Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested returning the soldiers to North Korea in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia.
Generational punishments keep those people from leaving, most likely. Their family members will be the ones to suffer from their choice to defect.
But since this is a warzone, I’d try to fake my death on the battlefield or capture. Though I suppose that probably ends with the same punishment too.
Right - even if it is not as dramatic as imprisonment in the camps in Hamgyeongbukdo, it could mean demotion and years of sustained investigation and perhaps social ostracism.
But I think one of the other motives here is that these guys are probably getting some wild hazard pay for going to the conflict zone, and their relative wealth within North Korea as elite soldier careerists is probably quite decent as is.
