The losses are enormous - it is alleged that nearly 2,000 of the 13,000 North Korean soldiers sent to Ukraine were killed. This is according to data from the South Korean intelligence service, which was published in September.
"Heroic sacrifice" and "martyrdom"
To present these losses in a positive light to the population, the regime in Pyongyang relies on propaganda. In the isolated country, it works especially well, as people have no access to alternative sources of information from the government-controlled media.
State media urges young people to join the army to become "suicide squads with bullets and bombs". State television has also aired a documentary about troops deployed to Ukraine. It tells the story of two young soldiers who detonated a grenade to commit suicide before being captured by Ukrainian troops. This is presented as a heroic act of self-sacrifice.
At the same time, footage has been released of Kim Jong-un bowing before photos of fallen soldiers and hugging their families. "This is typical of North Korea," says Min Sung-che, a professor of communication and media at Pace University in New York. The ideological indoctrination aims to instill patriotism in future generations and potential soldiers. "They show soldiers committing suicide because it fits perfectly with the regime's long-standing narrative of ultimate sacrifice," Min told DW. The heroic deeds of the fallen soldiers are portrayed as "martyrdom".
The regime fears collapse
Erwin Tan, a professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, has another theory. He believes that the fallen North Korean soldiers were forced to commit suicide after attempting to desert or performing poorly on the front. "These videos may have been intended to show other members of the North Korean military that "fear and incompetence" are not tolerated. ”
The North Korean regime uses propaganda and a strict internal security service to demand loyalty from its citizens. The political leadership lives in constant fear, fearing a collapse similar to that in the USSR and Eastern European countries in the 1990s. The fate of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is particularly worrying. He ruled Romania from 1965 to 1989, when he was executed along with his wife Elena after a riot in Bucharest. "The North Korean regime is fully aware that power is fragile," says Tan.
To make North Koreans believe that they are defending their interests
The regime in North Korea includes hostility towards the United States, Japan and South Korea in its propaganda. The war against Ukraine is being presented as “another front in this struggle,” Min says. “It’s transforming it from a fight for Russia to a direct defense of the homeland.”
“The North Korean state media’s claim that its soldiers are fighting Americans, South Koreans, and Japanese serves to make a distant and confusing war seem immediate and ideologically coherent,” Min says. It stirs up familiar feelings of pride, revenge, and resistance, while also helping to mask the unpleasant reality that North Koreans are dying for Moscow’s interests, not their own.
Author: Julian Reel