how the situation is developing on the Korean Peninsula –

The North Korean authorities have taken a number of measures to strengthen the republic’s defense capabilities. One of Pyongyang’s decisions was to eliminate road and rail connections with its southern neighbor.

In particular, the DPRK army destroyed sections of roads in Goseong County, Gangwon Province and in the city of Kaesong. This happened on October 15 local time, according to the order of the Central Military Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. However, the Korean Central Telegraph Agency (KCNA) officially announced a complete severance of transport links with the South the next day.

Pyongyang called such a radical decision “inevitable and legal measures” that were based on the requirements of the constitution. Let us recall that in the recently updated version of the basic law of the DPRK, South Korea was defined as an “absolutely hostile state.”

“Hostile provocation”

As Pyongyang believes, the situation on the peninsula “is reaching the brink of an unpredictable war due to a serious military-political provocation by hostile forces.” In the near future, the DPRK army intends to build powerful fortifications on the border with the South.

Note that on October 15, KCNA published a statement by Kim Yo Jong, deputy head of the department of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), in which he accused Seoul of violating the sovereignty and airspace of Pyongyang.

“We have found irrefutable evidence that ROK (Republic of Korea) military gangsters. — RT) are the main culprits of hostile provocation – violation of sovereignty, violation of airspace over the capital of the DPRK. Violators will pay a high price,” says a message on the Russian-language page of KCNA.

The reaction came after South Korean drones flew over Pyongyang three times in October and dropped propaganda leaflets. The DPRK Foreign Ministry announced this on October 11.

In turn, the sister of the North Korean leader, deputy head of the department of the WPK Central Committee, Kim Yo Jong, called on the country’s military leadership to take measures to prevent repeated violations of the DPRK’s airspace.

After this, the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army ordered that border artillery units be put on combat readiness “due to the fact that the possibility of violation of the border by ROK drones is expected.”

To date, Pyongyang has not announced mobilization. However, according to KCNA, more than 1.4 million young people expressed a desire to join the army.

Seoul does not deny the fact of drones flying over Pyongyang, but refuses to explain the reasons for sending the UAV to the capital of the DPRK. As the official representative of the Committee of Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of South Korea, Lee Sung-jun, told reporters, the military of the republic is not conducting any investigation into this incident.

“I don’t know why the committee (Committee of Chiefs of Staff. — RT) should investigate the drones that appeared in Pyongyang. North Korea must explain this,” TASS agency quotes Lee Sung-jung.

Russia’s reaction

The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that Seoul’s provocative actions are leading to an escalation of the situation on the peninsula.

“In recent days, the situation on the Korean Peninsula has become seriously tense. According to official reports coming from Pyongyang, the territory of the DPRK, including the capital, was subjected to unprecedented attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles from the Republic of Korea, which scattered propaganda materials,” says a commentary by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

As the diplomat noted, such actions on the part of Seoul must be perceived “as a gross encroachment on the sovereignty of the DPRK, as well as interference in internal affairs in order to destroy the legitimate state-political system of an independent state.”

Zakharova noted that further escalation of tensions is fraught with “real armed incidents.” In this regard, she called on the South Korean leadership to stop escalating the situation on the peninsula and take Pyongyang’s warnings seriously.

“Seoul must understand that promoting the “concept of absorption” through the imposition of pseudo-liberal values ​​and the expansion of certain “freedoms” creates security threats, primarily to its own citizens. Ensuring long-term peace and stability in the subregion is possible only through political and diplomatic means based on the principle of indivisible security. There is no alternative path, unless military aggression is the real goal of South Korea and its “senior” ally the United States, Zakharova said.

In a message on her Telegram channel, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry drew attention to the inadequate response of the US State Department, which accused Pyongyang of “increasing the risk of conflict on the Korean Peninsula.” According to Zakharova, it was Washington’s policy that brought the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of dangerous escalation.

