This image from a video posted Oct. 18 on X by Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security shows what the center claims are North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia. Human rights activists on Tuesday released an open letter calling for North Korean troops in Russia to stop helping the Kremlin's “unjustifiable” war efforts against Ukraine amid reports that some of them have already been killed.
Human rights activists released an open letter, Tuesday, calling for North Korean troops in Russia to stop helping the Kremlin's “unjustifiable” war efforts against Ukraine amid reports that some of them have already been killed.
Seven rights organizations based in South Korea — Justice for North Korea, Korean War POW Family Association, Mulmangcho, No Chain, Stepping Stones, THINK and Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) ― said that the war was initiated by Russian invaders and that North Koreans have no reason to die for that unjust cause.
“So why are you pointing your guns at the innocent Ukrainian people who are fighting to defend their fatherland and nation from foreign domination? Why are you rushing into battles that even the Russian people are avoiding under the command of Russian officers to give up your lives for nothing?” the groups said in the letter.
“It is still not too late. Lay down your weapons and stand on the side of justice. Exercise your own judgment in choosing whether to become the lonely spirits without descendants to look after your grave far away from home in alien mountains and waters for Russia's unjustifiable war of aggression," it said.
The release followed the U.S. decision to lift the ban on Ukraine using long-range missiles to fire into Russian territory. U.S. officials reportedly said the weapons would be used against Russian and North Korean troops deployed against Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region — and was intended to send a message to Pyongyang.
In this image taken from a video released by the Russian defense ministry on Nov. 7, Russian soldiers fight with Ukrainian armed forces in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region of Russia. AP-Yonhap
“(North Korean) Comrades, have you thought about why you are in Russia's border region of Kursk, thousands of kilometers away from (your) fatherland, wearing the military uniforms of the Russian forces, commanded by Russian officers and being ordered to charge against the Ukrainian forces? … But what harm has the Ukrainian people ever done to the Korean people?” the groups asked in the letter.
They drew comparisons with the people in Ukraine and those in North Korea.
“The Ukrainian people, like the Korean people, have groaned under foreign domination for centuries, including the Russian empire, and finally became an independent state with the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991,” they said. “However, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was not happy with the independent line pursued by Ukraine which regained independence with great difficulty, first occupied the Crimean Peninsula by force and coaxed the separatists in the eastern region to start a civil war in 2014 and then launched a full-scale invasion to swallow up the whole of Ukraine in February 2022.”
Shin Hee-seok, a TJWG representative who was behind the effort to draft the message, told The Korea Times that the activists believe their message will be able to reach the North Koreans on the battlefield, based on some media reports that the soldiers have “unrestricted access to the internet.”
In cooperation with North Korean defectors and rights activists in Ukraine, the groups will try their best to spread the message on the battlefield and beyond in the coming weeks, Shin added.
More than 10,000 North Korean troops arrived in Russia last month and were confirmed by South Korea's intelligence agency to have been participating in combat operations alongside Russian forces. Citing a senior government official in Ukraine, Kyodo News, a Japanese news agency, reported that North Korean soldiers have been killed in some areas.