Ukrainian special operations forces reported a clash with North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk region. They said one of the captured enemy soldiers blew himself up with a grenade after playing dead, Reuters reports.
The forces said their soldiers escaped the explosion and were unharmed. "Reuters" could not confirm the incident.
But amid mounting evidence from the battlefield, intelligence reports and accounts from defectors, some North Korean soldiers are resorting to extreme measures while supporting Russia's three-year war with Ukraine.
"Self-immolation and suicide: this is the reality for North Korea," said Kim, a 32-year-old former North Korean soldier who defected to the South in 2022, asking to be identified only by his last name out of fear of reprisals against his family who went north.
"These soldiers who left home to fight there are brainwashed and are truly willing to sacrifice themselves for Kim Jong Un," he added, referring to the reclusive North Korean leader.
Kim, who was introduced to Reuters by a Seoul-based rights group, said he worked for North Korea’s military in Russia for about seven years until 2021 on construction projects.
Ukrainian and Western estimates suggest Pyongyang has deployed about 11,000 troops to support Moscow’s forces in Russia’s western Kursk region, which Ukraine seized in a surprise invasion last year. More than 3,000 have been killed or wounded, according to Kiev.
Moscow and Pyongyang initially dismissed reports of a troop deployment in the North as “fake news.” But Russian President Vladimir Putin in October did not deny that North Korean soldiers were currently in Russia, and a North Korean official said any such deployment would be legal.
Ukraine this week released videos of two captured North Korean soldiers. One of the soldiers expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine and the other to return to North Korea, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
North Korea's deployment to Russia is its first major military engagement since the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea has reportedly sent much smaller contingents to the Vietnam War and the Syrian civil conflict.
The United States has warned that the experience in Russia will make North Korea "more capable of waging war against its neighbors."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has previously hailed his military as "the strongest in the world," according to state media. Propaganda videos released by the regime in 2023 show bare-chested soldiers running across snowy fields, jumping into frozen lakes and hitting ice blocks for winter training.
But a South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country's spy agency on Monday said the number of North Korean soldiers wounded and killed on the battlefield suggested they were unprepared for modern warfare, such as drone attacks, and could be used as "cannon fodder" from Russia.
Even more worryingly, there are signs that these soldiers were instructed to commit suicide, he said.
"It was recently confirmed that a North Korean soldier was in danger of being captured by the Ukrainian military, so he shouted Kim Jong Un's name and pulled out a grenade to try to blow himself up, but was killed," a member of the South Korean parliament's intelligence committee said.
Notes carried by slain North Korean soldiers also show that North Korean authorities emphasized self-destruction and suicide before capture, he added.
When asked for further details about the cases he was referring to, he declined to elaborate, saying it was information from Ukraine shared with South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS).
The suicides by soldiers or spies not only show loyalty to Kim Jong-un's regime, but also are a way to protect their families left behind at home, said Yang Wook, a defense analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said Sunday that Kiev was ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to their leader Kim Jong-un if he could facilitate their exchange for Ukrainians held captive in Russia.
For some North Korean soldiers, however, being captured and sent back to Pyongyang would be perceived as a fate worse than death, said Kim, the North Korean defector and former soldier.
"Becoming a prisoner of war means treason. Being captured means you are a traitor. Save one last bullet, that's what we talk about in the army," he said.