[FOREIGN]
>> So that is Russian state TV and
their job is to just say, whatever will make the people who watch it like
the regime more and apparently this is what they've landed on.
The idea that 100,000 volunteers from North Korea are going
to be traveling to Ukraine to fight alongside the Russian forces there.
They will also be be repairing the war damage,
not like the damage that they did with the missiles and the rockets and
tanks and all that, just war damage, it just happened.
But they're gonna be there and they're resilient and they're undemanding.
That seems that's a weird thing to say about a group of 100,000 people.
But bear in mind there might be a reason why they would want 100,000 volunteers
from North Korea.
The US estimated late last month that 75,000 Russian soldiers
have either been killed or the majority of which injured in Ukraine,
over 80% of Putin's land forces are bogged down and tired.
And we've previously reported about the number of their officers,
including generals who have died.
And so maybe maybe they've got a deal going with North Korea.
Maybe they're volunteers like North Koreans are volunteers on literally
anything that happens there or I don't know, Francesca,
maybe they do wanna go, what do you think?
>> They're not volunteers, but if they do wanna go,
it's because they're planning an elaborate defection strategy to
fake their own deaths and try to remain in Russia.
Because it is probably in fact certainly better than living under
the North Korean regime.
I am still haunted by the images of seeing the North Korea from satellite and
at night there's no lights, there are no lights.
Because there's very little electricity,
there is very little access to basic human provisions.
To say nothing of the year 2022, I don't know,
1990, 85, basic human rights for that year.
So, yeah, just amazing, Russia's touting, this is like,
our great allies in North Korea, lovers of human rights in North Korea.
>> 100%, yeah, yeah, look,
if you're in the state media then you're in a difficult position,
you're supposed to put a happy face and literally everything that happens.
And so they spend a couple of months implying the whole thing would be super
simple, done wrapped up in the next couple days, which I understand.
Because many people internationally thought that it would be wrapped up really
quickly, that's not true.
It's been absolutely devastating economically for
them as well as the countless thousands who have needlessly died.
And so now they have to cover for it and they have to spin,
it's not that 100,000 are going,
it is assuming that it's true that 100,000 are needed to go.
And they're spinning that as a good thing,
that they need a massive army of people who have been strong armed out
of North Korea to go and it's probably not gonna happen anyway.
But they're trying to spin the need for 100,000 additional forces as a good thing.
I would like to present an alternative that unfortunately will
never be discussed on state TV and so the people will never consider.
But you could leave, they could leave right now in the next three days,
all of the forces could be out of Ukraine.
They could just go and you wouldn't need any North Korean troops,
you wouldn't lose any more of your own troops.
You could start to stabilize your economy once again, you could start to repair some
of the damage that's been diplomatically done to Russia.
You could do all of those things and you know what you'd lose?
I don't know, nobody seems to be making the case for
what exactly they still hope to get out of this war other than tens of thousands of
additional casualties on both sides.
So maybe just go, I think that would be cool.
And I understand that Putin doesn't want you to, go anyway,
just leave, go back home.
>> No, but they have to recruit another regime that cares about its own population
even less than they do.
Burn through them.
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