North Korean defectors are stepping up Ukraine’s fight against Kim Jong Un’s forces

A group of North Korean defectors handed Ukrainian officials propaganda leaflets calling on Pyongyang’s fighters to stop fighting Ukrainian troops in Russia, according to a new report.

The collection of former North Korean residents delivered the material, which includes written instructions and audio messages for North Korean fighters to defect, to the Ukrainian embassy in Seoul, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Jang Se-yul, head of the group, said the Kiev military “could cause a mass surrender and exodus of North Korean soldiers if proactive psychological warfare was mobilized,” according to the news agency.

U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies said more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers were stationed in Russia’s Kursk region, where Moscow has been struggling to repel a surprise Ukrainian border offensive since early August. Earlier this month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said up to 15,000 troops could support Russian forces in Kursk.

Pyongyang and Moscow have grown closer since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, supplying significant amounts of ammunition and missiles to the Kremlin’s war effort.

According to North Korea’s state news agency KCNA, the two countries signed a mutual defense pact in June, which was ratified by Pyongyang on Tuesday. North Korea is believed to be receiving economic aid from Russia, as well as supplies such as food and help building its weapons arsenal as the country advances its nuclear development programs.

So far there have been “small clashes” between Ukrainian and North Korean troops, Umerov said in an interview with South Korean media published earlier this month, but Ukraine could not yet verify how many casualties North Korea had suffered or how many soldiers had become prisoners of war.

This was announced by an unnamed Ukrainian official The New York Times On November 5, he announced that North Korean troop deployments were limited and likely aimed at testing Ukraine’s lines for vulnerabilities. Pyongyang’s troops joined Russia’s 810th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade, the official said.

a US official said The times A significant number of North Korean troops were killed, but no further details were provided. Intelligence agencies from Washington, Seoul and Kiev have indicated that the North Korean soldiers are wearing Russian military uniforms.

“The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week.

“North Korean troops are conditioned by unwavering loyalty to their leadership and a unique psychological resilience cultivated by the regime” to instill a sense of “absolute sacrifice for the state” in Pyongyang’s personnel, Ji Hyun Park, a North Korean defector a senior fellow in human security at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy said previously Newsweek.

“However, this psychological preparation may not translate effectively into practical resilience in the active combat scenarios currently being seen in Ukraine, where they would face modernized and highly capable adversaries in unfamiliar territory,” Park said.

North Korea could also face morale, desertion and defection problems if its troops begin recording casualty rates close to those of Russian fighters, said Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Center for Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC , recently Newsweek.

A Ukrainian government-backed hotline for Russian soldiers seeking to surrender as prisoners of war published an appeal to North Korean soldiers last month, urging them “not to die senselessly on foreign soil.” The message was published in Korean.

Ukrainian media reported in mid-October, citing anonymous intelligence officials, that 18 North Korean soldiers had already deserted near the border with Ukraine. This could not be independently verified.