"North Korean troops are conditioned with unwavering loyalty to their leadership and a unique psychological resilience cultivated by the regime," designed to fit a sense of "absolute sacrifice for the state" into Pyongyang's personnel, Ji Hyun Park, a North Korean defector, now a senior fellow for human security at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, previously told Newsweek.
"However, this psychological preparation may not translate effectively into practical resilience in the type of active combat scenarios currently seen in Ukraine, where they would face modernized and highly capable opposition in unfamiliar territory," Park said.
North Korea may also face morale, desertion and defection problems if its troops start sustaining casualty figures approaching those Russian fighters are experiencing, Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution's Center for Asia Policy Studies, recently told Newsweek.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/north-korean-defectors-boost-ukraines-fight-against-kim-jong-uns-troops/ar-AA1tVR2K
Most North Korean soldiers are underfed and poorly equipped, experts and escapees from North Korea say. The level of malnourishment in the population is reflected in the minimum height and weight requirements for military conscripts: soldiers must be at least 4-foot-10 (148 cm) and weigh 95 pounds (43 kilograms) to be eligible to serve, according to research by the South Korean Unification Ministry.
North Korean men are drafted into the military. They typically begin their service at 17 years old, and serve for eight to 10 years. Some women also serve in the military, typically for five years.
Although (the soldiers deployed to Ukraine) are among the North’s best trained troops, these soldiers are likely to face difficulties adjusting to modern warfare, said Hyunseung Lee, a North Korean escapee and human rights advocate who trained with the Storm Corps for six months while he served in the North Korean army’s Special Forces.
“They’re not trained with the best technology [or] advanced equipment,” Lee said. “If they were deployed in the war’s battlefield, the Ukrainians will use advanced technologies and drones and missiles. They will just not have had that experience before.”
Lee noted that for the vast majority of these Special Forces soldiers, deployment to Russia will be their first time encountering battle — and the outside world. He added that the soldiers are “victims of a ruthless deal between Kim Jong-un and Putin,” and that “many of them are facing their first real battle, ill-equipped and terrified.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/29/north-korea-elite-troops-russia-ukraine-war/
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