Ukrainian surrender hotline entices North Koreans to desert and promises they will be well fed

• Ukraine offers comfortable beds and hot meals to North Korean troops who surrender to them.

• “You don’t have to die senselessly in another country,” Ukrainian military intelligence said.

• North Korea is said to have sent thousands of troops to help Russia in the fight against Ukraine.

Ukraine is luring Russia-aligned North Korean troops with comfortable beds and hot meals in exchange for their surrender.

“To the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army: You, who were sent to help the Putin regime, do not have to die senselessly in another country,” Ukraine’s military intelligence said in a statement on October 23 about its ‘I wants to live’. “Telegram chatbot.

The “I Want to Live” project is a service that allows Russian soldiers to surrender by calling their hotline. Access to the hotline and chatbot was blocked in Russia in October 2022, although it can still be accessed via VPN.

“Surrender! Ukraine offers you protection, food and warmth,” the statement said, adding that Russian soldiers who had surrendered were now living in “comfortable barracks” and receiving “three hot meals a day.”

In addition to the statement, Ukraine published a Korean-language video showing the POW camps and the meals served there.

The video, which was also posted on X and YouTube, ended with a phone number and QR code for North Korean soldiers who wanted to contact Ukrainian authorities.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

North Korea is said to have sent thousands of troops to help Russia in its fight against Ukraine, according to officials from South Korea, Ukraine and the US.

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening speech on Telegram that North Korean troops “could appear on the battlefield any day.”

“Ukraine will be forced to actually fight North Korea in Europe,” Zelenskyy added.

Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops is another indicator that the country is relying more on allies to continue its war effort. Putin, for his part, has allocated 40% of the national budget to defense production, and signed a pact with Pyongyang that will open a new source of war supplies and ammunition.

But Ukraine’s attempt to encourage North Korean forces to surrender faces clear obstacles. Experts from North Korea previously told Business Insider about the strict measures Pyongyang takes when it sends citizens abroad.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert on North Korean defense at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, told BI that North Korea’s Kim is likely to send only “politically reliable people” to the front lines.

Those sent, Bermudez said, would likely be accompanied by officials from the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, who would “file reports on everyone.”

Bruce W. Bennett, a defense researcher and North Korea specialist at RAND, told BI that the country is trying to rein in its overseas citizens with the threat of punishing their extended families if they defect.

This, Bennett said, is why North Korean diplomats are almost never allowed to bring their entire families to their overseas posts.

As such, defectors risk hurting their families if they decide to flee North Korea, Bermudez told BI.

“North Korea believes in generational punishment,” he added.

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