...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...n soldiers are believed to have deserted the Russian frontline, with Kremlin fighters reportedly searching for them.
The troops were deployed in Russia's Kursk and Bryansk oblasts, about four miles from the border with Ukraine, when they deserted, the public broadcasting company of Ukraine, Suspilne, reported.
Intelligence officials cited by the broadcaster said the Russian military is searching for the North Korean soldiers, while commanders are trying to conceal the desertion from their higher-ups.
It comes after reports that Moscow was planning to assemble a battalion of troops sent over by Kim
PudgeJong-un
...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished...
to help push Ukraine's forces out of Kursk.
Ukrainian outlet LIGA reported on Tuesday that the soldiers would be involved in combat missions in the country's Southwestern regions, where Russia is still battling Ukraine's incursion.
North Korean soldiers were set to form a "special Buryat battalion," named after the Mongolic ethnic group indigenous to the region spanning Siberia as well as northern Mongolia and China, sources quoted by LIGA said.
Pyongyang and Moscow have been developing their relationship for some time now, pledging earlier this year to provide aid to one another if attacked.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years in June, when he and Kim signed a so-called "comprehensive strategic partnership pact" with a clause similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
), which states that an attack one member is an attack on all.