North Korea Severing Routes to the South

After promising to remove all mention of reunification with South Korea from its constitution, North Korea says it's eliminating all road and rail connections between the two enemy nations. Roads and railways connecting the countries will be cut off beginning Wednesday, the General Staff of the Korean People's Army said, according to state media. It said it would "permanently shut off and block the southern border" while fortifying areas on its side as "a self-defensive measure for inhibiting war" with the "invariable principal enemy," per the BBC and Reuters. It's seen as "a largely symbolic step," as these roads and rails are rarely used and have been "incrementally dismantled" by the North over the past year, the BBC notes.

The army said the move came in response to South Korea's war exercises and the frequent presence of US nuclear assets in the region. South Korea's Defense Ministry said the US-led United Nations Command military force, which oversees the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, had been notified. After a January speech from leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament was widely expected to change the country's constitution to remove references to the "unification" of North Korea and South Korea at a session this week, but no alteration on that score has been made public, per Reuters.

As it rages against its neighbor, North Korea has been cozying up to Russia, including through the supply of weapons for Russia's war in Ukraine. Beyond that, dozens of North Koreans are reportedly in Ukraine to help Russia with ballistic missiles, marking "the first time a foreign government has sent troops in uniform to support Moscow's war," the Guardian reports, noting this "gives North Korea a chance to test weapons [and] gain combat experience for its troops." "This might even be a driving factor behind sending North Korean soldiers—to provide them with diverse experiences and wartime training," says Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul. (More North Korea stories.)