North Koreans deployed alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, sources say
Engineers said to be supporting missile launches and reports of North Koreans killed near Donetsk
North Korean military engineers have been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles, and North Koreans operating in occupied areas of Ukraine have already been killed, senior officials in Kyiv and Seoul said.
There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that "support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles", a source in Ukraine told the Guardian.
Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, last year travelled to Russia for a summit with Vladimir Putin where the two men bolstered their deepening ties with a secret arms deal.
Pyongyang's ammunition shipments were vital in allowing Russian forces to advance in a grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine this summer. But it appears increasingly clear that the agreement went beyond supplying materiel.
Are we assuming the Russian conscript has a higher degree of education than the north Korean?
They're both totalitarian shitholes shoving their own version of lies down their citizens throats.
There are FAR, FAR more well educated Russians than there are North Koreans, let alone Educated North Koreans.
There were reports of Russian soldiers in Ukraine not knowing what an "Automatic Toilet" was. They're grabbing people from so far in the boonies, that they bring in buckets of water to flush their toilets. That also means that either Russian barracks don't have toilets or they're shipping their forces to the front lines without any training.
Wtf is an "automatic toilet?" And how is that a bar for someone's intelligence?
He means they only know how to shit in a hole in the ground. That kind of poverty tends to not go hand in hand with the top educational institutions.
From how understand it, they have toilets in the sticks, but they don't automatically fill themselves. They have a bucket of water that they pour into the toilet to flush it. It's also not so much that they don't have automatic toilets, but that they didn't even know they exist. The poor, wilderness communities that Putin is pulling from are that isolated from the rest of the word. The American equivalent would be the Appalachian people.
Here's a clip of Zelenskyy referencing the toilet situation.
There are places that just have this too:
https://youtu.be/7kySzXIWf-4?si=Gmsf90GX0YblwdUs
You know, there's a hook worm epidemic in the southern US that's effecting children's mental development is being cause by a lack of proper waste management. Explains a lot of things about both communities.
Poverty can explain most things.
Well, yes, but in both cases, it's manufactured poverty. It's really not hard to make basic cesspit and keep it away from water sources. This is a solved problem.
Sure, it's a solved problem, but is it a profitable problem?
Considering the economies of areas with clean, modern hygiene vs a lack of hygiene, I'd say yes, yes it is.
This is more stubborn, cultural issues. Russia has poor areas because the wealthy don't feel rich without poor people to look down on and poor people in those areas view themselves as more rugged and strong without modern conveniences(although once a rural Russian tries some modern living while in school, they don't go home). Similar circumstances with rural Americans.
That makes a lot more sense thank you
Yes but I doubt they are getting sent to Ukraine. The ethnic minority regions that Russia keeps dirt poor are sent 70:1 in some cases compared to recruits from Moscow. And I'd bet it's a big ratio also between the well educated and poorly educated in Moscow too.
North Korea has a pretty good IT program
They deal with malware while Russia deals with social media campaigns
They are worlds apart yes. Russia actually has an amazing academia network that is suffering greatly from Putins politics. Most recently seen by hundreds of academics having to stop their collaboration with CERN because of the war. Compared to NK, Russia is just a normal country with lots of IT and science nerds.
However if you look at the US and their rural MAGA population, it shows that there can just be a massive rift within the population. And thats what you have in Russia too i would assume.
Much of the respect we have for Russian education goes back to the excellent STEM education they had in the Soviet days. This has largely been eroded away in modern times, and much of the technology and infrastructure they have are being held together by Soviet educated older folks.
I would assume that considering Russians actually have internet.
I'm also going to assume the Russian soldiers are atleast 6 inches taller on average since South Korean soldiers are that much taller than North Korean soldiers.