There are growing reports that North Korea is sending as many as 3,000 troops to assist Russia in its war on Ukraine. If true, it would not only be the latest example of Pyongyang helping Moscow, but also further proof of a growing closeness between those two capitals, Beijing, and Tehran. It’s been variously called the new “axis of evil,” or the “quartet of chaos,” but whatever the moniker, the four countries are stymieing a range of United States and Western interests around the world.
Sadly there’s no doubt that you’re right.
More saliently this may be a chance for that army - which hasn’t seen serious combat for the greater part of a century - to gain actual wartime experience, which might one day be used against the South Koreans.
There will be no North Korean survivors to return to North Korea. Russians will use them in meat waves to the point of complete liquidation. Russians do it to any troops they have from anywhere. They won’t spare North Koreans.
That’s the dream and goal!
However, we do see articles about the clever Russian who got sent to the front and then managed to get back home to Russia.
E.g. https://www.economist.com/1843/2024/10/11/escape-from-the-meat-grinder-the-making-of-a-russian-deserter and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/20/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-deserter.html
North Korea doesn’t really care about their soldiers. They’re willing to risk all of them on the chance that even a small handful come back alive (i.e. not flee) with hardened battlefield experience to use against South Korean and the United States in the future.