A battalion of 3,000 North Korean soldiers will shortly join Russian troops in fighting Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s full entry into the war.
Intelligence sources said the unit has been secretly training in Russia’s Far East ahead of deployment as part of a Russian airborne regiment.
“They are called the Buryat Battalion,” a senior Ukrainian military source told Politico. Buryatia is a remote region of Russia bordering Mongolia that the Kremlin has targeted heavily for military recruitment.
The Kyiv Independent quoted another Western intelligence source claiming that North Korea had sent 10,000 soldiers to join the Russian army.
(…)
Ok, it’s only fair if Poland gets to join too.
Better give Poland some nukes for parity
If the invasion of Ukraine hasn’t taught everyone that the only way to not get invaded is to have nukes I don’t know what will.
Seriously - I’m genuinely baffled at the complete geopolitical ineptitude that occurred in 2014. It was a categorical abrogation of the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty in exchange for their surrender of old Soviet nukes based in their territory.
Nobody is going to make a deal like that going forward. The nuclear non-proliferation movement is entirely dead. Nukes are, categorically, the absolute final word in guaranteeing a country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. There is no substitute. Genuinely, the complete and total lack of meaningful action in the defense of Ukraine was the most apocalyptically stupid geopolitical move that Obama and Merkel made during their stints as leaders of the western world.
Yup. Going to hell in a hand basket.
Nah, it was second behind the invasion of Iraq and the forever war in Afghanistan. The US’s unwillingness to react was in large part because it had been weakened by a decade of idiotic wars in the Middle East. Europe has no excuse though.
We invaded Iraq ~5 years before Obama was elected…
I hate that you’re right.
Honestly, no it’s also done the opposite. Ukraine has passed so many of Russia’s “red lines” that it shows nukes are useless too. The only time a nuke is useful is when you’ve already lost. If you use one then you get a lot of other groups attacking you, and potentially you get nuked yourself. You can’t actually really use one in defence.
The only way to not be invaded is to be stronger than your potential opponents. Si vis pacem, para bellum. (If you want peace, prepare for war.)
Russia has some odd game theory incentives because their nukes probably haven’t been well maintained. Now, the rest of the world has to assume they work. The consequences of being wrong about that are too great. However, if Russia actually launched a nuke and it fizzles, that’s a pretty good indication that their nukes don’t work in general. It’s therefore in Russia’s best interest to keep pretending that it will launch a nuke, but never do it because that would remove all doubt.
And then they’re fucked. With the nuclear taboo broken–fizzle or not–nobody will complain when NATO gets directly involved in conventional ways.
good point. Loading up ukraine with nukes would have created a serious problem for russia. The problem is it would have given Ukraine independence from the US as well.
Send the Poles, they’re itching for it
Hey, in that case let’s leave some room for South Korea to join in liberating Ukraine too!
Let the war crimes roll.
Any North Korean soldiers captured should be held prisoner in some Scandinavian prison and fed nothing but the most decadent and tasty foods. Then when the war is over send them back to NK fatter than Kim Jon Un. That would be a real power play.
You can’t serve Scandinavian food to prisonners it is forbidden by the Geneva convention.
If meatballs and mashed potatoes with lingonberry sauce are against the Geneva convention it’s probably time we had on Oslo convention.
Smorgasbord all day every day would be Tortute!
Because it causes Stockholm syndrome?
I was kind of on board with that idea, but now i’m100% on board
You’re thinking of Scandinavian regional delicacies and certain seasonal special dishes, none of which I’ve ever had the misfortune of smelling, and serving those to prisoners does sound pretty inhumane. All Scandinavian food outside of those that I’ve tried or heard of tasted or sounded delicious.
There’s more to Scandinavian food than lutefisk, y’know.
Married into a Scandinavian family. Scandinavian baked goods are amazing.
Lmao, I just saw an article on here about NK soldiers abandoning the front lines. That didn’t last long
Why fight die for some other country’s pointless war? If I was there, I’d leave, too.
I’d also encourage any US troops who are sent off to fight for Israel in the future to do the same lol.
Because someone’s watching you with a gun to your head. Deserting is hard
But also you’re holding a gun.
Because your family back home will be in for it.
Ah but Russia isn’t keeping track of its own losses anyway, easy to slip away and they assume you’re dead.
Ukraine’s about to get a lot of defectors…
Unfortunately many North Koreans already leave the country to work as slaves for construction companies, factories, etc (including in Europe). Generally they only allow people out who have families back home to be tortured/killed in case they defect.
They will probably get some, but less than you might expect.
There’s a pretty big difference between construction work and human wave tactics in a warzone. Different levels of motivation to defect.
And different opportunities, going MIA on a construction site is suspicious, but during war? Who can tell whether they defected or died?
What Russia likes about North Korean Soldiers in Ukraine: Manpower!
What North Korea likes about North Korean Soldiers in Ukraine: Money!
What North Korean Soldiers like about North Korean Soldiers in Ukraine: Freedom!
With the current attrition rate of Russian forces, these 3K troops will likely be expended in ~2.3 days…
Hopefully this isn’t the stsrt of turning this into a larger conflict that spills into other countries.
This is exactly that
Wait for US fighting Iran and these two wars merging.
Both are already invovled in supplying weapons to both wars.
