Ukraine's surrender hotline lures 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 soldiers to support Russia in the fight against Ukraine.

Ukraine lures North Korean troops heading to Russia 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 need to die senselessly in another country,” Ukraine's military intelligence said in an Oct. 23 statement about its program “I want 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, but access is still possible via VPN.

“Surrender! “Ukraine provides you with shelter, 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.”

Alongside the statement, Ukraine released a Korean-language video showing its prisoner of war 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.

According to officials from South Korea, Ukraine and the United States, North Korea is said to have sent thousands of soldiers to support Russia in the fight against Ukraine.

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

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

Russia's deployment of North Korean troops is another indicator of the country's greater reliance on allies to sustain its war effort. For his part, Putin has allocated 40% of the state budget to defense production and signed a pact with Pyongyang that will open up another source of military supplies and ammunition.

But Ukraine's attempt to persuade North Korean troops to surrender is encountering significant hurdles. North Korea experts previously told Business Insider about the strict measures Pyongyang is taking when sending citizens abroad.

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

The dispatches, 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 foreign citizens by threatening to punish their extended family if they leave.

For this reason, Bennett said, North Korean diplomats are almost never allowed to bring their entire families with them to their overseas posts.

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

“North Korea believes in a generational penalty,” he added.

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