Surrendering North Korean soldier refuses to drop sausage at gunpoint
A surrendering North Korean soldier risked his life by refusing to drop his sausage at gunpoint, according to the Ukrainian paratroopers who captured him.
A detailed video account, published by Ukrainian special forces, described how the soldier refused to lay down his food, while one of his compatriots tried to kill himself by running into a pillar.
They later asked to watch Korean romance films, the Ukrainians said.
“He was lying there, with his head and an arm wounded. He had a grenade, a knife and a sausage on him,” one of the soldiers of Ukraine’s 95th Air Assault Brigade said in an interview published on Tuesday.
“I asked him to drop everything, but he refused to drop the sausage because it was food, so we let him keep it.”
One of the North Korean soldiers sits up in his prison cell bed with an injured face
The brigade captured the two North Koreans alive on Jan 11 – the first of Pyongyang’s troops to be taken back to Kyiv for questioning.
After a failed North Korean assault on Ukrainian positions, the paratroopers said they found the first soldier lying in a trench, his head and arm wounded.
“It is no secret that North Korean soldiers do not surrender to capture, they are ready to commit suicide just to avoid being captured by Ukrainian soldiers,” the brigade’s press service said in a message accompanying the video interview, which was posted on Telegram on Tuesday.
Credit: Telegram/ua_dshv
North Korea deployed 12,000 soldiers to its ally Russia in late October to help Moscow expel Kyiv’s troops from the Kursk border region after Ukraine’s surprise incursion in August.
Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang – who signed a “mutual military assistance” deal last June – have confirmed North Korea’s participation in the war.
Some 4,000 of Kim Jong-un’s troops had been killed or wounded, Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month. That number is likely to be higher after recent reports of battlefield losses.
Numerous reports also suggest the North Korean troops have standing orders not to surrender. Some have blown themselves up with grenades, while others have been killed by their own comrades to prevent capture.
The second soldier suffered injuries to his hands, which have been bandaged
The soldiers of the 95th brigade said that during the extraction of the second soldier, he began panicking and had to be dragged from the trench.
“We were escorting him to the road where there were some concrete pillars … and suddenly he ran and hit his head on the pillar,” a paratrooper with a call sign “Ded” (Grandpa) said, adding that the man knocked himself unconscious with the impact.
Another Ukrainian soldier, Pavlo, then described how once he was given food and medical attention “he calmed down”.
“Later, he even asked to turn on romance movies for him in Korean,” Pavlo added.
The soldiers will be interrogated with assistance from South Korea’s spy agency
His comrade, Serhiy, also mentioned the inferior battlefield tactics of the North Korean troops, likening it to those used by Russians in the early stages of the war.
“They’re trying to crush us with numbers. There’s no special tactic,” he said.
“They fight like the Soviet army. They didn’t retreat until the very last critical moment when our reinforcement group arrived, and we outnumbered them. By then, they already had wounded and dead,” Serhiy explained.
Military analysts say North Korean soldiers have not been trained in modern warfare and are being used as cannon fodder by their Russian allies, often sent out into the open fields in “human wave” attacks.
Ukrainian commanders also say they are struggling with an unfamiliar battlefield environment, including an inability to counter drone attacks, and are using outdated weapons.
The prisoners of war have asked to watch Korean romance films in their cell
The two North Korean POWs were taken to Kyiv to be interrogated, with assistance from South Korea’s spy agency. They said they were told they were being sent to Russia for training, not to fight in the war and were issued fake Russian military IDs.
Mr Zelensky earlier this month offered them up to Pyongyang in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Russia. He added that there would “undoubtedly be more” of its soldiers captured by Kyiv in future.
So far, Pyongyang’s troops appear to be limited to infantry roles in Kursk, where Ukraine invaded in the summer to create a foothold inside Russia. Kyiv is believed to still be in control of 300 square miles after losing 40 per cent of the territory it once controlled.
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