Ukrainian president calls on countries to step in before troops sent to Russia by Pyongyang reach battlefield

Ukraine’s president urged allies to stop “watching” and take steps before North Korean troops deployed in Russia reach the battlefield, while the army chief said his troops were facing “one of the most powerful offensives” by Moscow since the full-scale war began.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a pre-emptive Ukrainian strike on camps where the North Korean troops are being trained and said Kyiv knows their location. But he said Ukraine can’t do it without permission from allies to use western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia.

“But instead … America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well,” Zelenskyy said in a post late on Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

  • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It is highly unlikely North Korea will cross the Ukrainian border. Putin can let them do defense while Russians do the offense. As we have learned in the middle east, defending and enabling war criminals does not equate being complicit in their war. Don’t ask me how that works.

    • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      So having western troops in Ukraine should also be fine if they stop at the russian border right?

          • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
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            1 month ago

            I wouldnt be presumptious enough to say we, but I would really prefer the war not escalate further. Im all in for ukraine, and definitely fuck east-ukraine, but I don’t want American troops deployed in ukraine outside of advisory and training positions. I dont have great jusitifcations as to why, politics are hard, but I don’t feel its the US’ job to directly police the rest of the world, so Id prefer us to not directly combat other countries unless they’ve directly attacked us.

            History certainly has a role to play here, which sucks because its always been my worst subject, but an eye for an eye seems to be at odds with peace which is obviously ideal. That is why I said my justifications arent great. It doesnt help that I do support foreign benevolent intervention, but not directly through force. And, as always, defining ‘benevolent’ in terms of an authoritarian regime engaging in foreign intervention of any kind is… difficult.

            Edit: i forgot to mention: what we should be doing is allowing ukraine use of any non-warcrime western version of any weapon that east-ukraine is confirmed to use against them. We should also be quietly investing massive amounts of cyber resources into disabling russias nuclear launch systems and crippling putins stranglehold on their government by fucking with his finances specifically.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              1 month ago

              As the phrase goes, Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war).

              Russia doesn’t care that you want peace. They don’t care how nice you are. They care if they’re going to lose. Putin wants power, and if he is going to lose that power he’ll stop this war. There are many ways to do this, but I’m not opposed to NATO troops helping out. If Russia brings in foreign troops, that’s more than enough justification for NATO to get more directly involved too.

              We won’t have peace by asking nicely. We’ll have peace by ensuring an end to the invasion. If Russia wins then they’ll continue. Ukraine winning is the only outcome that can bring peace.

              • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
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                1 month ago

                The issue is that a direct war with russia would lead to the next world war guaranteed. It may not be nuclear, but it likely will. Even if it wasnt, an invasion of russia would be possibly the most difficult, drawn out, and costly war the US has ever faced.

                • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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                  1 month ago

                  I don’t think so. I believe Russia would say that, but I don’t think that is accurate. China likely wouldn’t back them up because they’d have nothing to gain. They’d rather try to gain influence over whoever takes over after Putin.

            • taipan@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              I agree with you on preferring the US sending support to Ukraine in the form of equipment and strategic guidance instead of troops at this stage. European countries have a different balance of considerations due to their proximity to Russia, and I trust them to make the right choice on the level of support to provide.

      • humble peat digger@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        This will start ww3.

        Sorry but Ukraine is not my problem, no matter how the military industrial complex tries to push the narrative.

        • tired_n_bored@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          The rise of ductators who want to seize other countries’ territories is your problem, and the sooner it’s stopped, the better it is.

          When will it become your problem? I think you’re a US citizen so probably for you Lisbon (in Portugal, extreme West of Europe) could have Russian troops in it and you still wouldn’t care, right?

          Well, thinking this way has proven to be so wrong because sooner or later you will be the next in line.

          • humble peat digger@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Everyone tries to find some historical parallels.
            There aren’t any, completely different times and different situation.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        1 month ago

        I’m pretty sure they also thought he’d get spanked relatively quickly, and backpeddle within like a year after he lost enough war criminals and starving peasants who participated in his “special military operation”.

        And it’s still going.

        We really would be foolish at this point to make any more “It’s unlikely that…” assertions at this point… It’s all out crazy town now.

