The portal NK News sees in the better lighting of the city's districts proof that the regime prioritized the supply of electricity to new streets and residential buildings in the center of the city in order to demonstrate its achievements. State leader Kim Jong Un already in 2021, at the Eighth Party Congress, announced the construction of 50.000 new apartments in the capital. He launched that plan, among other things, in the new district of Hwasong, with two 40-story residential skyscrapers that resemble an intercontinental missile of the Hwasong type.
New high-rise neighborhoods aren't the only sign of North Korea's growing prosperity. Longtime visitors say Pyongyang seems more modern, with a host of imported cars, including electric cars from China, phone apps for QR code payments and hailing taxis, and department stores stocking Western fashion and beauty brands.
In Pyongyang, the regime has completed the construction of the largest hospital and a huge complex of greenhouses for growing vegetables, approximately the size of New York's Central Park. On the east coast, in June 2025, Kim opened the five-kilometer-long Wonson-Kalma resort, with a capacity for 20.000 guests. In June, the Wall Street Journal called North Korea "the world's greatest economic success."
The sudden economic rise of the dictatorship is probably financed primarily by high revenues from participation in the Russian war against Ukraine. According to a March report by South Korea's Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS), North Korea earned between US$7,7 billion and US$14,4 billion by selling ammunition to Moscow and sending soldiers to the battlefield. The Bloomberg Economics portal recently estimated that military support to Russia between 2022 and 2025 brought more than 14 billion US dollars in revenue.
Photo: Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, FileKim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin
An additional almost eight billion dollars came from trade with Cinema, leasing of North Korean workers abroad, exports and cyber-crime. For example, during the world's largest attack on the Bybit platform in February 2025, North Korean hackers allegedly stole $1,5 billion worth of Ethereum tokens. By comparison, North Korea's gross domestic product last year was $27 billion.
Kim Jong Un has never had so much influence and money
The new role of Russia's ally has given Kim greater political importance and stronger military power, which can be seen in the launching of two 5.000-ton destroyers. During his 15 years in power, the autocrat has never had so much influence and money at his disposal.
It is a stunning reversal. During the corona virus pandemic, the autocrat lost his influence and at the beginning of 2021, at the congress of the Workers' Party, he admitted with tears in his eyes that "almost all economic sectors failed in relation to expectations". At the next party congress, five years later, seven lines of artillery were lined up in front of the building, and Kim celebratoryly declared, "Everything has changed fundamentally."
Photo: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, FileKim Jong Un
The partnership with Russia allowed North Korea to lose its status as a pariah in world politics and overcome its long-standing isolation. Vladimir Putin visited Kim in Pyongyang in June 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in June this year, three months after Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Kim participated with Xi and Putin in marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing in September 2025.
It is not known whether Russia or North Korea was the first to come up with the idea to use the impoverished country's huge ammunition depots for the war against Ukraine. According to Ukrainian estimates, during 2024 and 2025, North Korea provided half of the ammunition needed by Russia on the battlefield, as well as self-propelled artillery, multiple rocket launchers and ballistic missiles. Currently, according to Ukrainian allegations, it plans to deploy a missile unit with 90 soldiers, six launch pads and up to 120 missiles in Russia to participate in the fighting against Ukraine.
Kim gets $2.800 a month for each soldier
Between 16.000 and 22.000 North Korean troops were already assisting Russia in pushing Ukrainian forces out of the border region of Kursk, and later in demining that area. According to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Kim now intends to deploy an additional 30.000 to 50.000 troops in Russia. It's a lucrative job: According to the INSS report, Kim receives US$2.800 a month for each soldier, US$3.000 for an officer, and between US$6.000 and US$10.000 for each soldier killed.
As in Soviet times, mutual trade mainly takes place through commodity exchange. In exchange for ammunition, weapons and soldiers, Moscow supplies crude oil and petroleum products, grain and military equipment, from air defense systems to technology for building drones, missiles and submarines.
Photo: Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, FileKim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin
Despite this, according to experts, the economic boom is bypassing a large part of the population. Rising food prices and the weakening of the national currency, the won, are affecting many poorer households who do not have access to foreign exchange. In many families, women now also have to work in order to maintain their standard of living. In the spring of 2024, Kim unveiled a "20x10" development program for regions outside the well-stocked capital of Pyongyang, which he reportedly wants to finance precisely from those windfalls. Modern factories should be built in 20 cities or districts every year. During ten years, a total of 200 regional industrial projects should be created in this way.
But North Korea expert Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, believes that the "20×10" projects will fail.
"This is because the factories do not even have the necessary infrastructure, and the electricity supply mechanisms, spare parts and raw materials are not taken into account either," says Lankov. He especially points out that those factories will operate according to the principles of a planned economy, which is not suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises.
"Unlike the economic growth that occurred in North Korea in the mid-2010s, the current growth is not the result of internal economic reforms, but exclusively of international luck," Lankov believes.
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