North Korean defectors ready to join Ukraine’s fight against Kim Jong Un soldiers

A group of 200 North Korean military defectors currently residing in South Korea is seeking relocation to Ukraine to engage in psychological warfare against their former comrades, according to the Hong Kong-based publication South China Morning Post. 

“We are all military veterans who understand North Korea’s military culture and psychological state better than anyone else,” said 69-year-old Ahn Chan-il.

These former soldiers, each with 7 to 9 years of military service, aim to undermine and demoralize the North Korean troops currently deployed by Russia. 

“We’re ready to go wherever needed to work as psychological warfare agents – through loudspeaker broadcasts, distributing leaflets, and even acting as interpreters,” he said.

Another former North Korean, Lee Min-bok, reached out directly to the Ukrainian government. He published an open letter to the Ukrainian Embassy in Seoul, asking President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to let him to help rescue North Korean soldiers, whom he referred to as “cannon fodder.”

Many North Korean soldiers, including elite special forces, suffer from malnutrition, he added. 

“The soldiers you see in parades are the carefully selected few – they’re the alpha [top tier] of the entire population,” Lee Min-bok said.

Lee believes that even the presence of defectors in Ukraine could significantly impact the morale of North Korean troops. 

The defectors who want to come to Ukraine feel they occupy a “unique position” to exert psychological influence that could compel North Korean forces to “surrender their weapons.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, citing intelligence data, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un initially sent young soldiers aged under 20 years to Russia, who lack adequate military training. 

Training for these troops has focused on assassination and the destruction of infrastructure in the mountainous regions of South Korea, which sharply contrasts with the trench warfare seen along the flat terrain of the Ukrainian-Russian border. Most of these recruits have likely never left North Korea, and the country’s military is equipped with outdated technology.