Hearing

And by "guarding the border" it really means "shooting anyone trying to escape"

Novel? As in a book of fiction? This is happening right now. I am sure some video of this will come out of this sad story and maybe in a few years some of these people who surrendered will be able to write their own story first hand. (I am assuming they will not want to go back to nk).

I threw it into ChatGPT, then asked them to change the name from Henry to one common in Korea.

In-soo had always believed the stories. The glossy propaganda reels, the posters of steely-eyed soldiers, and the speeches from government officials all painted the same picture: his country’s military was unmatched, unstoppable. Though the world had advanced, In-soo’s nation remained locked in a past vision of itself, proudly touting its military might, using technology that hadn’t evolved much beyond the 1950s. Tanks, planes, and rifles that his father might’ve used were still standard issue. It was enough, they said, to overwhelm any enemy.

But when they arrived on the battlefield, the illusion shattered.

The air was thick with smoke and dust. In-soo clutched his rifle, a relic from an era that felt like ancient history. He could hear the hum of something—machines, weapons, drones? He didn’t know. The enemy was out there, but they remained invisible, their presence felt only through strange, high-pitched frequencies and flashes of light. He had been trained for combat in a conventional sense, but this wasn’t war as he understood it.

A blinding flash erupted in the distance. Seconds later, half his squad was gone, reduced to nothing more than ash. No gunfire, no warning—just a blip, and they were vaporized. In-soo froze. This wasn’t warfare. It was annihilation. The weapons being used against them were so advanced they were beyond his comprehension, like something out of a nightmare. Weapons that didn’t give him a chance to even see who—or what—was operating them.

“Stay together!” his commanding officer shouted, but it didn’t matter. How could they stay together when they couldn’t even see what was killing them? Panic surged through the ranks. Soldiers who had once stood tall, believing in their nation’s invincibility, now scattered in terror, desperate to survive.

In-soo crouched behind a rusted piece of machinery, gripping his rifle tightly, though he knew it was useless. He had been afraid of disobeying orders, terrified of what his government would do to him if he didn’t serve. But now, that fear felt insignificant. The enemy’s technology wasn’t just more advanced—it was like magic, bending the very rules of reality.

He glanced at the scorched earth where his comrades once stood, feeling a deep, gnawing helplessness. They weren’t soldiers anymore. They were bodies—disappearing in a war where they never stood a chance. In-soo had always feared the consequences of deserting or refusing to fight, but now, a new terror gripped him: the realization that he was facing something far worse than his government’s threats.

The certainty that had once bolstered him was gone. All that remained was the fear of an enemy he couldn’t see, couldn’t fight, and couldn’t even begin to understand.

Hah, got me there.

I did actually meet a North Korean once when I spent a fair bit of time in Seoul during a study abroad program, but she "defected" as a child (read: smuggled into the South via China by some Christian group) and didn't really have much recollection of what life in the North was even like. Definitely not many though!

I'm a quarter NK. All the NKs I know are dead tho

No, they're pointing out the obvious. Newsweek isn't what it used to be, and the claims are all sourced from Ukraine, with no external on the record confirmations, yet.

Ukrainian media has a moral obligation to service the propaganda needs of the war. That's neither good, nor bad, that's just a part of being in an existential war for survival. I don't blame them for it, and I'm certainly not bashing them for, I'm just pointing out reality.

I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but I have no trouble understanding why North Korea would send thousands of support personnel to Ukraine as the logistical tail to support their weapons platforms. Western nations have been doing the same thing inside Ukraine.

Maybe the story is true, it's possible. But I'm going to need to see better sources provided then a Kyiv Post article citing unnamed Western officials or Newsweek using Ukrainian articles as their source information.

That's it. If anything, it's more unreasonable to not be skeptical of early reports coming from any war zone, whether you want to believe them, or not.