A battalion of 3,000 North Korean soldiers will shortly join Russian troops in fighting Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s full entry into the war.
Intelligence sources said the unit has been secretly training in Russia’s Far East ahead of deployment as part of a Russian airborne regiment.
“They are called the Buryat Battalion,” a senior Ukrainian military source told Politico. Buryatia is a remote region of Russia bordering Mongolia that the Kremlin has targeted heavily for military recruitment.
The Kyiv Independent quoted another Western intelligence source claiming that North Korea had sent 10,000 soldiers to join the Russian army.
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Ukraine’s about to get a lot of defectors…
Unfortunately many North Koreans already leave the country to work as slaves for construction companies, factories, etc (including in Europe). Generally they only allow people out who have families back home to be tortured/killed in case they defect.
They will probably get some, but less than you might expect.
There’s a pretty big difference between construction work and human wave tactics in a warzone. Different levels of motivation to defect.
And different opportunities, going MIA on a construction site is suspicious, but during war? Who can tell whether they defected or died?