At least 18 soldiers provided to Putin by Kim Jong Un were said to have abandoned their positions after arriving to the front, Ukrainian media reports.
  • DaddleDew@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1243·
    6 months ago

    Imagine living in a 1950’s time bubble. You are being constantly told through propaganda that your military force is cutting edge and that it can easily overwhelm any enemy.

    Then you are being sent to fight on a battlefield where everyone has better gear than you, where you are confronted to weapons that are so far advanced beyond anything that you’ve ever seen they might as well be magic. Then you see said weapons completely obliterate your comrades without giving you a chance to even see the enemy who operates them.

    You only obeyed so far because you feared what your government might do to you if you didn’t. Now you’ve found something that you fear even more.

  • Stovetop@lemmy.worldEnglish
    592·
    6 months ago

    I know a good number of North Koreans would love to defect if there weren’t going to be consequences for their families back home. Put those people in a situation where they can just disappear and have it explained as being honorably slain in combat? Seems like a golden opportunity if the country they defect to doesn’t just send them back.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.worldEnglish
        322·
        6 months ago

        Hah, got me there.

        I did actually meet a North Korean once when I spent a fair bit of time in Seoul during a study abroad program, but she “defected” as a child (read: smuggled into the South via China by some Christian group) and didn’t really have much recollection of what life in the North was even like. Definitely not many though!

        • slaacaa@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          6 months ago

          One of my parents was in North Korea multiple times in the 80s as a tour guide from the Eastern Block, I remember hearing the stories about it when I was a child.

          Cameras being taken, poverty housing blocked off with walls, fake buildings and rooms, US soldiers watching them from the other side of the DMZ “negotiation building”.

          I always took these stories for granted, and didn’t realize for a long time how special and unique these experiences were. When I tell my Western EU colleagues they always drop their jaws.

    • Valmond@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      6 months ago

      Hi Kim, me and my whole family wants to def … go to Ukraine and die for you!!

      The whole family!