North Korean troops are being treated as “expendable,” ordered to take on “hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses,” National Security Council official John Kirby said.

Summary

The U.S. claims Russia is deploying North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, using them in “human wave” assaults against Ukrainian defenses.

North Korean soldiers are reportedly being treated as expendable, with some choosing suicide over capture due to fear of reprisal against their families.

Ukraine reports significant casualties among North Korean troops, with some allegedly killed by their own comrades to prevent capture.

    • @blackbelt352English
      115•3 days ago

      It’s worse they’re scared the government will go after their families. It’s not fear for themselves.

      • The QuuuuuillEnglish
        58•3 days ago

        it’s both. they see no positive path to a positive outcome for anyone. and that’s the point of the kind of terror regimes like north korea and russia implement. the more terror you keep a person under all the time, the easier it is to give them an apparent strong man who claims to deliver them from the terror he implements

          • The QuuuuuillEnglish
            17•3 days ago

            that’s what the strong men do. they promise to keep you safe from the terror they implement, but for you to be scared, there must be real risk of your death

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️English
      59•3 days ago

      From the article itself, it sounds more like they’re afraid of their families being punished for their failure by their own government; not for how they fear they thesmelves would be treated.

    • queermunist she/herEnglish
      1•3 days ago

      The US believed that communists invented mind control because POWs kept coming back as sympathizers.

  • @[email protected]English
    11•3 days ago

    So sad being born north korean.

    Just a life of suffering and servitude because you’re surrounded by people who have been bred to be docile.

  • @phoneymouseEnglish
    16•3 days ago

    Capture would be the best thing for them

    • @[email protected]English
      24•3 days ago

      The article claims that the likely motivation was to protect their families from reprisals.

      • @SkunkWorkzEnglish
        8•3 days ago

        It’s probably also dishonorable. Even if the regime didn’t do anything to their families the families still lost face. Can’t really go back to their families if they get captured and survive since that basically equals to cowardice and desertion. Japanese culture was like that during WWII. Current day NK culture has a lot of similarities with Japanese culture from before WWII. Like the honor thing and cult like emperor worship.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂEnglish
      5•3 days ago

      That’s fine and dandy for them, but when their great great grandkids are born into prison camps, they may not view it as worth it. North Korea is fucked.

    • @DasusEnglish
      4•3 days ago

      Yeah. Isn’t it sad they buy into what ever shit is telling them it’d be the worst for them?

  • @[email protected]English
    14•3 days ago

    I want to show this to the next PMP who talks about “bringing on more resources to the project.”

  • @[email protected]English
    -9•3 days ago

    That’s not why they’re killing themselves, it’s so they don’t have to go back to NK.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•3 days ago

      Why would Ukraine send them back there? If NK wants them back, it’d probably be expensive…

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashedEnglish
    -24•3 days ago

    fear of reprisal against their families.

    These people must love their famlies, very admirable.

    However, if it were me, I’d try to defect, no amount of “we’ll torture your family” would stop me. My family is a bunch of abusers anyways, so this is just karma, I’ll see how much they like to be on the receiving end of abuse.

    • @[email protected]English
      6•3 days ago

      Now imagine you knew nothing of the outside world and your only experience with it was a hostile one.

    • @[email protected]English
      4•3 days ago

      If we all lived under an NK like regime and half of all folks thought like you, we’d all be dead. What’s worse is we’ve got to get down to at most 16% to have a sizeable number of survivors and that’s assuming a single direct family line - I know NK laws include replicating punishment up and down two generations but I don’t know if siblings, siblings by marriage, or cousins get included in that.

      There’s actually a strange amount of rebellion that policy creates - there’s never a reason to report a family member - and the shared danger will usually develop pretty strong familial bonds.

      Anyways, I’m fond of my family but I’d be pretty reluctant under any circumstances to cause the death of anyone else and I suspect most people who haven’t been through something like military training are in the same boat.