Engineers said to be supporting missile launches and reports of North Koreans killed near Donetsk

North Korean military engineers have been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles, and North Koreans operating in occupied areas of Ukraine have already been killed, senior officials in Kyiv and Seoul said.

There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that “support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles”, a source in Ukraine told the Guardian.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, last year travelled to Russia for a summit with Vladimir Putin where the two men bolstered their deepening ties with a secret arms deal.

Pyongyang’s ammunition shipments were vital in allowing Russian forces to advance in a grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine this summer. But it appears increasingly clear that the agreement went beyond supplying materiel.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Imagine being an educated Russian 45 year old conscript fighting next to malnourished north koreans.

    • TheMightyCanuck@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Are we assuming the Russian conscript has a higher degree of education than the north Korean?

      They’re both totalitarian shitholes shoving their own version of lies down their citizens throats.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        There are FAR, FAR more well educated Russians than there are North Koreans, let alone Educated North Koreans.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          There were reports of Russian soldiers in Ukraine not knowing what an “Automatic Toilet” was. They’re grabbing people from so far in the boonies, that they bring in buckets of water to flush their toilets. That also means that either Russian barracks don’t have toilets or they’re shipping their forces to the front lines without any training.

        • realitista@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Yes but I doubt they are getting sent to Ukraine. The ethnic minority regions that Russia keeps dirt poor are sent 70:1 in some cases compared to recruits from Moscow. And I’d bet it’s a big ratio also between the well educated and poorly educated in Moscow too.

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          North Korea has a pretty good IT program

          They deal with malware while Russia deals with social media campaigns

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        They are worlds apart yes. Russia actually has an amazing academia network that is suffering greatly from Putins politics. Most recently seen by hundreds of academics having to stop their collaboration with CERN because of the war. Compared to NK, Russia is just a normal country with lots of IT and science nerds.

        However if you look at the US and their rural MAGA population, it shows that there can just be a massive rift within the population. And thats what you have in Russia too i would assume.

        • realitista@lemm.ee
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          Much of the respect we have for Russian education goes back to the excellent STEM education they had in the Soviet days. This has largely been eroded away in modern times, and much of the technology and infrastructure they have are being held together by Soviet educated older folks.

      • Frog@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        I would assume that considering Russians actually have internet.

        I’m also going to assume the Russian soldiers are atleast 6 inches taller on average since South Korean soldiers are that much taller than North Korean soldiers.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This isn’t new, there have been north Korean work camps in inside of Russia for decades. It’s convict leasing on a troubling international level.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    We’ve had Russians, North Koreans, and Indians fighting in Ukraine with Chinese supplied weapons against Ukrainians armed with American, Polish, German, British, and other European weapons in a war that’s been going on for nearly two years.

    Can we call it a World War yet?

    Or are we just going to refuse to use the word until nukes are dropped?

    We can also throw in the Middle Eastern theater for good measure too if that’s not enough.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      Seems to me that it’s just part of the proxy war that the world powers have been fighting pretty much constantly in an Oceania/Eurasia/Eastasia kind of way since 1945.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      I’d say the situation is a lot closer to the Spanish Civil War, tbh. A lot of countries sent expeditionary forces and volunteers to assist one side or the other, including Russia and Nazi Germany (who kinda used the conflict as a proving ground for the concept of combined arms doctrine we know as “blitzkrieg”).

    • illi@lemm.ee
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      Not until there are NATO boots on the ground, or NATO recognizes it is at war. Russia is already saying it is, NATO just didn’t get the memo yet I guess.

      You are right in saying Russia kinda made it a world war. I guess with just the one front it just doesn’t feel like it.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It could be pretty easily argued that Gaza/Lebanon is another front. Iran/Russia/China axis seems to be solidifying to an extent, imo.

        Israel did just bomb a Russian airbase in Syria, after all.

        Edit: guess I didn’t say “Israel is bad” enough in my comment? Seriously, I didn’t even make any value judgments in this comment, y’all are too touchy.

      • Yeah, the lack of boots on the ground is an important loophole. It’s just arms sales.

        Indians fighting in Ukraine? I thought most of those were tricked into helping the Russian military though…

    • Display name@feddit.nu
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      1 month ago

      But it isn’t a world war. The only ones in conflict are Russia and Ukraine. You wouldn’t say that the US was fighting Nazi Germany when they booted up the lend-lease. The rest of the countries supplying Ukraine with arms are just doing so under international law, not as participants in the war.

    • Draces@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      We didn’t call the cold war a world war and that wasn’t in a single country

    • Zahtu@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      I think, its time to get even with them. Just deploy some NATO member Staates troops to Ukraine. I guess Putin wont be complaining too much about it

  • hotspur@lemmy.ml
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    I find it interesting that the loaned DPRK are operating ballistic missile platforms. Makes me wonder if part of the intention is to skill up some of the army units with combat launching exp, which is not the happiest thought, since NK has a continental US capable truck-launched ICBM since 2017.

    Of course the plan doesn’t work if they all get killed by Ukrainian drone attacks, but NK has never been too precious about their rank and file anyway.

        • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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          Maybe that, maybe with more direct involvement in the warfare. I just see it’s unlikely they’d use people of NK in the deathliest skirmishes while depending on their supplies. Not to say that there is a huge language barrier and a racism problem them making me believe there are probably whole north korean units in some places rather than them being evenly spread across different divisions.

  • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    It’s going to be hilarious when Russia N. Korea and china have to pull there entire economy together to fight this one little nation and Ukraine ends up marching on every single capital.

  • McDropout@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Ukraine gets help from its allies: I sleep

    Russia gets help from its allies: 😡😡

    The cognitive dissonance of Lemmy users.

    • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      This you? Immediate block. Shame on you for supporting a mass murdering, civilian butchering, raping, children bombing, war regime.

      It’s okay to be proud of Russian culture and celebrate heritage. It’s not okay to support a war of conquests where children are stolen and civilians are slaughtered.

      • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Shame on you for supporting a mass murdering, civilian butchering, raping, children bombing, war regime.

        Please stick to the topic instead of bringing up Kamala Harris.

      • McDropout@lemmy.world
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        Someone who has a different opinion that mine! Immediately blocked!

        My echo chamber is almost… ready!! 🤗

        • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 month ago

          Calling it a “different opinion” is an attempt to shut down any criticism of your disgusting lack of humanity. It’s like when Republicans call being a racist, xenophobic piece of shit a “different opinion”.

          Don’t bother replying, I’m not making this comment to try to convince you. I’m saying this to point out the tactic to anyone else who may be reading this.

          • McDropout@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            You can see me criticizing Russia in the same comment thread; I believe that Russia is committing war crimes that I do not support but Ukraine is siding with states which are committing whatever Russia is committing with impunity

            there goes my support for Ukraine

            The commenter I replied to didn‘t even have a conversation with me.

            Also both republicans and democrats are racist, xenophobic, sexist, genocidal maniacs. Don‘t compare me to North Americans.