North Korea in Ukraine conflict???

I can't seem to wrap my head around North Korean troops being sent to Ukraine to bolster Russian forces. Okay, Russia is paying North Korea for these troops (about $2,200 per month per troop), so this may explain 'part' of North Korea's interest in the deal (✔️). North Korea would also gain access to Russian weapons systems (✔️). And, North Korea gains combat experience (✔️).

Okay, so I "get" all that. But what I don't get, and can't understand is...what keeps the North Korean troops from defecting, or just going AWOL? At the boot level, the individual NK soldier benefits very little, other than one big, absolutely HUGE, thing...they get to leave their oppressive homeland in NK! Depending on how much technology and tactics Russia shares with the Norks, this means both the North Koreans AND the Russian soldiers are a huge liability to Russia if they defect. Additionally, the North Korean troops, despite all their training, have zero actual combat experience, they don't speak any of the languages, and they're in completely unfamiliar terrain 4,500 miles away from North Korea. If they get pinned down, they've got no reinforcements from North Korea and are 100% reliant on the Russians to save their bacon, but they can't even fully communicate their issues.

I just can't wrap my head around how any of this works for the North Koreans. Sure, it's a 'body count' for Putin, and it's money for fat boy Kim, but that's where it ends. Down at the troop level, there's no incentive to fight, but every incentive to surrender and defect to Ukraine.

What am I missing here?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I just can't wrap my head around how any of this works for the North Koreans.

Cheap oil and missile technology is my guess , oh and being mates with a big boy.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk


I thought about this, and I figured they were told that their family's would be killed if they defected

a reply to: Ravenwatcher

Well, that's pretty much standard operating procedure for about anyone in NK. So, nothing new there. The difference here is, these guys are on a much longer leash than they are in North Korea. Add to that a battlefield environment where someone can disappear and nobody knows what happened to them (i.e. KIA, captured, MIA, defected, ?)

a reply to: Ravenwatcher

I think you may be right.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Maybe, chipped, like my cat is? Not to stop Carl defecting, though.

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Maybe, chipped, like my cat is? Not to stop Carl defecting, though.

Carl probably eats better than the average North Korean.

a reply to: BedevereTheWise

He certainly can eat!

a reply to: gortex

Both true, and there's probably other commodity / military benefits for NK. So then, the soldiers truly are just "cannon fodder"

And really, that was kind of the foundation of my question in the OP. How can you view any of these Nork troops as anything other than (dead) body count. Human bargaining chips, with really bad odds of survival, no support and almost certain death. Just real life pawns.

I'll never forget something my father told me once. He told a story about how he was sitting in a mission briefing on June 5th 1944 at Ridgewell Field in England where he was based. He was in the 8th 381st Bombardment Group Heavy (B-17's). It was the evening before the Normandy Invasion (D-Day). He said at the end of the briefing the USAAF General giving the briefing said the underpinning strategy of the D-Day invasions was...'to simply put more forces on the beaches of Normandy than the Germans had bullets and ammunition to shoot.'

That chilling statement has stuck with me all my life. It was so blunt, and so real. Oddly enough, the statement was intended to be a motivational statement. Of course they never told the Infantry and Paratroop units that, but they told all the Air Crews. The idea was, the ground losses would be so unimaginable that the bombardment and fighter crews would stay in the fight until their last drop of fuel, or until they were shot down...and it turned out to be true.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Both true, and there's probably other commodity / military benefits for NK. So then, the soldiers truly are just "cannon fodder"

From what I've read that seems the case , there are reports of the Russian troops having problems communicating with them and one report of the DPRK troops firing in the wrong direction at the Russian troops.

As far as I'm aware most of them are in the Kursk region trying to regain that.