Daria Kadkina | Member of the Board of the Russian Society for Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with the DPRK (Russia)
Dear friends, colleagues,
I started my work in the DPRK ISG back in 2017. I had just turned twenty, and my heart truly burned with the ideal of global social justice and equality. We held pickets, meetings, and studied the works of the Korean leaders together. We drew inspiration from the ideas written by Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il, and we genuinely admired the heroic deeds of young women and men revolutionaries. It seemed to us that just a little more—and the cause of social justice would triumph over the imperialists and capitalists of the West.
In Russia, back then, we were looked at as obsessed kids tilting at windmills. The years passed, and the situation in the world grew more tense. Then came COVID—and we temporarily stopped our gatherings and meetings. And after that, the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out. And suddenly, as if overnight, the Russian authorities seemed to have their eyes opened: they finally saw the true faces of their enemies and their real friends. One of the very few nations that genuinely supported Russia turned out to be the DPRK. And I am endlessly grateful to our Korean friends for that help and support.
I am not dramatizing anything. My classmates, my fellow students—ordinary guys our age—ended up on the battlefield. Young people are forced to fight, to struggle for their lives. There is no beauty in war; war is horror. Many of my friends will forever remain crippled—physically and mentally. They could have spent their strength and energy on creativity, on art, on science, but instead they are forced to die.
This war has allowed me to understand our Korean friends even more deeply. Because they, like no one else, know, understand, and have seen the consequences of the most terrible hostilities. We were all unprepared for war, and we paid a cruel price for it. The DPRK, on the other hand, turned out to be the one country that was truly ready for war and for any external aggression. The imperialists and capitalists of the world are afraid and will not dare to set foot on Korean soil. Because only the Koreans have fully grasped the meaning of the saying: if you want peace, prepare for war.