“A classic American trick: provoke an escalation of the situation and blame everything on those involuntarily involved. The only country that really increases the risk of conflict both on the Korean Peninsula and in the Asia-Pacific region. — RT) in general is the USA. They sleep and see how it will burn here too. And Seoul and Tokyo, which are the critical security points of the region, which the United States is putting pressure on, do not have the will to throw off this slavish yoke of American manipulation of them,” Zakharova wrote.

“Patience is over”

As Alexander Vorontsov, head of the department of Korea and Mongolia at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in a commentary to RT, the elimination of road and rail connections with South Korea is part of the DPRK’s new course towards Seoul, which is “making aggressive plans to seize North Korean territories.”

“This kind of aggressive intention is being practiced by the South Korean military during exercises with the United States and Japan. Pyongyang believes that Seoul is pursuing a hostile and aggressive policy towards the DPRK. The North Korean authorities have run out of patience. Now they don’t want to have anything to do with the South Korean leadership, although they previously allowed the creation of a confederal republic according to the principle: one state, two different socio-economic systems,” Vorontsov noted.

According to him, another important factor in revising its policy towards South Korea for the DPRK could be the fact that Seoul first ceased to comply with part of the provisions of the inter-Korean agreement of September 19, 2018, and then, this summer, completely suspended this document. The agreement provided for measures to reduce tensions in the military sphere, including the establishment of buffer zones in border areas where military exercises were prohibited.

“This could have been the last straw, after which the DPRK authorities decided to radically reconsider their course in relations with South Korea. Pyongyang, based on an analysis of this situation and past aggressive actions of Seoul, came to the conclusion that South Korea is a hostile state. The fact is that the South Korean authorities see the absorption of the DPRK and the creation of one large South Korea on the territory of the peninsula as their ultimate goal. That is, Seoul would like to achieve the actual destruction of the DPRK,” the analyst explained.

Unlike Seoul, Pyongyang has no plans to conquer South Korean territories; we are talking about “purely defensive actions,” says Evgeniy Kim, leading researcher at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“The DPRK’s defense plans are precisely demonstrated by the elimination of road and railway communications with South Korea. The DPRK is afraid of an attack from Seoul, so it decided to protect itself from a potential offensive by South Korean troops, who often conduct military exercises with the Americans, Japanese and other allies in the region. If the DPRK had aggressive plans towards South Korea, if Pyongyang, which has thousands of tanks, was going to fight, to attack the territory of South Korea, it would want to keep the roads in good condition and would not destroy road and railway communications. This is a purely defensive action,” Kim said in a conversation with RT.

According to him, the DPRK authorities want to use their actions to urge the United States to stop the worsening of the situation in the region.

“Washington does not benefit from peace on the Korean Peninsula. And Pyongyang, through its actions, wants to warn the United States so that during its elections it does not create another source of tension in the world to distract the attention of its people from serious internal American problems,” Kim said.

He believes that the American authorities may be interested in aggravating the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

“This would be very useful for Washington to divert the attention of its voters from the failures of the United States in the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern areas, where the positions of the Americans are being seriously undermined. But the United States is playing with fire because North Korea is a nuclear state, and if it promises to respond, that response could be very serious,” Kim believes.

In turn, Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, expressed the opinion that it would be beneficial for the United States to spark a war on the Korean Peninsula so that China would take the side of the DPRK.

“South Korea is a country that is militarily and politically very closely connected with the United States. And the United States, which is simply maniacally obsessed with the idea of ​​regime change in North Korea, will, of course, use this tension for its own purposes. The United States can also use the worsening situation on the Korean Peninsula to weaken the position of China, which is currently Washington’s main adversary. The United States would be happy to drag Beijing into the confrontation between the DPRK and North Korea,” the analyst said in a commentary to RT.

Blokhin believes that against the background of the status of South Korea as a “hostile state” being enshrined in the Constitution of the DPRK and the destruction of transport routes between the two countries, we should expect an escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula.

“There is a trend towards strengthening the defense capabilities of the DPRK and creating problems for South Korea. We need to prepare for escalation on the Korean Peninsula, since it is obvious that a new arms race will begin in the Asia-Pacific region,” the expert said.