Don't underestimate North Korean troops in Russia, ex-soldiers tell BBC
20 December 2024
Jean Mackenzie
Seoul correspondent
What Haneul remembers most about his time in the North Korean military is the gnawing, continuous hunger. He lost 10kg in his first month of service, due to a diet of cracked corn and mouldy cabbage.
Three months into training, he says almost his entire battalion was severely malnourished and needed to be sent to a recovery centre to gain weight.
When they were later deployed as front-line guards to the border with South Korea, rice replaced corn. But by the time it reached their bowls, much had been siphoned off by rear units, and the remainder had been cut with sand.
Haneul says his unit was among the best-fed, a tactic to stop them defecting to South Korea. But it failed to prevent Haneul.
In 2012, he made a death-defying dash across the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) – the strip of land dividing the North from the South.
His experience and that of other military defectors helps shed light on the condition of thousands of North Korean troops deployed to the front line in Russia's war against Ukraine.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6238exzjpxo
