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4 weeks ago | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk
North Korea’s cyber capabilities have evolved dramatically in recent years, progressing beyond simple hacking to encompass public opinion manipulation, military technology theft, and cryptocurrency mining. The country increasingly deploys IT workers in sophisticated “asymmetric operations” that face few geographic or temporal constraints and are difficult to trace. The regime recently established the “227 Research Center” under the Reconnaissance General Bureau of the Korean People’s Army.
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4 weeks ago | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Lee Sang-yong
North Korea began selecting workers and technicians in early March for reconstruction projects in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including the Donbas region. These labor assignments, already agreed upon with Russia, appear designed to earn foreign currency while strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries. A source in North Korea told Daily NK recently that the country is reviewing plans to send groups of 1,000–2,000 workers for Ukrainian reconstruction projects.
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1 month ago | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Lee Sang-yong
As the Trump administration pushes to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, North Korean officials are developing plans to maintain a military alliance with Russia even after the conflict concludes. A North Korean source told Daily NK recently that Pyongyang’s position is that its military strategy isn’t influenced by specific events. This stance suggests that North Korea fundamentally intends to continue developing its military alliance with Russia.
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2 months ago | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk
“Work harder, pay more, keep less” – this is the grinding reality for North Korean workers in Chinese factories, where a complex web of state quotas and mandatory contributions strips away their wages despite Pyongyang’s hollow promises of worker protection. In frigid seafood processing plants along China’s northeastern coast, women laborers watch their monthly earnings evaporate into an ever-growing list of state demands, leaving them barely enough to survive.
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Jan 8, 2025 | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Lee Sang-yong
The White House’s disclosure during a briefing late last year that around 1,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia had been killed or wounded shocked the international community. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service likewise determined that around 10,000 North Korean troops had been sent to the front line in Russia’s Kursk region, and approximately 1,000 had been killed or wounded.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Lee Sang-yong
Daily NK has learned that North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), which oversees espionage operations in South Korea and abroad, deployed several hundred agents to the Russia-Ukraine War in early November. The deployment of specialized infiltration and reconnaissance units appears aimed at strengthening North Korea’s comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia, according to a source inside North Korea who spoke with Daily NK last Thursday.
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Nov 28, 2024 | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Lee Sang-yong
North Korea is enforcing strict secrecy around casualties among its troops fighting in Russia. A source within the Korean People’s Army’s 11th Corps revealed that internal protocols exist to quietly handle soldier deaths, with families receiving limited details and the public kept entirely in the dark. “Even when troops perish during training, they are interred on a hill close to their base or cremated, with their families merely informed of their death in the line of duty,” stated the source.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk
North Korea’s Public Reporting System Law encourages overseas workers to report their colleagues’ illegal activities, but the system has proven ineffective due to inadequate informant protection and mishandling of reports. Based on Daily NK’s investigation of Chinese seafood processing plants, while direct phone lines connect factory reporting “boxes” to North Korean authorities like the embassy, workers are unable to safely use these reporting channels.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Lee Sang-yong
North Korean troops recently deployed to Russia, reportedly from the KPA’s Storm Corps, have undergone intense ideological training since 2014 emphasizing their duty to sacrifice their lives for Kim Jong Un. These soldiers were likely ordered to fight in Ukraine rather than volunteering, following years of indoctrination to serve as a “fortress and shield” for their supreme commander.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk
North Korea is strictly enforcing three recently enacted laws on its citizens working abroad: the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Exclusion Act, the Youth Education Guarantee Act, and the Pyongyang Dialect Protection Act. These regulations are severely restricting North Koreans’ freedoms both at home and abroad. An investigation into Chinese seafood factories has revealed that North Korean workers are completely cut off from outside information. According to a source who spoke to Daily NK on Oct.
