On April 10, South Korea held elections for members of the 22nd National Assembly, with the leading opposition Democratic Party retaining its majority in parliament. The media described the election outcome as a confident and crushing victory for the opposition, but when compared to the 2020 election, where the score was 180:103 in favor of the Conservatives, the Democrats rather maintained their position, and even lost a little without Cho Kuk. Rather, the Conservatives failed to deprive the Democrats of a qualified majority of half of the mandates, and the Democrats did not gain two-thirds, after which they could have impeached the president. As they say, ‘they held their ground.’

One year ago, after ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol radically changed his focus and outlined a policy shift embracing Japanese partnership during a speech commemorating the 104th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule, this author began waiting to see how this important anniversary would play out this year. His premonitions did not fail him!

On March 28, 2024, Russia vetoed the extension of the mandate of the UN panel of experts to monitor the sanctions against the DPRK until April 30, 2025. This is important, because according to the established procedure, the decision to extend the term of office of the so-called 1718 Sanctions Committee must be made by April 30, otherwise it will be unable to continue with its activities…

Parliamentary elections in South Korea have taken place, and their outcome partly matched this author’s predictions. Therefore, in this final block of articles on this topic, we will first recall how we thought the outcome would be, and then we will describe how the population actually voted, comparing the results of the 2024 election and the results of the 2020 election. We will touch on irregularities separately to remove interference factors…

In late March 2024, South Korea marked the 10th anniversary of the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan corvette near the western maritime boundary between North and South Korea. The March 26, 2010 tragedy claimed the lives of 46 out of the 104 sailors on board and was also politically significant, as it changed the course of relations between the two Koreas. After some deliberation the south Korean authorities announced that the corvette was sunk by a North Korean stealth midget submarine. This announcement triggered a further deterioration…

Japan and North Korea do not currently have any diplomatic relations, but Tokyo periodically tries to gain political capital by attempting to establish a dialog with Pyongyang. The most successful such attempt occurred in 2002, when, in a meeting with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, DPRK leader Kim Jong Il admitted that 13 Japanese citizens had been abducted by North Korea’s intelligence services…

Contrary to the anticipation of anti-Pyongyang propaganda discussed in the previous part of this digest, there have been no direct provocations, including in the area of the disputed maritime border. Instead, the North conducted its own exercise and criticized the enemy’s. Already on the day the exercise began, March 4, a DPRK Ministry of Defense spokesman issued a press statement. “The frantic war drills by the ROK puppets and vassal forces led by the US make…

Parliamentary elections are taking place in South Korea today, and you can pay attention to the results of opinion polls and forecasts of politicians themselves. Of course, in the history of South Korean elections, force majeure situations are far from unusual and most of the groups are under the influence of one of the main parties (usually the Democratic Party). Moreover, often the results are distorted, even without taking…

From March 4 to 14, 2024, the Armed Forces of the United States and the Republic of Korea conducted the annual joint exercise Freedom Shield. This is a complex exercise involving many large and small maneuvers, so first it should be described the main points in which Freedom Shield 2024 differed from previous exercises. The stated objective was to improve interoperability and enhance the ability of alliance forces to conduct joint operations…

On February 10, 2024, the Lunar New Year holiday, Yoon Suk-yeol visited the Second Marine Corps Division in Gimpo, inspected the Cheonmoo multiple rocket launcher system, and urged troops to be prepared for any North Korean provocations. “If the enemy provokes, you have to sternly and overwhelmingly respond under the principle of ‘act first, report later’ to completely crush the enemy’s will.”…

On February 23, 2024, with less than two months to go before the parliamentary elections in April, the Republic of Korea’s presidential administration said it would respond strongly to the appearance of a fabricated video on the Internet “featuring” President Yoon Suk-yeol. “We express serious concern over the fact that … certain outlets are labeling the false and fabricated video as a satirical video or reporting on it as if it is okay because it is marked as fake.“…

As this text is being written, South Korea’s parliamentary elections are less than a month away. In this situation, both Democrats and Conservatives are engaged in a certain struggle for votes, and this struggle is largely reduced not so much to glorifying themselves, but to slinging mud at their opponents. At the same time, direct campaigning by officials is prohibited as the use of administrative resources, and under South Korea’s defamation laws, even the dissemination of truthful defamatory…