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Authorities in North Korea are searching for the source of reports that North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia to join in the Ukraine conflict, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to Russia, and that they will likely be sent to fight against Ukraine “over the next several weeks.” More than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been moved close to the front in western Russia, South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday.
But while the rest of the world closely monitors the deployment, North Korea has dismissed reports that its soldiers would join the conflict as “rumor” to its own citizens.
“Do not try to find out information that the government has not told you. Our participation in the Ukraine War is a rumor.”
This was a warning from North Korea’s Ministry of State Security after college students started spreading news that North Korean soldiers were on the ground in Russia, a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
Now, North Korean authorities are searching for the source of the reports and are enlisting students to inform on those responsible, said a university student in the same province, who also declined to be named for security reasons.
The ministry sent investigators on Oct. 21 to the nation’s top school Kim Il Sung University, and also to the Pyongyang University of Music and Dance, the student told RFA Korean.
“On Oct. 23, students at my university were told to anonymously report anyone who had spread the rumors,” he said. “Currently, each faculty department is holding a meeting to find out who is spreading these rumors.”
He said the ministry guaranteed to maintain the confidentiality of those who report on their fellow students.
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As news of the deployment spread, military families began to wonder about the whereabouts of their enlisted children, so the ministry dismissed the reports as rumor in order to prevent panic, the student said.
“The news of North Korean troops’ participation in the Ukraine War began to spread around Oct. 10, starting with major universities in Pyongyang,” he said. “There are many children of high-ranking officials at those universities, so important news that is not otherwise well known to the public always spreads quickly among them.”
Military families, meanwhile, are frantically making phone calls to try to get in touch with their enlisted children, the Ryanggang resident said.
“The families are anxious after it became known that Kim Jong Un had dispatched troops to Ukraine,” he said, adding that rumors of possible North Korean involvement in Ukraine had spread previously during summits between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Residents did not pay much attention at those times,” he said. “They didn’t take it seriously and treated it as just another rumor.”
But this time things are different. Residents are more certain that what the government is saying is just a rumor is actually a certainty, he said.
“Nowadays, the trend is to have one child in a family, so if a child goes to the military and dies, the family line will be cut off.”
Translated by Claire S. Lee Edited by Eugene Whong.