Isolationist despot Kim Jong Un sends his underprepared troops to Putin

Tragic North Korean soldiers are likely to be used as 'cannon fodder'

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North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) visiting a strategic missile base at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo: Korean Central News Agency via KNS/AFP)

Cut off from the world and having spent a short lifetime enduring the horrors of Kim Jong-Un’s despotic North Korea, the opportunity to travel may seem exotic.

What is this opportunity, you ask? It’s the chance to travel to Russia to be trained in how to fight alongside Vladimir Putin’s rogue army, and then march to the frontline to fight against Ukraine’s forces.

For the 12,000 North Korean soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine, this will be a nightmare of unimaginable horrors, grinding trench and urban warfare at its bloodiest.

Most of these soldiers - some still in their teens - have already had a life of suffering in a world of hunger, where even the snakes have all been eaten and wages are less than £1 a month.

Having met and interviewed several North Korean defectors in Seoul, I have been horrified by the twisted nature of the Kim dynasty’s cruelty.

The tragedy of North Korea is that for decades now - an appallingly long time by any measure - generations of poor subjects have endured one of the most vile regimes of modern times.