Ukrainian president calls on countries to step in before troops sent to Russia by Pyongyang reach battlefield

Ukraine’s president urged allies to stop “watching” and take steps before North Korean troops deployed in Russia reach the battlefield, while the army chief said his troops were facing “one of the most powerful offensives” by Moscow since the full-scale war began.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a pre-emptive Ukrainian strike on camps where the North Korean troops are being trained and said Kyiv knows their location. But he said Ukraine can’t do it without permission from allies to use western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia.

“But instead … America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well,” Zelenskyy said in a post late on Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

  • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    It could be true, I guess. It could be Western propaganda too. It doesn’t take much to reason a country as underdeveloped and isolated as NK lacks an effective military.

    However, maybe they don’t need to be particularly good to further Russia’s interests. NK army may be good enough as cannon fodder or purely for defence purposes, as border guards or patrols.

    • andallthat@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Russia and Ukraine are two countries that have thrown everything they had at each other: from good soldiers, to inmates, to good people who’d probably never held a weapon before.

      At this point I imagine that having troops who are alive and actual trained soldiers, not emotionally and physically drained (if not outright mutilated) by years of fighting is a big advantage

      If I was taken from my home and suddenly sent to fight for my country, no matter how full of patriotic love I might be, one North Korean child with a knife would be enough to take me out.