A battalion of 3,000 North Korean soldiers will shortly join Russian troops in fighting Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s full entry into the war.
Intelligence sources said the unit has been secretly training in Russia’s Far East ahead of deployment as part of a Russian airborne regiment.
“They are called the Buryat Battalion,” a senior Ukrainian military source told Politico. Buryatia is a remote region of Russia bordering Mongolia that the Kremlin has targeted heavily for military recruitment.
The Kyiv Independent quoted another Western intelligence source claiming that North Korea had sent 10,000 soldiers to join the Russian army.
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Well this is true of most news sources. They find a source, make an eye catching headline and story about it. It’s for us to read things and weigh the biases and veracity of the information. I also wish it were otherwise, but it’s not.
I generally agree but with a few caveats.
First, this is a uniquely bad headline. More reputable outlets would report it as something like “Russia denies using North Korean troops in war effort, Ukrainian Intelligence claims otherwise”. That at least allows the reader to understand who is making what claim and whether or not that claim is contested.
Second, most people are not anywhere as skeptical of media outlets as they should be. They may expect bias but rarely do people in western countries expect journalists to regurgitate and launder whatever wild claims state officials make. Unfortunately thats exactly what many new agencies do which is why I think it’s important to talk about when discussing articles like this one.