Ukraine calls on North Korean troops to surrender, promises security, food and medical care

This article was originally published in English

The Ukrainian project ‘I want to live’ has published a new video in Korean with an appeal to North Korean soldiers Surrender to Ukrainian forces When they are deployed in the war zone.

shows video prisoner of war camp in ukraine and promises that after the surrender, the troops will be evacuated from Ukraine in accordance with the Geneva Conventions with guarantees of safe conditions of detention, food and medical care.

“It doesn’t matter how many troops Pyongyang sends to help russiaNo matter the destination: Ukrainian POW camps are ready to welcome soldiers of any nationality, religion and ideological opinion,

According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the first North Korean military units arrived in the war zone in the Russian Kursk region On Wednesday.

What is ‘I want to live’?

What was the purpose of the hotline that Ukraine’s General Intelligence Directorate launched in September 2022 and operates 24 hours a day? Help Russian soldiers to surrender voluntarilythemselves or their units, to the Ukrainian army.

In June, more than 300 Russian soldiers As the representative of Ukrainian defense intelligence, Andrey Yusov, said earlier this year, due to the initiative taken by the government, he had already surrendered to Ukrainian captivity.

“The number of people willing to surrender has increased. Within the framework of this project alone, more than 300 Russian occupiers have already surrendered in Ukrainian captivity,” he reported. “Some of them immediately expressed Their wish should not be exchanged Or even join the security and defense forces.

According to Yusov, more than 35,000 applications have been submitted“The majority of serving Russian military personnel, as well as those who may join the Russian armed forces and wish to defend themselves, are not willing to participate in a war of aggression and not become war criminals.” Most of them are willing to return to their homeland after the cessation of “hostilities”, but to avoid future problems with the law, They are recorded as caught And they have not been marked as fugitives or voluntary surrenderees.

Can North Korean troops reach it?

North Korean citizen they don’t have access to the internet And very few of them have computers. Smartphones in North Korea have limited functions and are subject to surveillance and control measures that make them useful only for basic communications and consumption of state-approved content.

in russiaproject website ‘I want to live’ banned across the country in less than a month of its launch. However, it is still possible to access it using a VPN or instant messengers, hotlines, and chatbots managed by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Addressing Pyongyang troops in Korean, the new video says: “They should not die senseless in a foreign land. “They must not repeat the fate of millions of Russian soldiers who will never return home.”