A group of about two hundred North Korean defectors is asking to be deployed in Ukraine so they can help with demoralizing and influencing the roughly 12,000 North Korean troops allegedly dispatched to fight for Russia, a report revealed on Monday.
“North Korean soldiers are there essentially as mercenaries, but we would go as volunteers with a goodwill mission. Simply our presence in Ukraine could significantly impact the morale of North Korean troops,” Lee Min-bok, one of the defectors, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
“North Korean soldiers could find hope and courage in our presence in Ukraine, inspiring them to cross over in search of freedom,” Lee suggested.
“We are all military veterans who understand North Korea’s military culture and psychological state better than anyone else,” said Ahn Chan-il, head of the World Institute for North Korea Studies and another member of the initiative.
“We’re ready to go wherever needed to work as psychological warfare agents – through loudspeaker broadcasts, distributing leaflets, and even acting as interpreters,” Ahn said.
Roughly 30,000 North Korean defectors live in South Korea. According to Lee and Ahn’s group, they are alarmed by the “aggression and disregard for international law” North Korea demonstrated when it sent troops to Russia.
Ahn, who was inspired by leaflets and loudspeaker broadcasts to defect in 1979 when he was stationed on the border with South Korea, said his group has a good chance of persuading some of the North Korean mercenaries in Russia to defect.
“Most North Korean soldiers, including elite special forces, suffer from food shortages and malnutrition. The soldiers you see on televised parades are a carefully selected few – they’re the alpha of the entire population,” he told the Kyiv Post in an interview on Monday.
Lee Min-bok wrote an open letter to the Ukrainian embassy in Seoul, asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to tap his group for assistance in rescuing North Korea’s soldiers before Russia can use them as “cannon fodder.”
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Lee’s letter has been forwarded to the Unification Ministry, which handles affairs pertaining to North Korea. The Unification Ministry has not responded to the letter as of Monday morning.
Ukraine already runs a surrender hotline for Russian and affiliated forces called “I Want to Live” and has urged North Korean mercenaries to use it before Russia can throw them into the meat grinder of the Ukrainian front.
South Korea was enraged when North Korea sent troops to Russia and has warned it will consider a series of “phased measures” in response, possibly including sending lethal military equipment to Ukraine.
On Monday, the European Union (EU) and NATO joined the United States in confirming South Korea’s reports of North Korean troops training in Russia.
“A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and we are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk oblast,” the Pentagon said on Monday.