Since 2022, the picture of North Korea and the tone of protection amongst Russian TV channels have modified considerably, following the strengthening of the bilateral relations. In November 2025, North Korea’s Korean Central Information Company (KCNA) and the Russian state-owned media company Rossiya Segodnya signed a cooperation settlement, pledging to advertise goal details about one another’s occasions and the lives of their residents. The targets of creating media cooperation and countering disinformation campaigns have been additionally talked about in Article 20 of the 2024 Treaty on Complete Strategic Partnership.
Russia’s ties with North Korea have been weakened within the Nineteen Nineties, when Moscow started preferring Seoul to Pyongyang, and their formal army alliance, which had existed since 1961, led to 2000, when a brand new treaty was signed. After restoring the partnership in 2024, Russia needed to reintroduce North Korea as a loyal ally and spotlight the lengthy historical past of cooperation. Selling a constructive picture of North Korea by the state-affiliated media has grow to be an essential software for enhancing how Russians understand the nation.
Tone Shift in 2017
The picture of North Korea as an impoverished nation with a malnourished and oppressed inhabitants was dominant for a very long time, particularly after the nation confronted famine and financial disaster within the Nineteen Nineties. Within the mid-2010s, life in North Korea was recognized to Russians as stuffed with concern and fixed state surveillance primarily based on the movie “Below the Solar” produced by Vitaly Mansky. Given the dearth of up-to-date details about North Korea and the negligible variety of Russian residents visiting the nation, Russians had, for a very long time, a distorted understanding of North Korea’s present dwelling circumstances.
As such, Russian protection of North Korea tended to focus primarily on its nuclear and missile packages. Whereas information and discuss exhibits had traditionally maintained a impartial tone, avoiding evaluative framing, that has shifted since 2017 to considerably extra constructive protection. This variation occurred amid Russia’s rising frustration with the US and rising sanctions strain on each Moscow and Pyongyang. As Western restrictions in opposition to Moscow intensified, it intensified criticism of the usage of each unilateral and multilateral sanctions, arguing that they aim international locations that act independently of the US. North Korea, which confronted complete UN sanctions in 2017, was used for instance of a rustic that was punished for making an attempt to say its sovereignty and strengthen its army capabilities.
On this context, Moscow formally condemned North Korean missile launches in 2017, however information protection conveyed the launches as an indication of North Korea’s sovereignty and resolve to behave regardless of the US threats of tighter sanctions for violating worldwide legislation. An episode of a TV program “Time Will Inform” on Channel One, for example, highlighted {that a} long-range missile launch was performed regardless of the US warning.
Aiming to enhance perceptions of North Korea and present it as a typical place the place individuals reside peculiar lives, Channel One featured a number of brief sketches in 2017 in its morning information program, demonstrating Pyongyang residents hurrying to work within the morning, ladies sporting colourful garments and high-heeled sneakers within the streets, and males stopping by the barbershop for a haircut and a shave. This footage was meant to tell the Russian viewers that many misconceptions and adverse information about North Korea have been not true.
Latest Narratives: The Most Sovereign Nation on the Planet
Since 2022, as relations with Pyongyang have strengthened, Russian media has doubled down on efforts to painting North Korea as a traditional state and has been highlighting its sovereignty and decisiveness to proceed its political and army improvement regardless of Western strain and sanctions.
In 2025, a weekly political program “Russian Classes” hosted by a Russian author and politician Zakhar Prilepin broadcast episodes about North Korea. An episode titled “DPRK – a star named the Solar: Essentially the most sovereign nation on the planet” portrayed North Korea as a rustic that managed to realize a excessive degree of technological and financial improvement regardless of a hostile worldwide atmosphere. The host shared his expertise visiting North Korean eating places and bars, noting that they have been corresponding to European and American venues.
In an episode “Look – Korea is getting nearer. With every day,” the creator highlighted Korea’s loyalty and dedication as an ally, metaphorically noting that the worldwide order relies now on “a Russian bear, a Chinese language dragon, an Indian elephant, and our Complete Strategic Partnership Treaty with North Korea. The Korean tiger is lurking close by and is able to do its half if we’d like assist.” The emphatic narrative about North Korea’s sovereignty just isn’t an accident, given the strain of sanctions which have been imposed on Russia since 2022. North Korea supplies an instance of the significance of sustaining sovereignty and persevering with a selected political course regardless of the political or financial prices imposed by the West. This narrative aligns with the Russians’ notion of Western sanctions as ineffective. Opinion polls from 2025 point out that 70% of Russian residents consider the first aim of the sanctions is to weaken and humiliate Russia, whereas 79% additionally consider that they’d strengthen Russia or don’t have any influence on the nation in any respect.
Russian media, nonetheless, keep away from mentioning how Moscow traditionally voted for imposing UN Safety Council (UNSC) sanctions on North Korea that profoundly restricted the nation’s development potential within the first place. Whereas Moscow vetoed the extension of the mandate of the 1718 Panel of Specialists in 2024 and have been advocating for the revision of sanctions on North Korea since 2017, citing the adverse influence they’ve on the civilian inhabitants, it repeatedly supported their imposition, as the event of the North Korean nuclear program didn’t align with Russia’s safety pursuits.
