• North Korean soldiers sent to aid Russia in Ukraine would be “cannon fodder,” the Pentagon said.
  • The two nations signed a new security pact, and some Korean units look set to go to Ukraine.
  • Russia is known for treating its soldiers as highly disposable and has suffered high death tolls.
    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Plenty of unwanted people in NKorea that currently take up food and other resources in the internment camps. This is just the long way round for getting rid of them without using zyklonB or some other horrible method. While at the same time getting something in return from Russia. Very bleek outlook. Poor damned people, poor Ukranians that will no doubt also incur casualties because of this.

    • febra@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Or any other troops overall. War sucks. Many young people end up as cannon fodder.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    5 months ago

    Pretty much. They have zero combat experience. I’m sure Putin doesn’t expect them to achieve much in terms of actual military conquest.

    • fluxion@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      But they do have adequate training time as well as a lifetime of experience blindly following the orders of piece of shit leaders so I don’t like where this is going. There needs to be consequences on the table for NK that avoid them flooding Ukraine with tens/hundreds of thousands of soldiers (which would be easy given they have over a million soldiers that don’t have shit to do).

      One upshot is they are still gated by equipment requirements. But there is actually a vague possibility that NK just bleeds their army dry in exchange of Jong Un getting a reach around from Putin.

      • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Maybe KJU sees this as a way not to have to use NK’s limited food on the soldiers? We know they get more/better food than the regular populace to help prevent coups.

      • macrocephalic@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Losing an entire generation of productive and reproductive people is not going to do their nation any good.

    • datelmd5sum@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      But haven’t you seen the video of NK soldiers do flips and throw knives and shit? Who needs combat experience?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        5 months ago

        Who would you rather have at your side on the battlefield, a hardened combat veteran or a circus performer?

          • hakunawazo@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Maybe it’s the swallowing feature what makes them so attractive… uhm… tactically valuable for the Russian military.

  • MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I doubt Kim Jong Ding-dong gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what happens to the poor bastards he sends to Russia.

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Exactly. They will probably send all the citizens they want to get rid of knowing that they will likely die. It’s a win-win for Rocket Man: he gets to eradicate any ‘inferior’ or ‘disloyal’ peons while ingratiating himself to Putin.

        • Aux@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          They will also have a chance to defect and then finally have a life somewhere in Europe. Or maybe even migrate to South Korea later on.

            • Aux@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              The main thing keeping people inside is that they cannot leave NK anymore. NK government did a complete border lockdown during the pandemic and they managed to sign a deal with China and Russia that every defector will be caught and brought back to NK. The only way out now is through the sea and that’s a death sentence.

  • Rimu@piefed.social
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    5 months ago

    This might all be made up. See https://www.nknews.org/2024/06/fact-check-north-korea-has-not-announced-plans-to-send-troops-to-ukraine-yet/

    I’ve never heard of NK News before so - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nk-news/. Seems Ok.

    In other news articles they’re described as support troops or engineers. They’d be building things, cooking meals, driving trucks, repairing stuff. Maybe occasionally get a HIMARS dropped on them but certainly not storming trenches.

    • fluxion@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Engineering/support was the pretext for all the Chinese, Cubans, Nepalese, etc. that have ended up as frontline cannon fodder. Both Russia and NK are incentivized to downplay it until the troops are already there so I’d remain weary.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        5 months ago

        Also, stuff like constructing transport infrastructure for military logistics or more fortifications or revetments in airfields or any number of things may have significant military effect, even if they aren’t fighting.

  • uebquauntbez@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Holy sh*t! So some other nations have to fight for Putins Russia as russian people won’t? Right? A czar without support by own people. Last time Russia had this was with czar Nikolaus II. He was killed by some of his own. With almost all his family. Bright future! For us, not for Putin.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The difference between the czar and Putin is that many people in Russia are (or were, before the war) living a decently good life. But back in the days if you were not an aristocrat, you were pretty much a slave living in utterly horrible conditions. Wikipedia can give you a quick overview of 19th century - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia

      In short: non stop wars with everyone (over 1m civilian peasants died in just 1812 alone), serfdom (literally slavery in the case of the Russian Empire) was only abolished in 1861, Russians endured SIX cholera pandemics during the century before the revolution with millions dead, there was a massive famine at the turn of the century, and lack of industrialisation meant that the economy of Russian Empire was dying. The late Russian Empire was a meat grinder, people had nothing to lose. And they knew that they will die soon anyways, either from famine, physical abuse or an illness.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that “I think that if I were North Korean military personnel management, I would be questioning my choices on sending my forces to be cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine.”

    Ryder was responding to a question about North Korea potentially dispatching army engineering units to Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is occupied by Russia.

    Earlier this month, Russia and North Korea signed a pact agreeing to give each other military assistance if the other is attacked.

    Countries including the US and Japan condemned the move, with South Korea saying it was considering sending weapons to Ukraine as a result.

    Ryder described North Korea potentially sending military forces to Russia as “certainly something to keep an eye on,” and hinted at the high number of Russian casualties throughout the war.

    A Russian soldier who plans offensives said this month that he has to send men forward knowing they will likely die, but doesn’t tell them how low their chances of survival are.


    The original article contains 341 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 49%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    5 months ago

    considers

    If North Korea is going to directly be involved in Ukraine, that maybe changes the calculus for what kind of stuff we send in. North Korea isn’t China, but it is East Asia. A lot of the argument from people who don’t want us committing more heavily in Europe is that it’s a waste of resources relative to what we’d like to do, which is pivot to Asia. But if East Asia is going to be fighting in Europe, that might make this an “Asia conflict”.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Duh. Anyone with two brain cells to click together could have told you that the second they heard about their refreshed bromance.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Ukraine is winning and Putin is sharing a single Mosin Nagant between a hundred 80 year old men okay?

      Ignore the Ukrainian top commander saying the war is unwinnable and has reached a stalemate. More meat for the meat grinder!

      • ealoe@ani.social
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        5 months ago

        Ukraine has won simply by continuing to exist over 2 years after Putin’s 3 day invasion started. Your pathetic attempts to influence Internet audiences in favor of Russia won’t help either, miserable troll. Bigoted, oppressive, evil societies like Russia will never win.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I’m sure you feel very righteous by forcing Ukrainian men to go fight Russia. You think you’re somehow helping them. they are less enthusiastic about it than you think

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/29/i-am-not-made-for-war-the-men-fleeing-ukraine-to-evade-conscription

          Since the start of the war, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Ukrainians have volunteered to serve at the front, helping to maintain the country’s independence and repel the initial attack.

          Many of those initial soldiers are dead, wounded or simply exhausted, leaving the military to recruit among a more reluctant pool of men.

          To fill the ranks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, last April signed a controversial law that lowered the mobilisation age from 27 to 25. Under the new guidelines, draft evaders can lose their driving licence, have their bank accounts frozen and property seized.

          Even before the latest mobilisation drive, more than 20,000 men are believed to have fled the country to avoid service, some of them swimming and drowning in attempting to cross Ukraine’s border into Romania.

          If you really want to help Ukraine you can sign up to their volunteer army and risk your own life. Unless you believe you’re worth more than a Ukrainian of course.