Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Feb 12, 2025 | eastasiaforum.org | Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

The diverging trajectories of North Korea’s state and society over the last year are striking. The government has reaped substantial benefits from closer ties with Russia, including fuel oil shipments. The state may be getting stronger but daily life for North Koreans is only getting harder amid a faltering economy and soaring cost of living.

Nov 24, 2024 | nationalinterest.org | Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

There’s been much speculation about North Korea’s motives for sending troops to Russia. The dispatch of around 10,000 troops by North Korea to Russia for deployment in the war against Ukraine is already Pyongyang’s largest-ever troop deployment to a foreign conflict. With regular rotations of soldiers, according to Ukraine’s ambassador to South Korea, around 100,000 North Korean soldiers could fight for Russia within a year.

Oct 2, 2024 | 38north.org | Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

In recent months, foreign exchange rates in North Korea have surged in ways that intuitively make little sense. The Korean People’s won (KPW), the country’s domestic currency, now trades at 16,100 to the dollar in Pyongyang—the highest recorded rate since Daily NK began tracking it in 2009. This marks a 92 percent increase over the past year, and a nearly 90 percent increase in just six months.

Mar 11, 2024 | eastasiaforum.org | Arius M. Derr |Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein |Troy Stangarone |Kyuseok Kim

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have not been this high since 2017, when then US president Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un exchanged threats of nuclear war and North Korea tested its first long-range missile capable of reaching the United States. On 16 January 2024, Kim ordered a change to the country’s constitution — a document of unclear utility in an Orwellian personality cult — so that peaceful unification of North and South Korea was stricken from official policy.

Dec 27, 2023 | nkeconwatch.com | Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

By: Benjamin Katzeff SilbersteinWhere does the North Korean economy stand, and where is it going? Kim Jong Un spent some of the last few days of 2023 at the 9th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Worker’s Party Central Committee that was held in Pyongyang. The meeting notes published by KCNA serve as a good guide to the economic and political priorities of the regime as well as its assessment of the year that passed.