North Korean troops told to choose suicide over capture in Ukraine: Seoul

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/North-Korean-troops-told-to-choose-suicide-over-capture-in-Ukraine-Seoul

12 comments

  1. Hi from Nikkei Asia, I’m Emma from the audience engagement team.

    Here’s an excerpt from the above story:

    *North Korean soldiers deployed to fight against Ukraine have been instructed to take their own lives to avoid capture, according to an assessment by South Korea’s spy agency.*

    *South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Monday that over 300 North Korean troops have died along with more than 2,700 wounded while supporting Russia’s war efforts. A lawmaker later provided a summary of the briefing to reporters.*

    *Among the dead soldiers, notes were discovered indicating that the regime pressured the troops to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, the NIS alleged. Some notes contained hopes of joining the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea or being pardoned.*

    *In one account, a soldier on the verge of being captured tried to blow himself up with a grenade while yelling “General Kim Jong Un.” The soldier was shot dead before carrying out the act, the NIS said.*

    *On Saturday, Ukrainian President* [*Volodymyr Zelenskyy*](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Ukraine-captures-2-North-Korean-soldiers-says-Zelenskyy) *said his military captured two North Korean soldiers. The next day, Zelenskyy offered to hand over the soldiers to Pyongyang if Kim can* [*organize an exchange*](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Ukraine-offers-to-swap-North-Korean-soldiers-for-Ukrainians-in-Russia) *for Ukrainian troops being held prisoner in Russia.*

  2. It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario where North Korean soldiers might want to be captured, in order to seek asylum.

  3. Why even wait until they are being captured? Just suicide at home and save money on the fake Russian passport.

  4. The lives of their families back home may very well depend on them not getting captured alive.

  10. Patiently waiting for all the future invading NK soldiers to realize they can literally surrender immediately upon contact and live a massively better quality of life even as a NK POW than in any context in NK at all.

  11. Imagine being in an active warzone, getting decimated by drones and the enemy soldiers. But still the prospect of going back to your home country is a worse fate than death in your mind.

    Like Damn man they really stood no chance.

  12. This is seriously some disturbing news kind of. Young men brainwashed by a dictator from a nation the probably hate get sent to a foreign land for a foreign war to die. But, it somehow doesn’t even end there. They fucking kill themselves.

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