  • SoJB
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    1 month ago

    ? I was told right here on Lemmy that the NK soldiers are functionally useless, tactically inept, slowing down the Russian troops, have never seen anything with a transistor before, and are supplying shells with 80% misfire rates?

    • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      It could be true, I guess. It could be Western propaganda too. It doesn’t take much to reason a country as underdeveloped and isolated as NK lacks an effective military.

      However, maybe they don’t need to be particularly good to further Russia’s interests. NK army may be good enough as cannon fodder or purely for defence purposes, as border guards or patrols.

      • andallthat@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Russia and Ukraine are two countries that have thrown everything they had at each other: from good soldiers, to inmates, to good people who’d probably never held a weapon before.

        At this point I imagine that having troops who are alive and actual trained soldiers, not emotionally and physically drained (if not outright mutilated) by years of fighting is a big advantage

        If I was taken from my home and suddenly sent to fight for my country, no matter how full of patriotic love I might be, one North Korean child with a knife would be enough to take me out.

    • LANIK2000@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Functionally useless just like the average Russian soldier, lacking equipment, food, training and likely suffering of medical complications. The thing is, in meat wave assaults it doesn’t matter. In fact their cheapness is a quality of its own.

    • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      It was supposed to be South Korean fake news to manufacture consent for invasion of NK

  • Peck@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I don’t get it. Are Ukrainiens still fighting? Why? What is Russia going to do? Give them money like they gave it to Chechens after the war? Just stop this stupid dying and surrender already. Save some of my money.

    • JustARaccoon@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      And if the Russians went for your country too would you shout “surrender” then too? Do you have the slightest idea how much speech and media is controlled in Russia? Did the “joke” of Putin’s political opponents accidentally falling off windows not translate in your head that that’s not the type of govt to allow to rule over others?

      • Peck@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I totally would surrender. Definitely wouldn’t fight. Russians are not Israeli or Americans. They actually include people into their country instead of genociding/exploiting them for one resource or another.

          • Peck@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Lol yeah. Just look at the results. Everybody still speaks their languages even small ethnicities inside Russia free to teach their languages in school. Now contrast that to native Americans and their languages.

            • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems
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              1 month ago

              So the difference is not whether they’re trying to be imperialists, but in their relative ability to do so. I’m sure there’s some fascinating and useful graduate level historical analysis to be done in understanding why Russification was relatively unsuccessful, but that doesn’t change the fact that Russia has time and again attempted to impose Russian culture, Russian language, and Russian law on parts of the Russian empire that were very happily doing their own thing.

  • McDropout@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Ok Volodymyr Zeleneskyy, have you tried not being a neo-nazi and supporting terrorist states like Israel?

    Please stop begging money from us. Your neo-nazi country doesn‘t belong to the EU or the NATO.

    • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      It’s not the fault of other Ukrainians that Zelenskyi happens to be a zionist. They still deserve to get help against Russia.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Zeleneskyy voiced support to Israel right after 7 October and has been completely silent about the whole thing since.

      Sounds a lot like how a lot of Jewish people (and not only Jewish people) reacted to it and subsequent events afterwards - they first saw Israel as a victim and supported it but over time changed their minds seeing what Israel was doing using that attack as an excuse and possibly as additional information about Oct 7 that was not straight out of the Israeli Authprities emerged.

      It certainly doesn’t sound at all like a Zionist (for example Biden or most political leaders in Germany) have reacted: those have very vocally continued their “unwavering support” for Israel.

      If Zeleneskyy morally supported the actions of Israel even once it became clear they had gone from self-defense to committing a Genocide, he would have kept voicing unwavering support for Israel, yet he has stopped talking about it altogether, and since Ukraine requires the support of the US and Germany, both countries were all main parties support the Israeli Neue Nazis and their Neue Holocaust, saying nothing at all is the smart balance he found between Morally being against the actions of Israel and doing what is best for Ukraine.

    • NeuronautML
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      1 month ago

      Woah, i didn’t know that. I just lost all respect i had for that guy.

      That is some serious cognitive dissonance on Zelenskyy’s part. So let me get this straight, he thinks it’s fine that Israeli murder and steal from innocent civilians and just annex land from another country because they think it should be Israel but disagrees when Russians do the same, is that right ? I would think a former humorist would have a firmer grasp of irony. Zelenskyy is a jackass.

      Gotta separate the man from the post though. This is more Ukraine than Zelenskyy.