The Yalujiang River, located on the border between North Korea and China, is facing a severe test. Having left its trough in the wake of the devastating rains since the end of July, it must deal with an additional challenge: having already swallowed many homes, it must also find room within itself for the mighty body of Kim Jong-un. The same pore her waters mercilessly and purposefully, located on the bow of an innocent and moaning rubber boat under his authority. The supreme leader is personally leading the rescue operations, North Korean media reports, and footage on Pyongyang's state television shows Kim Jong-un giving instructions to the ratties on the vessel as he graces the waters of the Yalujiang with his presence.
Probably to recreate the risks that the Supreme Leader takes in solidarity with the plight of the people who love him, the media regulators leave a curious shot: the boat carrying the heavy responsibility suddenly veers to the side and enters an undirected "contact" with the crown of a water-swallowed tree. Although he bends over, in an attempt not to discipline the tree's branches with his posture, Kim Jong-un sacrificially takes the damage: he straightens his disheveled hair with his hand. It is the first and probably the last plant species that dares to compromise the Supreme Leader's hairstyle.
However, the flood takes lives, and over 5,000 people are displaced as a result of the natural disaster. Kim Jong-un visits the tent camps, bestowing the comfort and soft warmth of his presence upon the people. Hands of believers reach out to him, flesh of the flesh of Mount Pektusan. But at the same time, the Supreme Leader is furious and furious, we learn again from the Korean National News Agency (KCNA). Because of the lost battle with the flood, there were probably between 20 and 30 people shot, we learn this time from the English-language media. "Those in a defeatist mood in the fight against nature do not confidently engage in disaster prevention work, but only wait for a chance from the sky," Kim Jong-un was quoted as saying by KNCA.
However, there is nothing defeatist in the spirit and actions of Kim Jong-un. In about a month, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles (albeit short-range) and deployed 250 ballistic missile launchers (their design, according to experts, resembles the Hwasong short-range ballistic missile) near the border with South Korea -11D, which Pyongyang claims can be armed with a nuclear warhead). North Korea subsequently blew up the remaining infrastructure - rail and road - connecting the country to South Korea, and the latter was labeled an "enemy state" in the constitution of its northern neighbor.
This is happening against the background of the flying balloons that the two countries have been sending to each other across their militarized border for months. The contents of North Korean balloons are usually made up of propaganda, rubbish, including excrement (a North Korean balloon managed to reach the presidential compound in Seoul these days, and its content was prosaic: to the usual threats there was a joke related to the fact that the president of South Korea Yoon Suk-yeol is childless). The contents of the South Korean balloons also contain political leaflets, but also dollars, pop music and TV series flash drives, and pictures of the watches Kim Jong-un wears along with their prices. This baloney exchanged between Pyongyang and Seoul is also accompanied by North Korea's accusations that its southern neighbor has sent several unmanned aerial vehicles that also spread propaganda calls.
But what actually worries the North Korean government more are the intensified joint military exercises between South Korea and the US, taking place against the background of an increased American military presence in East Asia, where, as part of the consolidation of the Kemp Triad David (USA, Japan, South Korea), Washington periodically deploys additional military assets (carrier-led battle groups, strategic bombers and nuclear submarines).
But like the rubber boat on the Yalujiang River, the Korean peninsula is also too narrow for Kim Jong-un's might. From here, the Great Leader also entered the European field of view with the fact that he sent North Korean troops to Russia. In fact, the original source of this information was the South Korean intelligence (National intelligence service, NIS), according to which, since the beginning of this month, the deployment of North Korean - probably special forces and engineering troops - units in the Russian Far East (located in various bases in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk , Ussuriysk and Vlagoveshensk). Although the initial NIS report did not mention specific numbers, the head of the South Korean intelligence agency in question later said that 3,000 Pyongyang troops were already stationed on Russian soil, with the number expected to reach 12,000. According to the NIS, the North Korean units in question are being trained at Russian bases around the aforementioned cities, equipped with Russian uniforms and fake documents. A special emphasis in their training seems to be related to unmanned aerial vehicles, and possibly to the control of fighter jets (before the NIS partially lifted the curtain regarding the transfer of North Korean units to Russia, information had already appeared in the mass media , that there are already North Korean pilots there).
