By Ju-min Park and John Geddie

SEOUL (Reuters) – After a battle with Russia in the western Kursk region this week, Ukrainian special forces have recovered the bodies of more than a dozen slain North Korean enemy soldiers.

Among them, they found one who was still alive. But as they approached, he detonated a grenade, blowing himself up, according to a description of the fight posted on social media by Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces on Monday.

The forces said their soldiers escaped the blast unhurt. Reuters could not confirm the incident.

But it is among mounting evidence from the battlefield, intelligence reports and testimonies of defectors that some North Korean soldiers have resorted to extreme measures as they support Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine.

“Self-immolation and suicide: that’s the reality of 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 because of fearing reprisals against his family left the North.

“These soldiers who left home for a fight there have been brainwashed and are ready to sacrifice themselves for Kim Jong Un,” he added, referring to the exiled North Korean leader.

Kim, identified to Reuters by the Seoul-based human rights group NK Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, said he was working with the North Korean military in Russia for about seven years until 2021 on construction projects to get foreign currency for the regime.

Ukrainian and Western assessments say Pyongyang has deployed about 11,000 soldiers to support Moscow’s forces in Russia’s western Kursk region, which Ukraine seized in a surprise invasion last year. More than 3,000 were killed or injured, according to Kyiv.

North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Moscow and Pyongyang initially dismissed the reports about sending troops to the North as “fake news”. But Russian president Vladimir Putin in October did not deny that North Korean soldiers are currently in Russia and a North Korean official said any such deployment would be legal.

Ukraine this week released videos of what it says are two captured North Korean soldiers. One of the soldiers expressed the desire to stay in Ukraine, and the other to return to North Korea, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

“ONE LAST BULLET”

North Korea’s deployment to Russia is the first major involvement in a war since the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea has reportedly sent smaller contingents to the Vietnam War and the civil conflict in Syria.

The United States has warned that Russia’s experience will make North Korea “more capable of waging war against its neighbors”.

North Korean leader Kim has previously hailed his army 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 punching blocks of ice 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 suggests they are unprepared for modern warfare, such as drone attacks, and may be used as “cannon fodder” by Russia.

More worryingly there are signs that these troops are being ordered to commit suicide, he said.

“Recently, it was confirmed that a North Korean soldier was in danger of being captured by the Ukrainian military, so he shouted for General Kim Jong Un and pulled out a grenade to try to blow himself up, but was killed, ” Lee Seong-kweun, who sits on the intelligence committee of the South Korean parliament, said.

Memos carried by slain North Korean soldiers also show that North Korean authorities advocated self-destruction and suicide before capture, he added.

When asked about further details of the cases he was referring to, he refused to elaborate saying that it was information from Ukraine that was shared with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). NIS did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.

The suicides of soldiers or spies not only show loyalty to the Kim Jong Un regime but are also a way to protect their families back home, said Yang Uk, a defense analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy. Studies.

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy said on Sunday Kyiv was ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to their leader Kim Jong Un if he could facilitate their exchange with Ukrainians held captive by Russia.

For some North Korean soldiers, however, being captured and sent back to Pyongyang appears to be a fate worse than death, said Kim, the North Korean defector and former soldier.

“Being a prisoner of war means betrayal. Being captured means you’re a traitor. Leave one last bullet, that’s what we talk about in the military,” he said.