• 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.
3 points

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!

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24 points

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

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8 points
*

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.

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2 points

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.

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1 point

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

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6 points

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

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3 points

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

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5 points

Dude, they can swallow flaming swords and shit. That’s gotta count for something, right?

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59 points

So… no different than the Russian troops?

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24 points

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.

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5 points

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

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-3 points

And the Ukrainian ones.

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9 points

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.

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18 points

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.

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4 points

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.

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23 points

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

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12 points

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.

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2 points

Will the North Koreans get sufficient rations? It might be no worse than being at home.

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1 point

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.

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