Latest Narratives: Mutual Respect and Historic Reminiscence
One other side incessantly highlighted in Russian media is the mutual respect between the 2 nations and the hospitality proven to Russian officers. The political talk-show “60 Minutes” on the Russia 1 channel featured an episode on Putin’s go to to Pyongyang in 2024, calling it an “epic” occasion and exhibiting footage of the streets and the sq. in Pyongyang full of individuals, welcoming the Russian president. The viewers might see scenes of the grand reception: balloons floating within the air, a ceremonial artillery salute for the friends, and Russian songs echoing throughout the sq..
Reporting on Lavrov’s June 2025 go to to Wonsan, when he signed a Plan of Inter-Ministerial Exchanges for 2026-2027, Channel One additionally emphasised to viewers that the minister was met with “cheers, an honor guard, and flowers.” The hosts put out a pink carpet resulting in the newly constructed talks venue, which Lavrov was the primary overseas minister to go to. A heat welcome was additionally given to the delegation of State Duma deputies, who arrived to take part within the celebration of the 80th anniversary of liberation in August 2025.
The emphasis on a respectful method of greeting Russian officers stems from the difficulties a few of them confronted visiting Western international locations after 2022. Though North Korea has much less diplomatic worth within the eyes of Russians in comparison with Western international locations or its influential Asian allies, reminiscent of China, the footage of the ceremonial reception was aimed toward restoring nationwide pleasure for the president and the federal government.
The media emphasised the respectful angle towards historic reminiscence and the tribute paid by allies to the Soviet troopers who liberated Korea in 1945 and to the North Korean troops who fought close to Kursk in 2024 and 2025. On August 15, 2025, the Russian army TV channel Zvezda aired a documentary titled “Russia – DPRK: Two sides of 1 river”, which narrated the story of Korea’s liberation by the Soviets. The movie started and ended with current footage of North Korean troops preventing in Kursk, establishing a connection between these two occasions in viewers’ minds.
An essential subject was North Korea’s angle towards army memorials devoted to those that fell in previous and current wars. An October 2025 report by Channel One highlighted that the Liberation Monument, inbuilt 1946 to honor the Soviet troopers, is maintained in a super state, in addition to the tombs of the Soviet pilots who supported the DPRK within the Korean Struggle. The episode claimed that “in contrast to Western international locations, North Korea doesn’t rewrite historical past.” Visiting the Liberation Monument grew to become a vital a part of Russian army officers’ journeys to Pyongyang: Shoigu visited the place throughout his journey to Pyongyang in March 2025, adopted by Deputy Protection Minister Goremykin in November. That function matches the overall significance of army memorials to troopers who fell in World Struggle II for Russia: large-scale memorials are situated in numerous Russian cities and international locations that have been a part of the socialist bloc. Even in smaller cities and villages within the European a part of Russia, which have been affected by the battles in 1941-1945, there are sometimes small commemorative websites with the names of the troopers who fell whereas liberating these areas.
Latest Narratives: North Korean Modernity
Efforts to enhance North Korea’s picture since 2017 have grow to be extra seen lately. The 2023 episode of the “60 Minutes” discuss present reported that Pyongyang was experiencing a development growth, exhibiting footage of the opening of recent residential areas. The correspondent famous that Kim Jong Un is believed to be essentially the most liberal chief within the nation’s historical past, granting North Koreans larger freedom of their on a regular basis lives, together with the suitable to put on colourful clothes, excessive heels, select hairstyles, and use smartphones.
As North Korea opened to overseas guests after the COVID-19 pandemic, Russian and North Korean authorities and journey businesses began to advertise Russian tourism to the DPRK. The February 2024 Channel One information report shared the impressions of the primary vacationer group to go to Pyongyang and the Masikryong Ski Resort in winter 2024. The correspondent famous that the advanced meets the requirements of different world-class ski resorts and is supplied with trendy amenities. After Russian vacationers visited a newly constructed Wonsan Kalma seaside resort in summer season 2025, a documentary “Moscow – Pyongyang. What’s occurring past a border that’s lengthy been closed?” was aired by Russia 24, the place Russian vacationers shared their constructive expertise of visiting the North Korean resort, praising the sandy seashore and the excessive degree of service. The documentary additionally featured the Songdowon Worldwide Youngsters’s Camp and an interview with a participant, who admitted he had lengthy hoped to go to North Korea.
General, the variety of Russian vacationers visiting North Korea elevated fivefold from January 2024 to July 2025, partly attributable to improved transport connectivity. Whereas for a very long time solely Maritime Province had a direct connection to North Korea, a flight from Moscow to Pyongyang was launched in summer season 2025 and featured in a Channel One information report.
Conclusion
Media assist has grow to be a robust software for Russia–North Korea cooperation, working to justify the present alliance with Pyongyang and current it as a loyal and reliable companion. Russian TV protection of North Korea avoids important commentary and maintains a respectful tone, portraying the nation as having achieved financial and technological improvement regardless of worldwide isolation and sanctions. Whereas it does assist the Russian viewers get extra real-time info and visuals of recent North Korea, focusing solely on the capital space and resort locations with out mentioning dwelling circumstances in smaller cities and rural areas creates an incomplete image of the DPRK.
