Summary

North Korean soldiers supporting Russia in its war with Ukraine are reportedly using suicide tactics to avoid capture, as seen in a recent incident where a soldier detonated a grenade during a Ukrainian operation.

Ukraine claims North Korea has deployed 11,000 troops, with over 3,000 killed or injured.

Defectors and analysts suggest these soldiers are brainwashed into sacrificing themselves for Kim Jong Un and fear being labeled traitors if captured.

Kyiv has offered to exchange captured North Korean soldiers for Ukrainians held in Russia.

Experts warn this deployment may enhance North Korea’s future military capabilities.

  • HubertManne
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    721 hours ago

    unfortunately going to lead to a take no prisoners thing. This is actually what drove the us to use nukes in ww2.

      • @IphtashuFitz
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        228 minutes ago

        The excuse (at least given to the public) was that using the nukes would save the lives of allied soldiers. The Japanese army was more than willing to fight to the death, and Japanese citizens had been brainwashed into believing allied soldiers would rape, torture, and kill them. So in their eyes it was also better to fight the allies if they were able to.

        • @[email protected]
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          112 minutes ago

          I know.

          The problem is that they felt the need to bomb two massive cities full of non combatant people instead.

    • @[email protected]
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      616 hours ago

      It actually wasn’t. The desire to test and demonstrate the effect of the new weapon before the Germans could get it was the main reason.

  • @[email protected]
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    219 hours ago

    I mean… the obvious solution if this is actually a prevalent pattern for NK troops is to assume they’re bullshitting when they try to surrender, and just don’t take them prisoner.

    • @Maalus
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      1418 hours ago

      And thus commit warcrimes? You don’t kill surrenderring people. You don’t retaliate when “the others are doing it”. You can take measures, but shooting someone who is surrenderring isn’t something anyone should strive for.

      • @[email protected]
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        218 hours ago

        It’s not something that anyone should strive for. but asking your troops to trust someone who is claiming to surrender given the fact (?) that this has happened is asking a lot of them in a life or death situation. No one wins no matter what you choose here, but it’s war. That’s not exactly surprising.

        • @Maalus
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          316 hours ago

          Which doesn’t mean “take no prisoners”.

  • Optional
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    321 hours ago

    So, everyone’s allowed to just join in, then.

    • Chainweasel
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      1219 hours ago

      Only if they’re helping Russia, if they join in to help Ukraine it’s an unspeakable act of aggression and Putin will start threatening to nuke everyone again.

  • @FourPacketsOfPeanuts
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    117 hours ago

    Anyone thought of sponsoring the South Korean army to join Ukraine and see what happens?

    • @jordanlund
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      517 hours ago

      This is exactly why we don’t allow substack blogs as top level posts.

      • @TokenBoomer
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        15 hours ago

        I’ll remove it. Mine was the first comment, and I posted it to foster discussion. It was not my intent to offend, only to offer another perspective.

        • @jordanlundM
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          215 hours ago

          I get it, people just need to be aware that there’s no quality control on Substack. Anyone can post anything there, even if (as this case) it’s completely off base.

    • @NOT_RICK
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      1822 hours ago

      There’s a lot of evidence that North Koreans are serving in Kursk if you take your head out of the sand. I’ve seen footage of soldiers signing paperwork in Korean, talking to one another in Korean, etc.

      I also don’t know why Ukraine would waste effort dropping leaflets written in Korean just for some kind of psyop.

      • @TokenBoomer
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        -1420 hours ago

        Today, we find ourselves subjected to another narrative, repeated relentlessly despite a lack of concrete evidence. As for those who call for evidence, they will quickly find the onus placed on them to prove there aren’t North Koreans in Ukraine—a task as impossible as it is absurd. In the end, the goal isn’t to share or establish the truth, but to shape public belief. And for a credulous, uncritical, and largely media-illiterate public, that goal is too easily achieved—and with far too little at that.

        • @NOT_RICK
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          1120 hours ago

          I read that. I’m not asking you to prove a negative. I’m telling you of evidence I’ve seen that supports Ukraine’s claim. “Everyone that doesn’t agree with my assessment is media-illiterate” isn’t a convincing argument.

          I might add that North Korea and Russia not talking about this isn’t evidence there isn’t troop sharing. Russia still hasn’t taken responsibility for shooting down yet another commercial airliner but it’s plainly evident they did. Ukraine doesn’t claim responsibility for many of their drone attacks or sabotage in Russia but it’s plainly evident that they’re responsible.

          I expect more North Koreans will be captured in due time, it will no longer be argued that they are fighting in Kursk, and the goalposts will be moved.

          • @TokenBoomer
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            19 hours ago

            The point of the article isn’t to determine the truth of North Koreans in Ukraine, it’s to explain why a belief in the narrative is the goal. 🥅

            Reported, corroborated, confirmed, believes – a variety of words to disguise the fact that no evidence is being presented.

            It is very likely that there are North Korean troops in Russia, in various places, doing various things – training, liaison, systems maintenance, etc. – but to call this an escalation that represents the entry of a third state into the conflict is misleading because this has always been a war between Russia and NATO with Ukraine merely being the disposable tip of the essentially American spear. It is a mythical threat contrived to draw NATO into direct, rather than proxy war with Russia.

            • @NOT_RICK
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              919 hours ago

              I find it disingenuous to call Ukraine the tip of the spear when they’re the country being invaded. They’re more of a shield for the rest of Europe than anything. No amount of hand wringing about Victoria Nuland changes the fact that Russia started this war when they invaded a sovereign nation that voted for their own independence not all that long ago, Crimea included.

              • @TokenBoomer
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                -916 hours ago

                You seem to want to have a discussion about the merits of the war. My original comment was to bring awareness to the dis/misinformation from western media sources. We can discuss the invasion, but it might help to have some context:

                A number of former US ambassadors to Moscow have also warned, at stages, about the dangers. In 1997, it was Jack Matlock, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At the time, the Clinton administration’s recommendation to enlarge NATO membership was considered “misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War.”

                Eight years later, William J. Burns, then still ambassador to Russia and currently director of the CIA, shot a number of flares on the issue: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).”

                This 37 second YouTube video shows that even Joe Biden knew it could lead to war. In 1997, he warned that NATO expansion into Baltic States could cause a response.