What a great opportunity for those north Koreans to defect to Europe
Soooo… is it a world war yet?
World special military operation
No, but getting there.
No, but the anthems are playing and the players are doing a warm up.
Captain Blackadder : You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other’s deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Private Baldrick : But, this is a sort of a war, isn’t it, sir?
Captain Blackadder : Yes, that’s right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
Private Baldrick : What was that, sir?
Captain Blackadder : It was bollocks.
World scuffle
Concepts of a world war.
Don’t worry, it will only last 3 days
You can tell Russia’s desperate because they’ve got the North Koreans involved.
I wonder how many of them are going to just defect?
So far 18 of the advance party. Unverified by Russia and North Korea though.
Translation: Putin needs more people for the meat grinder without making his people madder at him.
So one intelligence source says 10,000 have already been sent, and another says 3,000 will soon be sent.
These are just rumours. Inconsistent rumours.
This is clickbait for a paywalled article.
This is true for basically everything in a war zone. Some idea is better than no idea IMO. Yes, you have to piece together your own assessment from the data, but I’d prefer to have the data than not.
Yes, but you don’t have to overstate things in the headline so much.
Good luck convincing anyone here to be skeptical of sources that reinforce their preconceptions of the world. Media literacy is sorely lacking is this thread.
As far as I can tell these claims are largely coming from Ukrainian sources. I have not seen independent validation from anywhere else. At best we can say is that Ukrainian intelligence claims North Koreans troops are being deployed as part of Russia’s invasion.
Unfortunately, the headline of this article acts as if this is a known fact. A better headline would be include the source of the accusation being made. That’s a problem because most in this thread and the other similar threads are treating the claims made as fact and any reasonable skepticism is downvoted and dismissed.
Well this is true of most news sources. They find a source, make an eye catching headline and story about it. It’s for us to read things and weigh the biases and veracity of the information. I also wish it were otherwise, but it’s not.
I generally agree but with a few caveats.
First, this is a uniquely bad headline. More reputable outlets would report it as something like “Russia denies using North Korean troops in war effort, Ukrainian Intelligence claims otherwise”. That at least allows the reader to understand who is making what claim and whether or not that claim is contested.
Second, most people are not anywhere as skeptical of media outlets as they should be. They may expect bias but rarely do people in western countries expect journalists to regurgitate and launder whatever wild claims state officials make. Unfortunately thats exactly what many new agencies do which is why I think it’s important to talk about when discussing articles like this one.
This is something new but I’m still pretty skeptical and I think rightly so. Photos and videos posted to telegram aren’t always what people claim they are. I also haven’t seen any new media willing to say whether or not these videos show what they purport to show. I’d add that it’s also entirely possible for North Korean troops to enter Russia as part of some joint training exercises. However, they may not be intended for deployment in Ukraine.
I’d also be interested to know why the US or NATO do not seem to want to validate any of these claims at this time.
For me seems pretty par for the course in war. Some stuff happens, you get a report from someone who saw it, you get a video, then some more official accounts. That’s how a lot of things happen. If you want to use a very high burden of proof then you will have to wait a while to know what’s going on.
If you want to use a very high burden of proof then you will have to wait a while to know what’s going on.
I agree but I also think that a high burden of proof should be the standard for political topics especially armed conflict. If this was a youtube video about a pig saving a goat from drowning I wouldn’t really care if people chose to believe in it or not.
Would be nice but it’s not the case.
Another story I saw says that North Korean troops were spotted in the Russian military. How could an observer know they were Korean? Were they wearing a Korean uniform? And if so, why haven’t we seen any photos of that? Ukrainians have cameras, right?
Is this just a case of Ukrainians not being able to tell the difference between Buryats and Koreans?
Edit: Come to think of it, it’s more likely a case of Americans not being able to tell the difference between Buryats and Koreans.
I can only imagine their shock when they eventually learn that Russia, a country that spans all of north Asia, has Asians in it.
Part of me thinks “Surely American military intelligence must know there are different ethnic groups in Russia”.
But then I remember how the invasion of Iraq happened in part because the Americans didn’t understand the difference between Shia and Sunni Iraqis.
The US understands very well the different religious factions. The way the West Asia region was carved into countries by the colonial powers is identical to what they did in Africa. Deliberately creating countries with internal conflicts that can be exploited for destabilizing them.
However it is easy to tell apart Siberian ethnicities from Koreans. You can also tell apart Eastern Europeans from Western Europeans, leave alone the fact that Korean is an entirely different language from Russian or the languages of the region.
Edit: regarding the languages. In Buryat people speak dialects of Mongolian. Mongolian has a shared ancestry with Turk languages.
removed by mod
What’s with the downvotes? Are you all Altaicists here?
Who would have thought the worst thing about Lemmy was all the bad linguistics theories.
Edit: Oh, come to think of it, I guess bad anthropological theories are a bit of a staple of American reactionaries.
The theory of an Altaic language family is generally disregarded by linguists today.
I know. I’m not the one who claimed Turkish is related to Mogolian. The other guy said that.
Did you respond to the wrong person?
You both seemed to be in agreement on that, so…
If Putin does something stupid that elicits a direct response from the U.S., Kim will regret going all-in on this. We could use a good excuse to make the NK problem go away.
Hahaha
