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

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.

  • hotspur@lemmy.mlEnglish
    262·
    26 days ago

    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.worksEnglish
          4·
          26 days ago

          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.