in a country that was not named to them, for an agreement they never heard of. That is North Korea in 2026. And you oversee missile tests in the meantime.* ## North Korean Nuclear Doctrine: What You Have Changed Since 2022 ### The September 2022 Law: **First Use** Authorized In **September 2022**, you promulgated a law authorizing the **first use of nuclear weapons** under specific conditions — notably if command forces were threatened with annihilation. This law constituted a fundamental doctrinal shift: it transformed North Korea's nuclear program from a deterrent held in reserve into a system integrated into operational planning. The presumed deployment of **special-payload ballistic missiles** in frontline units confirms this doctrinal evolution. ### What the First-Use Doctrine Means for the Peninsula North Korea's **first-use doctrine**, if real and not just strategic communication, means that any conventional conflict on the Korean peninsula now carries a risk of nuclear escalation from the very first hours. The **United States Forces Korea (USFK**), with **28,500 soldiers**, and the **South Korean Armed Forces**, one of the most professional armies in Asia, are direct targets in this doctrine. And the civilians of Seoul, **Busan**, **Incheon** — they are too. That is why **joint American-South Korean exercises** were intensified in 2025-2026, including for the first time simulations of **defense against a North Korean tactical nuclear strike**. You pushed your adversaries to prepare for the unthinkable. And this preparation, in turn, feeds your narrative of existential threat that justifies your program. *You have built a self-perpetuating system: you threaten to justify your program, your adversaries prepare, and you use their preparation to justify your threats. It is a spiral toward the abyss with the brakes removed.* ## China, Your Ambivalent Patron ### Beijing Between Protection and Irritation **China** is your ultimate protector — its Security Council veto has shielded you from harsher sanctions for decades. But Beijing is increasingly **irritated by your provocations**: every ballistic test draws the United States closer to Japan and South Korea, reinforces American military presence in the region, and justifies the **THAAD** missile defense system in South Korea — a system Beijing sees as a direct threat to its own security. Your missiles serve as a marketing argument for American military presence that China wants to reduce. ### The Limits of Chinese Dependence **China accounts for over 90 percent of your foreign trade**. Your economy depends on Beijing for fuel, food, industrial parts and currency. This absolute dependence is your structural vulnerability — if Beijing one day decided to turn off the tap, your regime would not survive six months. You know it. China knows it. And it is precisely this mutual knowledge that structures a relationship of uncomfortable interdependence where you can provoke, but not too much, and where Beijing can threaten, but not too much. The **visit by a senior CCP official** to Pyongyang in April 2026 — whose details remain confidential — was interpreted by peninsula analysts as a clear message: **repeated provocations are not in the common interest**. Your June 25 tests, five weeks later, suggest you did not fully absorb that message. *You depend 90 percent on a country that finds you inconvenient. That is your great weakness — and perhaps, one day, the key to a way out of the crisis. If Beijing truly decided to withdraw its support, you would no longer be a threat to anyone. Except to your own people.* ## What Ukraine Teaches Us About Regimes That Flee Reality ### Putin and Kim: Two Systems That Survive Through Threats **Vladimir Putin** and you share a similar political structure: regimes whose legitimacy rests on the **permanent threat of an external enemy**, on the repression of all internal opposition, and on the conviction that military force compensates for the lack of democratic legitimacy. Putin invaded Ukraine thinking the West would quickly capitulate. Four years later, **Kyiv holds**, Russia is economically impoverished, and Moscow has lost several hundred thousand soldiers for limited territorial gains. ### Ukrainian **Resistance** as a Message to Pyongyang **Ukraine resists** because it has **democratic legitimacy**, a population united behind **Volodymyr Zelensky**, and Western allies who chose not to capitulate to intimidation. This model of resistance — a people, a legitimate leader, a coalition — is precisely what you fear most: the demonstration that brute force is not enough against a real popular will. South Korea, for its part, possesses all of these elements. Mr. Kim, North Korea needs peace more than South Korea does. Your economy is devastated. Your people suffer. Your nuclear program has earned you **the most complete international isolation** any state has ever endured. The economic model of your southern neighbor — among the most sophisticated in the world with a GDP per capita of **$35,000** — is living proof that the Korean peninsula can prosper. If only you would let it. *North Korea in 2026 is proof that one can maintain a regime indefinitely through fear and deprivation — but cannot make it prosper. Your people deserve better. And somewhere, you must know it.