multitotal

I'm surprised there haven't been posts about it (or at least I haven't seen them on all the usual suspect communities). My guess is that people are hesitant to call it out in case the story turns out to be true, but I have no such qualms.

How it started

It started when Kyiv Independent quoted a "Western source" that the DPRK has sent 10.000 troops to Russia,. The Western media then ran with the story and said Ukrainian intelligence believes DPRK soldiers are sent to Russia. Once Zelenskyy started talking about it that was good enough for Western media to accept it as fact. I can't find the article now, but I distinctly remember a headline saying "Zelenskyy confirms North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia", they must have changed the headline because of how it sounds. I need to remember to take more screenshots.

At the same time as this story was "breaking", the Western media ran a parallel story about how the DPRK soldiers have already fled their positions. Of course, no videos or pictures of these "deserting soldiers" were ever posted or shared. The Western audience believes these things because they want to believe them to be true.

Racist undertones

Ukraine+Western media are saying that Russia is going to use the DPRK troops to form a Buryat battalion. Buryat people are a distinct ethnicities within the Russian Federation. Ukrainian intelligence services have no doubt chosen the name "Buryat battalion" because in low quality videos and photos Western audiences are not expected to know the difference between a Buryat soldier and a Korean soldier. They are also claiming the Koreans are receiving Russian passports, documents, etc. so if they ever come across the bodies of dead Buryat soldiers they can just claim those are actually DPRK soldiers.

How it's going

The latest "evidence" posted of these supposed DPRK soldiers "fighting for" Russia is two videos without a date or location, but purportedly from Russia's far east. In both videos you can hear Korean being spoken. In one video they are outside training, and in the other they are receiving Russian uniforms.

The Western media can't even get their story straight though. First they reported that South Korea's intelligence has said 12000 DPRK soldiers are fighting for Ukraine but then they revised their story to say 1500 DPRK troops are fighting for Russia. If you look at the CNN url, you will see that it still says "12000 troops", although the title and the body of the article have changed.

Why are they saying this?

It is obvious that Zelenskyy & Co. are trying to present this as an escalation and evidence that this is becoming a "world war". The fact that Ukraine has been supported by countries from around the world is irrelevant. They claim 1500 DPRK citizens getting Russian uniforms is a big problem, yet when some 20.000+ mercenaries from the West received Ukrainian uniforms that was actually wholesome big chungus move.

Regardless of the reality, most people in the West now think that DPRK soldiers are actually fighting Ukraine on the ground, despite the fact that "NATO has not confirmed that thousands of North Korean troops are preparing to join the war, Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Thursday."

But what if the Western media turns out to be right, and there are DPRK soldiers fighting in Ukraine?

I'm happy to say that this story is bullshit because what are 1500 soldiers going to do for Russia? Russia supposedly has some 400k soldiers in Ukraine right now. According to Ukraine+Western media, Russia suffers 1000-1200 casualties a day, so DPRK just sent them a day's worth of fighting force.

But even if that were true (and it isn't), it's not a big deal. Where was the outrage six months ago when Macron said he is considering sending French troops to Ukraine? People don't seem to understand that nobody is stopping individual countries like Poland, Estonia, Latvia, etc. to send troops to Ukraine. It won't trigger Article 5 and it won't drag NATO into war. But no country wants to do it, and no country will do it in response to 1500 supposed DPRK troops being sent there.

If DPRK troops are indeed in Russia and Ukraine, then they are there probably for training, education or to oversee the transfer and use of the artillery ammunition they had sent to Russia earlier. NATO has thousands of its own personnel working in Ukraine, in addition to all the spooks and spies.

The media loves this story because now it's Ukraine "alone" versus Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. It feeds into their underdog story, which only works if they completely ignore all the assistance Ukraine received from the West from the start of this war.

"If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free." - Emmanuel Todd in an interview with Corriere di Bologna

I don't think NATO will disintegrate if Russia wins, although it will be weakened and has already shown itself to be weak/ineffective, a paper tiger. EU has already made plans for an EU army with little interest at its inception, although now I think more countries will be for it.

