Some 300 North Korean soldiers have died and 2.700 have been injured in Ukraine, according to Seoul. The figures come from your National Intelligence Service or NIS, an agency with a proven history of errors, but they do not chirp in the fierce Kursk offensive, where Ukrainians and Russians They have beaten each other for weeks over a few hundred square kilometers. The North Korean casualties, out of a total of 11,000 troops, are described as “massive” by the NIS and attributed to his poor understanding of modern warfare. The deadly drones long distance, for example, are strangers to them.
The North Korean misadventures have refreshed interest in a conflict established after three years in an anodyne dynamic of offensives and daily counts of victims. First they were your communication problems with its Russian allies or its fdrunken love of porn and other content censored in your country; Now they are their casualties. There has been speculation about his role for months. They are the best in a country that dedicates a third of its GDP to the Army, but they lack experience in the battlefield. They are, in any case, more effective than the forties or fifties that Moscow already recruits. The NIS reveals the reactions that their sending to such a foreign and distant country generates in society. Relatives fear that they will be treated like “slave soldiers” o sacrificial pawns while the rest waits for the quality of life in the country improves in the harsh winter with the promised Russian help.
Notes found on North Korean corpses reveal the instructions to immolate before being captured. “The authorities pressure them to commit suicide or detonate themselves,” explains the NIS. A soldier already surrounded shouted “General Kim Jong-un” and was preparing to activate his grenade when he was shot down, he has revealed Lee Seong-kweuna parliamentarian who attended the meeting with the intelligence services. It is a well-worn method in North Korea. Their spies and terrorists They usually carry cyanide pills in case things get bad. North Korean unease in Ukraine is heightened by the risk that prisoners will give valuable information about elite troops to the enemy.
Of those captured
The two captured by kyiv prove it. A three-minute video shows them blindfolded and confused. He dialogue is chaotic and recommends all reservations: we do not know what Ukraine edited or if those questioned say what they have been told to say. One says that he believed it was destined for some military maneuvers and he was surprised when he found himself in a war. Another says that Ukraine is beautiful and he doesn’t want to go back. Only your painful helplessness is clear: thousands of kilometers from home, without speaking a word of Russian, Ukrainian or English.
His fate is now being debated. The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, He has proposed returning them to Kim Joung-un in exchange for the “warriors who are captive in Russia.” No response has yet come from Pyongyang. In Moscow, when asked by the North Korean soldiers, they have clarified their interest in any prisoner exchange. “The process is not easy, but the lives of our soldiers in captivity are important to us,” the Kremlin spokesman responded. It is a surprising claim by the North Koreans as belonging to a Government that continues not to admit their participation. Seoul also appropriates them. Its Constitution contemplates the entire peninsula as national territory, denies legitimacy to the northern government and requires the care of the entire population. “The wishes of the captured soldiers They are the most relevant thing here. If they want to defect to South Korea, The NIS will talk to Ukraine and Russia,” said MP Lee.
Zelensky has also offered them other “options” if they do not want to return to their country. “Those who express a desire to bring peace telling the truth about this war in Korean will give them that opportunity,” he said. The pair of North Koreans do not lack alternativesbut none is appetizing: rebuild your life in a distant place or return to a country who will ask them why they didn’t activate the grenade.
