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submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Engineers said to be supporting missile launches and reports of North Koreans killed near Donetsk

North Korean military engineers have been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles, and North Koreans operating in occupied areas of Ukraine have already been killed, senior officials in Kyiv and Seoul said.

There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that "support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles", a source in Ukraine told the Guardian.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, last year travelled to Russia for a summit with Vladimir Putin where the two men bolstered their deepening ties with a secret arms deal.

Pyongyang's ammunition shipments were vital in allowing Russian forces to advance in a grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine this summer. But it appears increasingly clear that the agreement went beyond supplying materiel.

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[-] foggy@lemmy.world 61 points 1 month ago

Imagine being an educated Russian 45 year old conscript fighting next to malnourished north koreans.

[-] TheMightyCanuck@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 month ago

Are we assuming the Russian conscript has a higher degree of education than the north Korean?

They're both totalitarian shitholes shoving their own version of lies down their citizens throats.

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 54 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There are FAR, FAR more well educated Russians than there are North Koreans, let alone Educated North Koreans.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

There were reports of Russian soldiers in Ukraine not knowing what an "Automatic Toilet" was. They're grabbing people from so far in the boonies, that they bring in buckets of water to flush their toilets. That also means that either Russian barracks don't have toilets or they're shipping their forces to the front lines without any training.

[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

Wtf is an "automatic toilet?" And how is that a bar for someone's intelligence?

[-] realitista@lemm.ee 25 points 1 month ago

He means they only know how to shit in a hole in the ground. That kind of poverty tends to not go hand in hand with the top educational institutions.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

From how understand it, they have toilets in the sticks, but they don't automatically fill themselves. They have a bucket of water that they pour into the toilet to flush it. It's also not so much that they don't have automatic toilets, but that they didn't even know they exist. The poor, wilderness communities that Putin is pulling from are that isolated from the rest of the word. The American equivalent would be the Appalachian people.

Here's a clip of Zelenskyy referencing the toilet situation.

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[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago

That makes a lot more sense thank you

[-] realitista@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

Yes but I doubt they are getting sent to Ukraine. The ethnic minority regions that Russia keeps dirt poor are sent 70:1 in some cases compared to recruits from Moscow. And I'd bet it's a big ratio also between the well educated and poorly educated in Moscow too.

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[-] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They are worlds apart yes. Russia actually has an amazing academia network that is suffering greatly from Putins politics. Most recently seen by hundreds of academics having to stop their collaboration with CERN because of the war. Compared to NK, Russia is just a normal country with lots of IT and science nerds.

However if you look at the US and their rural MAGA population, it shows that there can just be a massive rift within the population. And thats what you have in Russia too i would assume.

[-] realitista@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

Much of the respect we have for Russian education goes back to the excellent STEM education they had in the Soviet days. This has largely been eroded away in modern times, and much of the technology and infrastructure they have are being held together by Soviet educated older folks.

[-] Frog@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 month ago

I would assume that considering Russians actually have internet.

I'm also going to assume the Russian soldiers are atleast 6 inches taller on average since South Korean soldiers are that much taller than North Korean soldiers.

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[-] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 57 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

We've had Russians, North Koreans, and Indians fighting in Ukraine with Chinese supplied weapons against Ukrainians armed with American, Polish, German, British, and other European weapons in a war that's been going on for nearly two years.

Can we call it a World War yet?

Or are we just going to refuse to use the word until nukes are dropped?

We can also throw in the Middle Eastern theater for good measure too if that's not enough.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 65 points 1 month ago

Seems to me that it's just part of the proxy war that the world powers have been fighting pretty much constantly in an Oceania/Eurasia/Eastasia kind of way since 1945.

Orwellian comparison hits here

I’d say the situation is a lot closer to the Spanish Civil War, tbh. A lot of countries sent expeditionary forces and volunteers to assist one side or the other, including Russia and Nazi Germany (who kinda used the conflict as a proving ground for the concept of combined arms doctrine we know as “blitzkrieg”).

[-] sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 9 points 1 month ago

The comparison certainly makes sense. Awesome, that means we’re just a few years shy of a world war.

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 month ago

Yeah but just think 40 years later we’re gonna get some sick movies and video games

If you make it through the likely multiple genocides and conscriptions.

[-] Wahots@pawb.social 6 points 1 month ago

360 noscoping russians as a wallrunning Ukrainian super soldier.

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[-] illi@lemm.ee 26 points 1 month ago

Not until there are NATO boots on the ground, or NATO recognizes it is at war. Russia is already saying it is, NATO just didn't get the memo yet I guess.

You are right in saying Russia kinda made it a world war. I guess with just the one front it just doesn't feel like it.

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[-] Draces@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

We didn't call the cold war a world war and that wasn't in a single country

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Yet it is absolutely imperative french troops stray far away 🤡

[-] Hotspur@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 month ago

I find it interesting that the loaned DPRK are operating ballistic missile platforms. Makes me wonder if part of the intention is to skill up some of the army units with combat launching exp, which is not the happiest thought, since NK has a continental US capable truck-launched ICBM since 2017.

Of course the plan doesn’t work if they all get killed by Ukrainian drone attacks, but NK has never been too precious about their rank and file anyway.

[-] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

These are comparatively safer positions.

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[-] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

It’s going to be hilarious when Russia N. Korea and china have to pull there entire economy together to fight this one little nation and Ukraine ends up marching on every single capital.

[-] Myxomatosis@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That sounds like an epic session of Civ V.

[-] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago

Hilarious? It would be literally fantastic.

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this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
416 points (97.7% liked)

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