Gradually, photo and video footage began to emerge showing men of Korean descent in Russian military bases. On one of these video formats, a Russian voice-over mentions that they have been conquered by... (here the video breaks to continue in a politically correct angle). Given that both Moscow and Pyongyang deny that there is such a transfer of live force, it is interesting then what the appearance of these images is a function of at all - whether it is extreme carelessness on the part of the Russian military or deliberately released information (in some of the photos the Koreans - one of them identified as a man seen in Kim Jong-un's entourage - are looking knowingly at the cameras, so these are not surreptitious photos). Although the functions and purpose of the deployed North Korean military in Russia are not yet completely clear, their "transfer" can be confirmed as fact.
Uncertainties, however, remain much more than what is known. For example, it is not clear what exactly Kim Jong-un receives from Vladimir Putin in exchange for the sent men and ammunition (artillery shells, ballistic and anti-tank missiles, which the Russians use against Ukraine). Satellite images show an extraordinary traffic of containers not only from North Korea to Russia and vice versa, but they can contain everything from food to oil. However, the most valuable thing that Moscow could give Pyongyang would not be contained in containers. It is know how - about the nuclear, missile and satellite programs of North Korea. It is speculated that the Russians may also help modernize the "hermit kingdom's" navy, with an emphasis on the construction of a nuclear submarine. And in any case, the North Korean military receives training, which can turn into live combat experience if they are sent to the Ukrainian front.
In any case, Kim Jong-un's cooperation with Vladimir Putin, building on the comprehensive strategic partnership concluded in the middle of this year between North Korea and Russia, is particularly useful for Pyongyang. For once, it provides the North Korean dictator with another lifeline both to overcome Pyongyang's chronic problems of food and hydrocarbon shortages and the country's military-technological needs. For the second time, Kim Jong-un received additional guarantees aimed at countering East Asian consolidation between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul (this process also included the thawing of bilateral relations between Japan and South Korea achieved in recent years thanks to the conservative administrations of Fumio Kishida and Yoon Suk-yeol).
And these guarantees are very important for Pyongyang: China would not follow Russian adventurism in opposing the bank (here, now, by all means) against the collective West. On the international stage, Xi Jinping plays billiards, and Kim Jong-un also needs a person like Vladimir Putin, who prefers bowling - throws the ball against all the pins.
The North Korean dictator will always have the support of the Chinese president when it comes to North Korea's strategic positioning against the US, Japan and South Korea, but now, mainly due to Russia's needs in addition to the war in Ukraine, he is also securing the tactical backing of the Russian head of state. Adventurism and rising power are the things that unite Kim Jong-un and Putin and separate them from Xi Jinping.
The risk for the North Korean dictator (and for his Russian counterpart as well) stems from the fact that China would not allow the romance between the two to become more than that, as the Celestial Empire prefers not to share the influence it has with Pyongyang. Xi Jinping, long before anyone else, will be the first to hit the table with his fist if he judges that Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin are no longer just holding hands.
The other, but this time a well-known risk for Kim Jong-un, is cigarettes. The footage from the boat in the overflowing Yaludzyan River shows that the Great Leader apparently can no longer last a propaganda tape without smoking. It is true that Jerome K. Jerome wrote that there should be a "pipe or two" in the boat of our life. But South Korean intelligence has a different take: Kim Jong-un weighs 140 kg (remember his watches? Even their chains help measure the size of his wrist), has high blood pressure and a family history of cardiovascular disease. He also suffers from diabetes. However, even more so - from paranoia, which makes it difficult for him to access foreign specialists and medicines. Along with cigarettes, alcohol is the other bad habit of the Great Leader.
But when you are in the eye of the storm, natural and foreign-political, high blood pressure is somehow natural.