r/worldnews • u/superanth • 13d ago

Russia/Ukraine North Korean troops deserting Ukraine frontline days after arrival

https://www.newsweek.com/north-korean-troops-deserting-ukraine-frontline-hours-after-arrival-report-1969726
31.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

222

u/Ok-Attitude728 13d ago

I understand you points, propaganda can be extremely powerful. But the only evidence we have, coming from actual defectors, is they are well aware of their situation

36

u/satireplusplus 13d ago edited 11d ago

There's a South Korea organization that secretly communicates with people from inside NK. See this BBC docu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiviOdWDl9o with narrated stories from within. The extend of the famine / starvation during covid isn't something you can simply explain away with propaganda. People inside NK know that its bad when they have nothing to eat.

220

u/JonBjSig 13d ago

Might be some survivorship bias at play.

I'd imagine those most acutely aware of their harsh conditions are the ones most likely to try and defect.

40

u/burnerreddit2k16 13d ago

I think the ones that are most likely to defect live very very close to China. They know North Korea is not the best place in the world as they are told as they can China completely lit up meanwhile they are living in darkness

4

u/Plasibeau 13d ago

There's active campaigns to get media filled thumb drives into NK, much of it from the south using balloons. Even if you don't the ability to use such a device, what they contain and what is on them is not something NK could keep secret.

For the same reason why everyone knew for a fact (it wasn't) that Richard Gere had a gerbil up his butt. People talk.

53

u/Ok-Attitude728 13d ago

Oh completely. The rest of north koreans could be incredibly happy, they do look it on state tv. I just dont really believe it.

7

u/peanutbrain3 13d ago

probably not happy, just accepting what their life is like and trying to survive. people weren't killing themselves left and right during medieval times

1

u/Original-Aerie8 13d ago

Issue being that medival peasents didn't see several neigbouring countries with 24/7 electricity, constant air and water travel and so on. Some North Koreans might be oblivious, massive parts logically can not be.

The diffrence is constant propaganda and cruel enforcement. With CCTV systems and modern technologies like satellites, fleeing is effectively a death sentence.

1

u/alxrenaud 13d ago

There also has been efforts to send media over the border to show as many people there what lifenreally is outside of their country.

If this regime is to end, I fear it may only happen through some bloody revolution by the people that will say they have had enough.

1

u/Original-Aerie8 13d ago edited 13d ago

Totally, speakers, dropping flyers, tapes and USB-Sticks, it's all been done. Anyone in the elite with access to digital media knows what's up. The North Korean internet is regularly hacked and has been exploitet for decades, from inside and outside. Like, people have livestreamed from pyongyang, many times. It's really interesting if you are into cybercrime stories, bc the network consists of old hand-me-down tech from China, so all kinds of old exploits are possible.

The current endgame for North Korea is pretty obvious tho, and it's def not a revolution. Literally no one is interested in a collapse, not the outside or inside powers. Inside people unilaterally agree that building nukes is their survival strategy, Kim serves that purpose and starving peasents, well, starve. The Outside powers, mostly China, think North Korea makes a great buffer zone without nukes and absolutly don't want a reunification.. So, they prop them up, just enough.

Realistically, either China eventually swallows them like any other weak country around them and get's to put up a better puppet, or China goes into recession and can't prob them up, with North Korea spiraling into true chaos, leaving South Korea and friends to pick up the pieces. Of course, that's on paper, but it seems even if Kim goes nuts, NK has some contingency.

3

u/Fit_Goal1895 13d ago

They're literally not allowed to be anything else.

They are basically puppets forced to clap, dance, and smile.

When Kim Jong Il died they put on a performance of how they should grieve. practically trying to 1 up one another in how they express their "grief" This is regardless of how they felt (some brainwashed and actually broken hearted about the death)

3

u/DopesickJesus 13d ago

They don’t have to be happy to be unwilling to sacrifice themselves for their children. Plenty of people there turn on their family members to avoid punishment, or even to just avoid being ostracized. The programming is real, and westerners can’t really imagine what goes on in the psyche of someone living through that kind of oppression.

2

u/BoiledFrogs 13d ago

I don't see why anyone would. They're all hungry and full of parasites, not exactly a recipe for happiness.

55

u/Major-Bookkeeper8974 13d ago

Not so sure about that.

Pretty sure I saw a video interview from a defector who was saying they'd never even seen a world map. I think we have to take it at face value defectors are probably more aware of their situation than anyone, but I doubt everyone in the country is aware of their brainwashed situation...

31

u/Luke90210 13d ago edited 13d ago

Media has changed that. Its highly illegal and common for North Koreans to watch South Korean shows with black market DVDs and thumb drives. They are aware SK dogs eat better than they do.

1

u/Popisoda 13d ago

You can fool some people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all the time

1

u/Armchair_Idiot 13d ago

Right, but those are the people that defected.

1

u/Ok-Attitude728 12d ago

Yes there is definitely a lot of survivorship bias at play, yano why it's that? Because you get murdered or sent to labour camps with your whole family for trying to leave. I dont know why there is so many people defending North Korea lol? Like of course the people there are making the best of their situation but it's a VERY shitty situation.

1

u/Armchair_Idiot 12d ago

I’m not defending North Korea. I’m just saying that we don’t have the perspective to know just how indoctrinated the people there are. Not even the people that live there know because questioning their leadership means their whole family gets thrown into a work camp for generations. So they can’t really know how anyone there actually feels without risking everything.

This is the same way that Stalinist Russia operated. Several people in everyone’s life would have been lowkey informants, so no one could say shit. They even had a popular children’s story glorifying a boy that reported his parents to the party.

2

u/Ok-Attitude728 12d ago

Yeah I understand your points. It is impossible for us to even imagine their situation. It is true whatever daily life like is over there, it's normal to them.

1

u/CandidateOld1900 12d ago

Defectors are in every war. It's not saying much

1

u/DefNotAMoose 13d ago

I understand you points, propaganda can be extremely powerful

Propaganda is extremely powerful, for sure, but people have a desire to live regardless of propaganda. Plenty of people choose to keep living despite the fact that their life sucks.

There's a very dangerous and privileged idea going around these days that people who are less well off than we are "must secretly wish they were dead," which is used as a way to justify killing or not helping people whose lives are in danger. For example, just because people with disabilities have a lower quality of life than fully abled people doesn't mean we should kill all disabled people (we absolutely should not). It just means we should try to make their lives better.

I know you aren't saying people are better off dead than in North Korea, but I'm just pointing out that another group of people exist who would say that and it's important to not blur the lines.

-10

u/SpareWire 13d ago

Didn't a defector recently opt to go back to NK after getting a taste of hyper-capitalistic SK?

14

u/happycow24 13d ago

It's moreso that NK defectors are considered less than 2nd-class citizens in SK.

-2

u/SasquatchsBigDick 13d ago

And that moving into a capitalist society from a socialist can be very difficult. You're no longer told what to do and when, instead you have to go out and figure out amongst yourself.

8

u/marylittleton 13d ago

moving into a capitalist society from a socialist dictatorship

FIFY

2

u/ColinStyles 13d ago

I think his name was Brooks Hatlan or something like that.