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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

There must be some rule on the internet where if some geopolitical thing happens anywhere in the world at least one person will blame Russia.

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And a similar rule that at least one person will defend Russia, regardless of how truthful the accusations are. And in this particular case, NK troops fighting in a land war in Europe at Russia's side is a major geopolitical shift, whether you agree or not.

It’s a big shift, but from a NK/SK standpoint probably the bigger issue is what exactly NK got in exchange for the massive ammunition deliveries and the tens of thousands of troops they sent to die in Ukraine.

Whatever it is, it must be pretty big, perhaps advanced missile technology, maybe even new types of nuclear weapons. Either way it’s bound to significantly change the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula.

How about just basic energy inputs like fuel and fertilizer? This is a country that is so abysmally poor the state has a feces collection quota. Peasants must collect their daily dumps and give them to the state for use in the field or suffer the wrath of the local DPRK gangster.[0]

[0]https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/manure-02012022130916...

Perhaps that could have been true for the shipments of shells, but I can't see NK sending tens of thousands of troops to a meatgrinder that they have absolutely no stake in just for some fertilizer and oil. NK has the ability to demand much more strategic things and I'd be virtually certain that they have.

Also, “well being of people” < “military stuff”

> NK troops fighting

Still zero serious evidence of this.

At this point it seems pretty likely tbh. Putin signed a new mutual pact with Kim earlier this year. There are videos of North Korean men receiving Russian military uniforms and signing forms in Sergeyevka. The US, Ukraine, NATO, and South Korea are all reporting incidences of North Koreans fighting and dying in the Kursk region. Putin has given wishy washy statements like "how we utilise the mutual pact is our business".

And another will blame the US president.

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