Defectors Offer Insight Into Mindset of North Korea Soldiers

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

All North Korean recruits are taught a song that includes a verse about saving their last bullet for themselves to avoid capture, one former soldier told NBC News.

Posted by lamplighter at 09:31 PM | 10 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

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South Korea's military says it suspects North Korea is preparing to send additional troops to Russia after its soldiers fighting in the Ukraine war suffered heavy casualties.

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-- NBC News (@nbcnews.com) January 24, 2025 at 4:47 AM

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More from the article...

... Few people understand what may be going through the minds of North Korean soldiers fighting and dying for Russia in the war against Ukraine. But Lee Chul Eun is one of them.

Lee, 38, a North Korean defector and former soldier now living in South Korea, said it is "devastating" to see troops from the reclusive, communist-ruled North being sent abroad by leader Kim Jong Un, "only to then give up their youth for a land that is not even theirs but the foreign land of Russia."

He is one of multiple defectors who spoke to NBC News about the training, conditions and mindset of North Korean soldiers, including their willingness to take their own lives if necessary.

Lee said his former colleagues "are essentially just sent out to be cannon fodder on the front lines." ...

#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-01-28 12:23 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

"Few people understand what may be going through the minds of North Korean soldiers ... "

I'm going with Hunger.

Like in the Hunger Games. You survive the day you get to eat.

#2 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-01-28 11:26 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

It matters not what we're going with.

This is one show where Trump is second banana to Putin.

And Putin is going with his long-standing orders to Trump to cut off or indefinitely suspend the delivery of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. I also suspect that these North Korean soldiers are a bluff to keep Ukraine busy on their Eastern border while Putin plots to start lobbing missiles into Poland and other NATO States as soon as Trump can browbeat and terrorize the U.S. Senate into removing the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) thus leaving U.S. allies in a "surrender or die" position as Russia runs roughshod over Eastern Europe.

In the meantime, Trump has once again diverted attention away from a more deadly serious war abroad that, right now, is in its final planning stage.

#3 | Posted by Twinpac at 2025-01-29 07:19 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

If you think Ukraine has supply problems you haven't been keeping up.

They have recruiting problems. They did not do much to regenerate units and were creating new scratch battalions until recently, but it's not enough people. The order changes to send people to existing units to get experience. There's still not enough people.

Mike Walz has been signaling to Ukraine they have to lower their draft age.

#4 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2025-01-29 11:08 AM | Reply

#4 | Posted by SITZKRIEG

Yet somehow Ukraine has still managed to fend off TWO of the largest armies in the world.

#5 | Posted by Derek_Wildstar at 2025-01-29 01:17 PM | Reply

The Russian Army appears to be withholding the vodka ration to these visitors. All should be drunk when out attracting the gaze of a drone which can fire a shotgun. Makes the resulting shots to the chest less painful, or so I'm told...

#6 | Posted by catdog at 2025-01-29 02:00 PM | Reply

SITZ

Maybe you're not the one who is keeping up. France and Germany are both sending troops to Ukraine.

#7 | Posted by Twinpac at 2025-01-29 02:50 PM | Reply

No, it's you.

Those are non-combat troops, and the talks are still ongoing. Ukraine needs combat troops, desperately.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to transfer Patriot missiles to Ukraine via Poland.

www.axios.com

Behind the scenes: The sources tell Axios that after the IDF announced the decommissioning, Ukrainian officials approached the U.S. and Israel with an idea: Israel would give those missiles back to the U.S. to be refurbished and sent on to Ukraine

For several months, Israel dragged its feet out of concern Russia would retaliate, perhaps by supplying sophisticated weapons to Iran.
A Ukrainian official tells Axios Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to take his calls on that issue for weeks.
But in late September, Netanyahu finally approved the idea, an Israeli official says.

#8 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2025-01-29 03:40 PM | Reply

SITZ

You got me. Thanks for the info.

#9 | Posted by Twinpac at 2025-01-29 04:35 PM | Reply

I would prefer to be wrong. Ukraine needs infantry, desperately.

Russia recruiting is surging, with lines around the block at centers. Everybody wants to get in on the contract cash grab before the war ends now that Trump is on office.

#10 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2025-01-29 05:02 PM | Reply