To be fair, the vast majority of Russian troops were also cannon fodder.
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.
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.
aristocrats of old = new oligarchs.
does Ukraine still have those defection drones?
So... no different than the Russian troops?
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.
Or any other troops overall. War sucks. Many young people end up as cannon fodder.
And the Ukrainian ones.
I doubt Kim Jong Ding-dong gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what happens to the poor bastards he sends to Russia.
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.
Will the North Koreans get sufficient rations? It might be no worse than being at home.
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.
NK will imprison their family if they defect, that's the main thing keeping people in NK I believe.
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.
Pretty much. They have zero combat experience. I'm sure Putin doesn't expect them to achieve much in terms of actual military conquest.
But haven't you seen the video of NK soldiers do flips and throw knives and shit? Who needs combat experience?
Who would you rather have at your side on the battlefield, a hardened combat veteran or a circus performer?
Dude, they can swallow flaming swords and shit. That's gotta count for something, right?
Maybe it's the swallowing feature what makes them so attractive... uhm... tactically valuable for the Russian military.
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.
Losing an entire generation of productive and reproductive people is not going to do their nation any good.
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.
That's not any different than the Russian troops.
Duh. Anyone with two brain cells to click together could have told you that the second they heard about their refreshed bromance.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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