AFTER a battle in Russia's snowy western region of Kursk this week, Ukrainian special forces scoured the bodies of more than a dozen slain North Korean enemy soldiers.
They found one alive. But as they approached, he detonated a grenade, blowing himself up, according to a description of the fighting posted on social media by Ukraine's Special Operations Forces on Monday.
Reuters could not verify the incident.
But it is among mounting evidence from the battlefield, intelligence reports and testimonies of defectors that some North Korean soldiers are resorting to extreme measures as they support Russia's three-year war with Ukraine.
"Self-detonation and suicides: that's the reality about North Korea," said Kim, 32, a former North Korean soldier who defected to the South in 2022.
"These soldiers who left home to fight there have been brainwashed and are ready to sacrifice themselves for Kim Jong Un," he added, referring to the reclusive North Korean leader.
Kim, introduced to Reuters by Seoul-based human rights group NK Imprisonment Victims' Family Association, said he had worked for North Korea's military in Russia for about seven years up until 2021 on construction projects to earn foreign currency for the regime.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say Pyongyang has deployed some 11,000 soldiers to support Moscow's forces in Russia's western Kursk region, which Ukraine seized in a surprise incursion last year.
More than 3,000 have been killed or injured, according to Kyiv. Moscow and Pyongyang initially dismissed reports about the North's troop deployment as fake news.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin in October did not deny that North Korean soldiers were in Russia and a North Korean official said any such deployment would be lawful.
Ukraine this week released videos of what it said were
two captured North Korean soldiers.
One expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine, and the other to return to North Korea, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
North Korea's deployment to Russia is its first major involvement in a war since the 1950-53 Korean War.
But aA South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country's spy agency said that 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 being used as cannon fodder by Russia.
More worryingly there are signs these troops have been instructed 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 South Korean Parliament's Intelligence Committee, said.
Memos carried by slain North Korean soldiers also show that North Korean authorities emphasised self-destruction and suicide before capture, he added.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday Kyiv is ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to Kim Jong Un if he can facilitate their exchange for Ukrainians held captive in Russia.
For some North Korean soldiers, however, being captured and sent back to Pyongyang would be seen as a fate worse than death, said Kim, the North Korean defector and former soldier.
"Becoming a prisoner of war means treason.
"Being captured means you are a traitor. Leave one last bullet, that's what we talk about in the military," he said.
The writers are from Reuters