As North Korea declared a “shining victory” over Covid-19 and hailed the “miracle” of just 74 virus deaths, Kim Yo-jong announced that Kim Jong-un had in fact been “seriously ill.”

The North blamed the outbreak on the South for flying Covid-contaminated leaflets across the border, which Kim Yo-jong described as a “crime against humanity,” citing “the danger of spreading an infectious disease through contacting contaminated objects.”

According to the state news agency, she also said that amidst suffering from a “high fever”, their leader “could not lie down for a moment thinking about the people he had to take care of until the end in the face of the anti-epidemic war.”

One source spoke of how the COVID-19 outbreak gave Kim Jong-Un a unique opportunity to “shift his public persona from that of a military leader into still more of a father figure to the nation.”

International observers speculate that North Korea refers to “fever” rather than Covid-19 due to a lack of testing equipment.

According to Russian state media, “100,000 North Korean volunteers are prepared to come and take part in the conflict” to help Russia win the war against Ukraine.

Russia’s military pundit, Ignor Korotchenko, said that his country would welcome the troops and commended the North’s counter-battery expertise.

North Korea’s military is the world’s fourth largest, with nearly 1.3 million active personnel, according to the Council for Foreign Relations in New York.

It is also reported that North Korea plans to assist Russia in rebuilding a post-war Ukraine by sending more than 1,000 workers to the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine if Russia wins the war.

Meanwhile, Donetsk separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, sent a message to Kim Jong-un calling for an “equally beneficial bilateral cooperation agreeing with the interests” of their people during the August 15 anniversary of the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II.

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, told South Korea’s president, Yoon, to “shut his mouth” as she rejected his offer of economic assistance, including food, energy and infrastructure help, in return for denuclearization.

According to North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, she said the country does not intend to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

She called Yoon “really simple and still childish” for suggesting such an “audacious” plan and added that “No one barters its destiny for corn cake,” as she dismissed the possibility of face-to-face talks with the South.

As a close confidant of her brother and someone who oversees inter-Korean affairs, she questioned Yoon’s sincerity in calling for improvements between the two countries as South Korea continued to participate in joint military drills with the U.S. and failed to stop propaganda leaflets from flying across the heavily guarded border.

North Korea launched two cruise missiles two days after Yoon’s offer, marking its first weapon test in more than two months.

North Korea denounced U.S. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, as the “worst destroyer of international peace” over her visit to the Demilitarized Zone and Taiwan.

An official at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry stated that, in addition to discussions with Seoul to call for “strong and extended deterrence against North Korea”, Pelosi “made her appearance even in the joint security area of Panmunjom, utterly betraying the vision of the hostile policy of the current U.S. administration towards the DPRK.”

Pyongyang also lashed out at Pelosi over her visit to Taiwan, which drew threats and massive military drills from China, North Korea’s key ally and trade partner.

While emphasizing Taiwan as “an inseparable part of China,” North Korea’s spokesperson added that Pyongyang “fully support(s) the Chinese government’s just stand to resolutely defend the sovereignty of the country and territorial integrity.”