This month, Kenneth Bae joins North Korea Unpacked with Jacco Zwetsloot to discuss the 735 days he spent detained in North Korea, how repeated visits to the country shaped his understanding of ordinary North Koreans and what his imprisonment revealed about the state’s security system. He recounts how he traveled to North Korea 17 times […]

North Korean defector and George W. Bush Institute program manager Joseph Kim joins the podcast to discuss his recent NK News opinion column arguing that analysts and policymakers focus too heavily on Kim Jong Un while overlooking the role ordinary North Koreans could play in shaping the country’s future.  He explains why he believes North […]

This week, NK News Senior Analytical Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins the podcast to break down North Korea’s latest missile drill, which combined ballistic missiles, 600mm multiple rocket launchers, cruise missiles and attack drones in a coordinated strike on a single target. Colin explains what the exercise reveals about Pyongyang’s growing ability to integrate different weapons […]

This week, NK News Data Correspondent Anton Sokolin joins the podcast to discuss the opening of the first new road bridge between North Korea and Russia, a project years in the making that gives the two countries their first direct vehicle crossing across the Tumen River.  Anton also breaks down how the project’s cost ballooned […]

“North South Man Woman” co-director Sun Kim returns to the NK News Podcast to discuss the five-year process of making the documentary, which follows North Korean defector Yoojin Han and her matchmaking agency connecting North Korean women with South Korean men. Kim explains how a chance encounter with longtime collaborator Morten Traavik in North Korea […]

Korea Risk Group Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins this week’s podcast to discuss the latest signals from Pyongyang following President Donald Trump’s renewed outreach to Kim Jong Un and the decision to shorten the Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises from 11 days to five. He breaks down two recent statements from Kim Yo Jong, […]

Donald Trump is once again reaching out to Kim Jong Un, praising their personal relationship, calling for a reduction in U.S.-South Korea military exercises and claiming the North Korean leader has responded “very positively.” This week, NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy joins the podcast to unpack what Trump actually said, how closely it resembles […]

Jeongmin Kim hosts this week’s NK News Podcast and is joined by Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko to discuss a series of recent satellite imagery investigations into North Korea’s military infrastructure, beginning with an unusual new facility at a factory producing short-range ballistic missiles supplied to Russia. Colin explains why North Korea built and then […]

Former U.N. official Jerome Sauvage joins this week’s podcast to discuss his new book, Witness to North Korea: Three Years on the Ground in the DPRK, which recounts his posting in Pyongyang from late 2009 to early 2013. He explains why he accepted one of the U.N.’s most difficult assignments and what it took to […]

NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins this week’s podcast to discuss Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that Russia has requested another 30,000 North Korean troops for its war against Ukraine. He explains how realistic a deployment of that size would be, why Russia may be preparing facilities in the Voronezh region and whether DPRK […]