Something has changed inside North Korea

Troops to Russia, signs of an imminent nuclear test and death sentences for K-pop.

The Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea has long symbolized hopes for peace and unity on the Korean peninsula. Opened in 2004, it housed South Korean factories that employed North Korean workers. Joint production trudged along until 2016, when South Korea turned off the lights in response to advances in North Korea's nuclear programme; subsequent attempts to restart the project faltered. In October, Kim Jong Un, North Korea's dictator, made clear that it has no future by blowing up the roads that connect Kaesong to the South.

The destruction of roads intended to link the divided Korean peninsula is just one sign of rising tensions. North Korea has strengthened its ties with Russia, dispatching an estimated 10,000 troops to help its President Vladimir Putin wage war against Ukraine; South Korea fears that Mr Putin will provide sensitive missile or nuclear technology in return. South Korea's intelligence services allege that North Korea is preparing for a nuclear test or intercontinental ballistic missile launch ahead of America's presidential elections next week. Less visibly but no less ominously, over the past year Mr Kim has reversed decades of official doctrine by declaring that the two Koreas are not a single divided people but rather separate, hostile states.

Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea's President, has laid out a hard-edged policy towards the North, too. Channels of communication have gone cold. Lower-level provocations have proliferated: South Korea resumed broadcasts of anti-communist propaganda targeted at North Korean soldiers along the border, while North Korea has sent balloons filled with rubbish into South Korea. All this suggests that the conflict on the peninsula has entered a dangerous new phase.