North Korea is refusing to repatriate the bodies of troops killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine because it fears anger from families could lead to civil unrest.
South Korean intelligence officials estimate that about 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed, while about 2,700 have sustained injuries.
Sources told the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper that Russia had “continuously requested the transfer of bodies of North Korean soldiers killed in action, but this has not been accomplished due to North Korea’s refusal”.
Refusing to repatriate the dead suggests that Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, “is only focused on the remuneration he will receive from Russia for the troop deployments and he has not sufficiently prepared measures for potential civil unrest due to the dispatch of troops and the ensuing casualties”, the report added.
A North Korean soldier appears to be held by Ukrainian authorities in photograph shared on social media – AFP
Rah Jong-yil, a former diplomat and senior South Korean intelligence officer, said the regime would find it difficult to explain the loss of life to ordinary North Korean people.
“They do not want the war dead to come home because ordinary people would be terribly shocked,” he said. “It is not just a couple of people but hundreds. And then there are thousands of men who have been injured as well.
“Those deaths would be embarrassing to Kim because he has never said that North Korean troops were being sent abroad to fight, but people would very quickly become angry,” he told The Telegraph.
“The danger for the regime is that there is already widespread unhappiness in the North and this would be another issue that accumulates in the minds of the people”, he said.
Mr Rah said the injured troops returning from Ukraine posed an equally serious challenge to the government’s narrative as it was inevitable that some would detail their experiences to those back home, even if their officers and political leaders instructed them to remain silent.
Kim Jong-un would be ‘embarrassed’ by North Korean deaths in Ukraine, analysts suggested, as he ‘never said they were being sent abroad to fight’ – KCNA/Reuters
The North Korean government has made no comment on the troops that it has committed to Russia’s invasion, although analysts estimate that an initial deployment of around 11,000 men has been bolstered in recent days by the arrival of as many as 3,000 additional personnel.
Intelligence reports have suggested that North Koreans are performing poorly on the battlefield, in part because of the language barrier with Russian troops but also because they are relatively inexperienced and have taken time to adapt to modern warfare.
Ukrainian forces have reported facing waves of infantry attacks on foot and North Koreans failing to take adequate precautions against drone attacks.
Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press reported on Wednesday that a unit of North Korean infantry had been cut off near the town of Viktorivka, in Russia’s Kursk region, and that an attempt by motorised Russian forces to break through the encirclement to enable the North Koreans to withdraw was a failure.
The Russian plan was thwarted by drones using thermal imaging technology and Ukrainian artillery that broke up the attacking force with barrages of cluster munitions. A second assault from the north was similarly fought off with swarms of kamikaze drones, the report said.
Footage taken from drones suggested the North Korean defenders were showing signs of exhaustion, indicating that they “are on the brink, and might surrender en masse for the first time in the war”.
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