North Korea to Welcome Russian Tourists, the Country's First since the Pandemic, Report Says

Russian and North Korean flags fly at the Vostochny Сosmodrome, the venue of the meeting between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. Sputnik/Artem Geodakyan/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Russian and North Korean flags fly at the Vostochny Сosmodrome, the venue of the meeting between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. Sputnik/Artem Geodakyan/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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North Korea to Welcome Russian Tourists, the Country's First since the Pandemic, Report Says

Russian and North Korean flags fly at the Vostochny Сosmodrome, the venue of the meeting between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. Sputnik/Artem Geodakyan/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Russian and North Korean flags fly at the Vostochny Сosmodrome, the venue of the meeting between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. Sputnik/Artem Geodakyan/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Russian tourists reportedly going on a ski trip to North Korea will be the first international travelers to visit the country since its borders closed in 2020 amid the global pandemic lockdown.
The report, published Wednesday by the Russian state-run Tass news agency, underscores deepening cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. It also follows the meeting last September between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, The Associated Press said.
Tass did not specify a timeframe but the report brought some surprise to Asia observers who had expected the first post-pandemic tourists to North Korea to come from China, the North’s biggest diplomatic ally and economic pipeline.
According to Tass, an unspecified number of tourists from Russia's far eastern region of Primorye will first fly to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where they will visit monuments such as the “Tower of Juche Idea,” named after the North’s guiding philosophy of “juche” or self-reliance.
The tourists will then travel on to the North’s Masik Pass on the east coast, where the country’s most modern ski resort is located, Tass said. It said the trip was arranged under an agreement reached between Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of the Primorye region, and North Korean authorities.
Kozhemyako traveled to Pyongyang in December for talks on boosting economic ties as part of a flurry of bilateral exchanges since the Kim-Putin summit. Ahead of the trip, he told Russian media he expected to discuss tourism, agriculture and trade cooperation.
The Kim-Putin summit deepened outside belief that North Korea is supplying conventional arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine, in return for high-tech Russian weapons technologies.
The White House said last week that it has evidence Russia fired additional North Korea-provided missiles at Ukraine. The United States, South Korea, Japan and others issued a joint statement condemning the missile's transfer.
North Korea and Russia are locked in separate confrontations with the United States and its allies — North Korea for its advancing nuclear program and Russia for its protracted war with Ukraine.
North Korea has been slowly easing pandemic-era curbs and opening its international borders as part of its efforts to revive its economy devastated by the lockdown and persistent US-led sanctions. Its reputation also suffered a blow in August 2022, when Pyongyang made a highly dubious claim that it had beaten a domestic COVID-19 outbreak.
“For North Korea, tourism is the easiest way to earn foreign currency under the international sanctions regime,” said Koh Yu-hwan, former president of Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification.
Koh said he expects Pyongyang to eventually also open North Korea to Chinese tourists.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said "visitors from Russia are unlikely to be as financially lucrative for North Korea as the return of more numerous visitors from China.”
“But the domestic political risk is relatively low while providing symbolism of revitalized relations with Moscow in line with Pyongyang’s current geopolitical narrative,” he added.



Spain Says April Blackout Was Caused by Grid Failures and Poor Planning, Not a Cyberattack 

This photograph shows a general view of Barcelona at night, partially without electricity, with the Sagrada Familia seen on the right, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, on April 28, 2025. (AFP) 
This photograph shows a general view of Barcelona at night, partially without electricity, with the Sagrada Familia seen on the right, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, on April 28, 2025. (AFP) 
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Spain Says April Blackout Was Caused by Grid Failures and Poor Planning, Not a Cyberattack 

This photograph shows a general view of Barcelona at night, partially without electricity, with the Sagrada Familia seen on the right, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, on April 28, 2025. (AFP) 
This photograph shows a general view of Barcelona at night, partially without electricity, with the Sagrada Familia seen on the right, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, on April 28, 2025. (AFP) 

Spain's government said Tuesday that the massive April power outage across Spain and Portugal that left tens of millions of people disconnected in seconds was caused by technical and planning errors that left the grid unable to handle a surge in voltage.

Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen, who manages the nation's energy policy, told reporters that a voltage surge led to small grid failures, mainly in the south of Spain, which then cascaded to larger ones and brought the system down in the two Iberian Peninsula nations.

She ruled out that the failure was due to a cyberattack.

The outage began shortly after noon on April 28 in Spain and lasted through nightfall, disrupting businesses, transit systems, cellular networks, internet connectivity and other critical infrastructure. Spain lost 15 gigawatts of electricity, or about 60% of its supply. Portugal, whose grid is connected to Spain's, also went down. Only the countries' island territories were spared.

“All of this happened in 12 seconds, with most of the power loss happening in just five seconds,” Aagesen said.

Several technical causes contributed to the event, including “poor planning” by Spain's grid operator Red Eléctrica, which didn’t find a replacement for one power plant that was supposed to help balance power fluctuations, the minister said.

She also said that some power plants that utilities shut off preventively when the disruptions started could have stayed online to help manage the system.

Power was fully restored by the early hours of the following day.

The government's report included analysis from Spain's national security agencies, which concluded, according to the minister, there were no indications of cyber-sabotage by foreign actors.

The government had previously narrowed down the source of the outage to three power plants that tripped in southern Spain.

In the weeks following the blackout, citizens and experts were left wondering what triggered the event in a region not known for power cuts. The outage ignited a fierce debate about whether Spain's high levels of renewable power and not enough energy generated from nuclear or gas-fired power plants had something to do with the grid failing, which the government has repeatedly denied.

Spain is at the forefront of Europe's transition to renewable energy, having generated nearly 57% of its electricity in 2024 from renewable energy sources like wind, hydropower and solar. The country is also phasing out its nuclear plants.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed back against such speculation and defended the country's rapid ramping up of renewables. He asked for patience and said that his government would not “deviate a single millimeter” from its energy transition plans, which include a goal of generating 81% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.