Video offers rare insight into North Korean soldiers’ lack of preparation
Published at 6:00 a.m.
Choe Sang-Hun
The New York Times
A young North Korean soldier says he didn’t know where he would fight when he was sent to the front line of Russia’s war with Ukraine. Another shook his head when asked if his parents knew where he was.
The three-minute video that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on the X platform on Sunday shows a Ukrainian official interrogating two North Korean prisoners of war with the help of a Korean interpreter. Ukrainian authorities announced their capture on Saturday, saying they were the first North Korean soldiers captured alive. Mr. Zelensky then offered to exchange them for Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Russia.
Watch the video published on Volodymyr Zelensky’s X account
PHOTO FROM VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY’S TELEGRAM ACCOUNT
This North Korean soldier detained by Ukrainian forces said he didn’t know he was fighting Ukraine when he was captured.
The soldiers’ responses were provided and edited by Ukraine, which controlled the production and distribution of the video. This video offers a tiny, but rare, glimpse into the mindset and preparation of the approximately 11,000 North Korean troops deployed to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.
The images appear to confirm what South Korean and U.S. officials have claimed in recent weeks. North Korean troops suffered heavy losses in a foreign war fought in unfamiliar territory, while their government kept their deployment secret.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers in Seoul on Monday that it estimated 300 North Korean troops had been killed and 2,700 others wounded in the fighting against Ukraine. The White House believes that the toll is even heavier.
Notes found with dead North Korean soldiers also indicate that their government urged the heavily indoctrinated soldiers to end their lives rather than be captured on the battlefield, according to South Korean lawmakers. They briefed journalists after a closed-door meeting with the spy agency, echoing a claim made by Mr. Zelensky.
A North Korean soldier was attempting to blow himself up with a grenade while shouting the name of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, when he was shot dead by Ukrainian troops, lawmakers said.
Pyongyang muet
North Korea has not responded to reports of the capture or death of its soldiers by Ukrainian forces. She has never made public the deployment or significant deliveries of North Korean artillery shells and other weapons to Russia to aid its war against Ukraine, although these were the country’s first intervention in a major armed conflict abroad in decades.
In the video released by Mr. Zelensky, the voice of an official questioning the North Koreans is distorted, perhaps to prevent identification, and the captured soldiers are clearly still injured. Ukraine said the soldiers received medical treatment and were taken to Kyiv, the capital, for questioning. But by posting the clip online, Ukraine also appeared to use the prisoners of war in its message to the West.
The Ukrainian leader used the involvement of North Korean troops to try to galvanize support from his allies. South Korea has also cited North Korea’s growing military alliance with Russia as a source of international concern.
Experts say POW comments should be evaluated in light of the power imbalance between jailers and captives, recognizing that prisoners may not express themselves freely and be motivated by their own security concerns or by the desire to be treated well.
Under the rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, governments are supposed to prevent a prisoner of war from becoming a “public curiosity”, a concept which is sometimes interpreted as prohibiting them from being presented in a public setting.
“I saw my colleagues die”
Lying in a bed with both hands wrapped in white bandages, one of the two North Korean prisoners of war looked perplexed as he indicated – nodding or shaking his head – that he did not know that he was fighting Ukraine when he was captured or was currently in Ukraine.
When he was sent to the front line on Jan. 3, he said he was only told that North Korean troops would “train as if it were real combat.”
“I saw my colleagues die next to me,” he whispered. I was hiding in a shelter when I was injured. »
When asked if he wanted to go home, the soldier asked if Ukrainians were good people. When the interpreter responded in the affirmative, he said in a weak but pleading voice, “I want to live here.” »
The other North Korean soldier had a bandage around his injured jaw and was not speaking. He nodded when asked if he had relatives in North Korea. But he shook his head when asked if they knew where he was.
“The video of the two soldiers shows that Kim Jong-un has not been able to find a way to justify his country’s participation in the war between Russia and Ukraine to his people,” Kang Dong said -wan, North Korea specialist at Dong-A University, South Korea. “It also shows that North Korean troops are being used as cannon fodder. »
This article was published in the New York Times.
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