An anonymous North Korean military official claimed on Thursday to specialized broadcaster Daily NK that the communist regime had adopted a policy of “strict secrecy” surrounding soldiers allegedly killed on the front lines of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
North Korea, a close ally of Russia, has not officially acknowledged involvement in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, in late October, reports began to surface that North Korea had sent up to 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine. Both the South Korean and U.S. governments claim they have corroborated Ukrainian reports about North Koreans on the front lines.
The reports surfaced after Russian strongman Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang this summer for the first time in 20 years. As part of the visit, he and communist dictator Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense pact, but outside observers feared North Korea would go to war with Ukraine.
President Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and colonized Crimea. After nearly a decade of proxy fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces in the eastern region of the Donbas, Russian leaders have escalated attacks in 2022 to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A special operation was launched. As part of that “operation,” Putin “annexed” four more regions of Ukraine: the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the border regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Daily NK identified The source of the information belongs to the “11th Corps of the Korean People's Army.” The official claimed to have confirmed that the communist regime had established “internal protocols” to hide deaths in the Ukraine war, as malnourished young men routinely died during training. , added that such protocols are already in place in North Korea regarding deaths.
“Even if a soldier dies during training, they are buried or cremated in the hills near the base and their families are only informed that they died in the line of duty,” the source was quoted as saying. “Similarly, troops sent to Russia will be treated similarly.”
“If a soldier is injured in an accident and is unable to fight, he will be sent back to North Korea instead of receiving treatment in Russia,” the anonymous official added.
Daily NK reported that the average North Korean has no information about their country's involvement in Russia or Ukraine because state media does not report on it. Government-controlled propaganda stations are the only form of media legally available for consumption in the country. Consuming external media, such as pop music and movies, can often lead to extreme penalties, including the death penalty.
Despite the lack of official information, the report states that the rumors have begun to spread within North Korea's borders, and that communist authorities are “suppressing rumors and related activities to eradicate all potential threats to the regime.” He suggested that he was forced to make plans to “do it.”
Rumors that North Korea was participating in an invasion of Russia, often fueled by senior Western leaders, had been circulating for more than a month. In late October, Pentagon leaders said they could confirm that up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers had arrived in Russia for training, possibly to fight Ukrainian forces. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also appeared to confirm the deployment, calling it a “dangerous escalation of the Russian war.”
In early October, the Ukrainian government announced that it had fired its first shots at North Korean troops.
“The first North Korean soldier has already been shot in the Kursk region,” declared Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Counter-Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council.
President Zelenskiy himself said in a video in early November that Ukraine could confirm the presence of North Korean soldiers, in which he said that despite the developments in the war in Ukraine, Western countries will not increase support for the war in Ukraine. I blamed him for that.
Zelenskiy: Instead of providing much-needed long-range capabilities, the US, UK and Germany are paying attention complained on friday. “Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start targeting Ukrainians.”
The South Korean government also encouraged countries supporting Ukraine to take the North Korean threat seriously. On November 13, South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it had obtained evidence of North Korean fighting in Kursk, a disputed Russian enclave that Ukraine counterinvaded in August. Most recently, on Thursday, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said The country's parliament claimed that Russia was likely using North Koreans as “cannon fodder” to continue its war effort.
Kim said, “It should be noted that this war is led by Russia, and from the standpoint of the commander of the Russian army, there is a high possibility of sending a North Korean platoon to the most dangerous and difficult areas.'' ” he said.
North Korea has not responded to this report in any meaningful way. North Korea's UN special envoy Kim Sung directly asks whether Kim Jong Un has sent troops to Russia answered “The Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between North Korea and the Russian Federation is in full accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations,” it said Thursday.
The “comprehensive national partnership” that Kim was referring to is the mutual defense agreement that Kim Jong Un and Putin signed in June.