Emmanuel Todd thinks Russia has maximalist goals in Ukraine, I disagree with him there too, although eventual liberation of Odessa might be in the cards. If they cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea completely, that will just be grounds for another war once Ukraine recovers.

So much for Pokrovsk being "insignificant". This is coming from UA media. UA media is starting to post stories like this more frequently, Western media is all like "Ha! Is that all you got Russia?! It's barely a scratch on Ukraine! Go on, attack again, double dog dare you!"

Ignore the source, sucks that these kinds of articles are written by conservatives in the West, when this kind of grappling with reality should be par for the course for all media.

When the dust settles, will the West’s media coverage get a passing grade, or will we find, at times, we allowed our sympathy for the Ukrainian cause to overlook matters we shouldn’t?

From other reporting we know that Zelenski's 'victory plan' demands include:

• to allow unrestricted long range missile strikes into Russia
• to invite Ukraine in the borders of 1991 to join NATO at a nearby date
• to immediately negotiate and accept Ukraine's membership in the the European Union
• to permanently supply advanced heavy weapons to Ukraine
• to provide additional hundreds of billions of dollars for 'reconstruction' without any restrictions attached to it

"Before the offensive, I received intelligence that the Russians were going to assault Ocheretyne, where we had no troops at the positions," the officer says. "I passed this information on to my commanders straight away, but the commander of the brigade stationed there [the 115th Separate Mechanised Brigade – ed.] responded: ‘We have forces there, they’re all there.’

Next morning the Russians started to walk into [Ocheretyne], moving through what were officially minefields – but in fact there were no mines there. After we surrendered Novobakhmutivka, Ocheretyne and Soloviovo, the front started to collapse at the rate we’re seeing now."

"When the Russians captured Ocheretyne, there was no stable contact line as such," Vitalii the drone crew member adds. "No one knew where the front was. Soldiers in the villages of Sokil, Yevhenivka and Voskhod were walking around with guns in their hands, asking each other for passwords to figure out if they were dealing with one of us or the enemy."

...

"The first problem on the Pokrovsk front is personnel numbers, the second is their level of training, and the third is the skills of the unit command. And then we run into the defence-related issues – tactics, measures, and so on." This, a soldier from the 47th Brigade tells Ukrainska Pravda, is the order of priority of the reasons for the Russians’ super-fast advance.

...

"The backbone of the brigades was lost during the battles near Avdiivka, and the replenishments that arrived later left a lot to be desired," says a source from the 68th, explaining the shortage of motivated people. "The mobilisation failed. Let's be honest – each subsequent replenishment was less motivated and trained. So they could not reliably hold the defence.

In Semenivka we had about 90% experienced people in the unit and 10% newcomers. Now we have about the same ratio, but the other way round. And the average age of the newcomers can even be 55+, not 45+."

...

Bunkers and connected trench lines were indeed built on the Pokrovsk front – but there’s a catch. Many of these fortifications are unsuitable for serious defence. They’re frequently located in the middle of fields, which makes them visible to the enemy and difficult for the defence forces’ personnel, ammunition and supplies to reach.

"When [Ukrainian MP Mariana] Bezuhla posts photos of empty trenches and asks why nobody was defending them, I know exactly why. Because it’s stupid to sit in a hole in the middle of a bare field. Sooner or later an FPV drone will fly right into your face," Vitalii tells Ukrainska Pravda angrily.

"On the Pokrovsk front, trenches and dugouts had been made right in the middle of fields, making logistics impossible. They dug anti-tank ditches that led directly from enemy positions to our rear positions, and it’s impossible to monitor them. These fortifications help the enemy advance more than they help us defend.

To occupy the dugout strongpoints on the Pokrovsk front I’d need to deploy an entire platoon, which I just don’t have.

It's one thing not to have a good observation post. It's quite another to leave positions in front of you that you’re unable to occupy, while the Russians have four alternatives with overlaps that allow them to move to the rear of your positions. I think the individual responsible for these fortifications should face criminal charges."

From Ukrainska Pravda no less.