A lone North Korean soldier who survived an intense battle against Ukrainian soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region blew himself up to avoid being captured — as “brainwashed” Hermit Kingdom troops are being told it is treason to be taken prisoner, Kyiv officials said.
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said a battle on Monday in the occupied Kursk region left a single North Korean enemy soldier alive after the Moscow ally’s latest failed attempt to take the land back from Kyiv.
As the Ukrainian troops surrounded him, the North Korean soldier detonated his own grenade, blowing himself up to avoid being the latest POW to be presented as proof of Pyongyang and Moscow’s blatant military alliance.
North Korean soldiers are allegedly killing themselves and each other on the frontlines in Ukraine to avoid capture. EyePress News/Shutterstock
Pyongyang soldiers are allegedly being trained to blow themselves up or shoot themselves if they find themselves about to be captured by Ukrainian troops. EyePress News/ShutterstockThe suicide incident is the latest documentation of the lengths the Pyongyang troops are willing to go to avoid capture.
“Self-detonation and suicides: that’s the reality about North Korea,” Kim, a 32-year-old former North Korean soldier who defected to the South in 2022, told Reuters.
“These soldiers who left home for a fight there have been brainwashed and are truly ready to sacrifice themselves for Kim Jong Un,” he added.
The former Pyongyang fighter warned Ukraine that the North Koreans are well-prepped for suicide, believing that being captured and sent back to their homes would be a fate worse than death.
Ukraine was able to capture two North Korean soldiers over the weekend, showing “irrefutable evidence” of Moscow and Pyongyang’s military alliance. @ZelenskyyUa
One of the captured North Korean troops had a bandage wrapped around his head over a jaw injury. @ZelenskyyUa“Becoming a prisoner of war means treason. Being captured means you are a traitor,” Kim said. “Leave one last bullet, that’s what we are talking about in the military.”
Kim’s warning was echoed by Lee Seong-kweun, who sits on the South Korean parliament’s intelligence committee. Lee claimed that memos recovered from slain North Koreans on the front lines highlight self-destruction and suicide as necessities over capture.
Reports began emerging last month that North Korean troops have begun resorting to suicide to avoid being used in Moscow’s “human wave” strategy that depends on throwing as many Pyongyang troops in Kursk as possible to try and overwhelm Kyiv’s offenses.
Kyiv has repeatedly warned the West about the active deployment of North Korean troops in Kursk, where Kyiv launched its successful counter-invasion. EyePress News/Shutterstock
Kyiv said it was willing to release the North Korean prisoners if Kim Jung Un agrees to help free Ukrainian POWs in Russia. Telegram/V_Zelenskiy_official/AFP via Getty ImagesUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has gone as far as to claim that able-bodied Russian and North Korean troops scour the frontlines to finish off wounded Pyongyang troops to avoid their capture.
Zelensky, who presented interviews with two captured North Korean soldiers on Saturday, said Kyiv is ready to exchange those soldiers to Kim Jong Un if he agrees to push for the freedom of Ukrainian POWs in Russia.
Zelensky shared photos online showing the two men on bunks in holding cells, the younger with both with their hands bandaged and the older one with his head wrapped because of a jaw injury.
Since the deployment of an estimated 12,000 North Korean troops late last year, Ukraine estimates that it has killed more than 3,000 Pyongyang troops in Kursk.
Moscow and Pyongyang have repeatedly dismissed reports about the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia as “fake news.”
With Post wires
