North Korean troops are being treated as “expendable,” ordered to take on “hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses,” National Security Council official John Kirby said.
Summary
The U.S. claims Russia is deploying North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, using them in “human wave” assaults against Ukrainian defenses.
North Korean soldiers are reportedly being treated as expendable, with some choosing suicide over capture due to fear of reprisal against their families.
Ukraine reports significant casualties among North Korean troops, with some allegedly killed by their own comrades to prevent capture.
These people must love their famlies, very admirable.
However, if it were me, I'd try to defect, no amount of "we'll torture your family" would stop me. My family is a bunch of abusers anyways, so this is just karma, I'll see how much they like to be on the receiving end of abuse.
If we all lived under an NK like regime and half of all folks thought like you, we'd all be dead. What's worse is we've got to get down to at most 16% to have a sizeable number of survivors and that's assuming a single direct family line - I know NK laws include replicating punishment up and down two generations but I don't know if siblings, siblings by marriage, or cousins get included in that.
There's actually a strange amount of rebellion that policy creates - there's never a reason to report a family member - and the shared danger will usually develop pretty strong familial bonds.
Anyways, I'm fond of my family but I'd be pretty reluctant under any circumstances to cause the death of anyone else and I suspect most people who haven't been through something like military training are in the same boat.