North Korea’s troops preventing for Vladimir Putin ‘will flee from the frontline’

North Korean troops fighting in Russia could flee from the front line, a former soldier in the rogue state’s military has said.

Hyun-Seung Lee was a soldier in the North Korean army in the early part of this century and said troops could be looking to flee from the front line in Vladimir Putin’s war. Russian soldiers fighting in Mad Vlad’s invasion will use them as “human shields”, he said, as North Korea’s so-called ‘Storm Corps’ special forces unit are deployed in Ukraine.

“It will be individuals at first, but more like as time passes, I think there’ll be like a larger number of group defections, including officers,” Lee told The Sun. Lee said Russian troops are likely to treat them as “expendable” and that they won’t respect them as “fellow warriors”.

The effectiveness of the Storm Corps unit is “questionable”, according to Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park, experts at the Centre for Strategic International Studies.

“Although numerous and ideologically prepared, its equipment is mostly obsolescent, and readiness is poor because of fuel shortages,” they said.

Lee added that the troops “won’t get the expected results” and will “die without any impact”.

Some severe societal pressure could stop the North Korean troops in Russia from defecting en-masse, Kim said, explaining that North Korea’s brutal regime operates a guilt by association policy. Defecting could harm the lives of their family and others.

In October, Lee Woong-gil, a former member of the Storm Corps said: “They are too young and won’t understand exactly what it means. They’ll just consider it an honour to be selected as the ones to go to Russia among the many North Korean soldiers…

“I think most of them won’t likely come back home alive.”

Since troops arrived, reports have emerged of them “gorging” on internet porn, something they don’t normally have access to. The Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman, wrote on X: “A usually reliable source tells me that the North Korean soldiers who have deployed to Russia have never had unfettered access to the internet before. As a result, they are gorging on pornography.”

US department of defence spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz said “North Korean internet habits” in Russia couldn’t be verified, however.

“Many of these soldiers are just humble farm boys from the countryside or junior officers who will see the world beyond North Korea’s borders for the first time. That will certainly make them understand that their country is isolated and extremely poor,” Andrei Lankov, a Russian-born professor of history and international relations at Seoul’s Kookmin University, told DW.

North Korea is known for its awful human rights record, abuse of its own citizens and strict censorship. Lankov added troops “will very quickly realise the backwardness of North Korea”.

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