* ## What I Ask of You — Not Out of Naivety, But Out of Duty ### A Way Out Exists — You Refuse to See It Negotiations exist. Diplomatic channels exist — through Switzerland, Sweden, and even through Beijing. The **inter-Korean dialogue** mechanism, suspended since 2019, could be reopened if you signaled a minimal willingness to engage. No one is asking you to disarm unilaterally tomorrow morning. They are simply asking you to stop escalating, to let humanitarian aid in, and to answer phone calls from Seoul. These **three minimal gestures** would open a space that does not exist as long as you are testing missiles on June 25. ### History Will Judge This Regime History does not remember regimes that built the largest armies. It remembers those who chose **peace when they could have chosen war**. Mikhail **Gorbachev** opened the USSR and returned freedom to half of Europe. The world saluted him — including his former adversaries. You could be that Korean leader who chose dialogue and reconciliation over threats and isolation. This is not naivety — it is history. And it repeats itself, for those who read it. *I know you will not read this letter. I know that if you did, you would not take it seriously. But I write it anyway — because someone must say out loud what diplomats whisper: this regime is a tragedy for its own people, and there is another way.* ## Conclusion: June 25, 2026 and What It Says About the Future ### A War Anniversary Used as a Platform for Power You chose the 76th anniversary of the start of the **Korean War** to show your weapons. This choice says everything about your relationship to history: for you, it is an argument for legitimacy, a propaganda weapon, a mirror in which you see yourself as the continuer of a historical mission. But history is also a merciless judge — and it has already rendered its verdict on regimes that chose force over the people. They all end the same way. ### The World Has Changed — Your Regime Has Not The world of 2026 is not the world of 1950. Alliances are stronger, international surveillance more intense, and the resilience capacity of democracies under threat — Ukraine is proof of this — is far greater than your military planners anticipated. Your **24-tube launchers, your tactical missiles and your 65-kilometer howitzers** are formidable instruments of terror. But they will not resolve the **food crisis** striking your northern provinces, nor the **energy shortage** plunging Pyongyang into darkness for several hours a day. True national security, Mr. Kim, is not measured in missiles. It is measured by the prosperity of your people. *Somewhere, a North Korean child looks at the sky and sees missiles. I would prefer that child to see construction cranes, lit-up schools and food delivery trucks. This is not a utopia — it is what your southern neighbor built in two generations, without a nuclear program. Think about it.* **By Maxime Marquette, columnist** ## Columnist's transparency note ### Editorial stance I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies. I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events. ### Method and sources This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here. **Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies. **Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations. When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**. ### Nature of the analysis The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted. My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors. This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text. ## Sources ### Primary sources - [US News — Kim Jong-un Oversees Weapons Tests, KCNA Reports — June 25, 2026](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-25/north-korean-leader-kim-oversees-weapons-tests-kcna-reports) - [Reuters — North Korea Tests Weapons on 76th Anniversary of Korean War — June 25, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-tests-weapons-76th-anniversary-korean-war-2026-06-25/) - [KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) — Official communiqués on June 25, 2026 tests](https://www.kcna.kp/en) ### Secondary sources - [38 North — Analysis of North Korean Weapons Tests of June 25 — June 2026](https://www.38north.org/2026/06/north-korea-weapons-tests-analysis/) - Kyungnam University — Prof. Lim Eul-chul on North Korean Tactical Nuclear Doctrine — 2026 - CSIS Korea Chair — North Korea-Russia Weapons Cooperation — 2026 - --- Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/lettre-ouverte-a-kim-jong-un-le-25-juin-2026-et-l-anniversaire-d-une-guerre-qui