Exposes the motives and tactics of Kim Jong -in fighters in Kurshchyna: DPRK Help helps the Armed Forces - WSJ
Lee Sonmin, a 37-year-old human rights activist who fled from North Korea in 2010, studies the documents provided by Ukrainian military documents, diaries and photos to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine to understand the motives and tactics of DPRK soldiers and persuade them to be captured, writes The Wall Street Journal. Journalists say that Lee Sonmin fled to South Korea through China with his mother.
He received education in the field of human rights protection at the US University of Columbia, in 2022 he joined the Human Rights Foundation as the head of the Korean group based in Seoul. The Foundation Strategy Head Alex Gladstein introduced him to an American activist who assisted Ukrainian soldiers, and Lee Sonmin also began to consult for Ukraine.
In December 2024, American activist Amemed Khan, who also assisted the Defense Forces of Ukraine, invited a human rights activist to a group chat with documents and photos. These were the first evidence that Kim Jong -in had conveyed his military Russian, when Moscow and Pyongyang were not officially recognized. Lee confirmed that the records were made in Korean and do not coincide with Russian names printed on certificates.
He became the first of people outside Ukraine to access this documentation, the authors of the material. Now Li regularly analyzes the documents found on the battlefield, searching for details that can indicate how Russia uses the DPRK's soldiers: specific dates, their nutrition, schedule of day. Khan during the rewriting began to be called the nickname "Hero of Ukraine".
Journalists say that translations of a human rights activist from North Korea helped to expose bad coordination between the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the DPRK fighters, as well as a change in the strategy when small groups of North Korean soldiers sent attacking drones. At one point, Lee saw in the diary of the liquidated soldier Kim Jong -in phrase: "Get ready for war with all efforts.
" The diaries also recognized the significant losses of the North Korean units and "insufficient knowledge of hostile tactics", and in one of the records the platoon commander confessed to the failure on the battlefield. There were records analyzed by Lee and personal letters. The same platoon commander wrote a letter to his beloved before death in January and signed him from the "foreign land of Russia", the human rights activist told reporters.
"Even if this life comes an end - I will become a butterfly and find you," - wrote commander Lee Sonmina confess that such materials persecute him and are deeply striking. "It gives a vivid realization that they are someone's child, brother, friend," he said. In addition, Lee advised the Ukrainian military how to formulate agitation cards in Korean to convince the DPRK soldiers to be captured. Such postcards are dumped on enemy positions from drones.
Journalists noted that Kim Jong -in soldiers often blow themselves grenades to avoid captivity because it is considered betrayal. In one of the drafts, they wrote: "Please do not die in vain! To give up is a way to survive. " Lee corrected the call that was not categorical enough and could strengthen the thoughts of betrayal or shame, and advised to replace the wording with: "Do not die in vain! To give up is the only way to survive.
" Lee Sonmin hopes that his help contributes to the failure of the DPRK on the battlefield, and at the same time the war gives him a rare chance to convince compatriots to change the side and to realize the opportunity to give up. "I want them to know that the departure from North Korea is not a betrayal. It is human right," the human rights activist said.