Not only that, the BTGs are concentrated in a much smaller front line. The 30 BTGs are aligned in a 180km defensive front with each BTG being responsible for about 6 km of territory, compared with earlier battles in the north where they were spread out to 15km per BTG.Konrad Muzyka - Rochan Consulting
@konrad_muzyka
37s
According to various Ukrainian sources, Russia now has some 20-30 battalion tactical groups in the Kherson Oblast. I don't think Kyiv has the manpower needed to counter that so I don't expect a Ukrainian counteroffensive in this area.
Apparently the Norks expect war and want their troops blooded.
Combat experienceApparently the Norks expect war and want their troops blooded.
Only the boots on the ground/bullets/planes/tanks aspect - the economic "world war" (war ALWAYS has a costly economic aspect to it) is being waged upon the greater western world via a failing communist fiat central banking system.So this is a world war being fought solely in Ukraine.
The have finally found an export that other nations need. Russia would be nuts to not take it. Let the Norks die while you rest and recover. Russia has enough grain and oil especially with the sanctions.Apparently the Norks expect war and want their troops blooded.
The NORKs have about 1.3 million active duty troops. They universally draft at 18 and the length of service for men is 10 years while women are until they are 23.
That is a lot of manpower and I have to wonder if Pyongyang has made a similar deal with Beijing and what else may be in the works?
Let me get all today’s posts out in bullet points.
1. Russia won and you idiots don’t know a damn thing.
2. Ukraine won and you idiots don’t know a damn thing.
3. Russia or Russia and China will nuke (Ukraine/Poland/Germany/England/all Nato/The US) and you idiots don’t know a damn thing.
4. I have the worlds greatest rye bread recipe and you idiots who don’t like rye bread don’t know a damn thing.
Let me get all today’s posts out in bullet points.
1. Russia won and you idiots don’t know a damn thing.
2. Ukraine won and you idiots don’t know a damn thing.
3. Russia or Russia and China will nuke (Ukraine/Poland/Germany/England/all Nato/The US) and you idiots don’t know a damn thing.
4. I have the worlds greatest rye bread recipe and you idiots who don’t like rye bread don’t know a damn thing.
Rye bread? Did someone say "rye bread"? Yummmmm........
Spose you'll be wanting Ham with that eh?
North Korea - much like China - has an excess male population and additionally can barely feed its own people. As others have observed, not "volunteering" to go to Ukraine is probably a death sentence for those soldiers and their families.
Sending 100,000 troops to Ukraine would be a win-win for the Norks: They'll have a hundred thousand less mouths to feed and in turn will receive massive amounts of Russian food and other supplies. Their 100,000 troops - at least those who survive - will have gained front line combat experience and it's a certainty that the Russians will use them as cannon fodder.
There is a great danger for Pyongyang in doing this, though. Russia is a much free-er and more prosperous country than North Korea, as is Ukraine. The Nork troops exposed to both the Russians and Ukrainians, as well as their exposure to Russian media and creature comforts, will return home very disillusioned with their lot at home. This will provide fertile ground for discontent and revolution.
Yes, Russia and Ukraine are poor countries by our standards, but to North Korean troops they will be seen to live in almost god-like luxury!
It would not surprise me in the least if Pyongyang liquidated most or all of their soldiers returning from Ukraine or placed them all in labor battalion type concentration camps upon their return.
Best
Doc
N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps |
Simon Ostrovsky has travelled to remote far eastern Russia and obtained rare footage of North Koreans who are working there as labourers under an agreement between their secretive Stalinist state and a company run by British businessmen. |
I think that it would be harder to control the soldiers as they take Ukrainian territory. They will see the TVs, clothes, cars, food etc. In a camp it is easy to keep them locked up and isolated.Not that much of a danger for North Korea. North Korea been providing slave labor to Russia for over 15 years.
N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps
Page last updated at 21:45 GMT, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 22:45 UK
N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps Simon Ostrovsky has travelled to remote far eastern Russia and obtained rare footage of North Koreans who are working there as labourers under an agreement between their secretive Stalinist state and a company run by British businessmen.
To the West, North Korea is a pariah state, best known for its secrecy, famines, belligerent politics and its leader's brutality.
At home, North Koreans live under total government control and the watchful eye of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.
But in the Amur region of Russia, almost 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the border, North Korea has created a home away from home at a series of remote logging camps in which nearly 1,500 workers are employed.
I travelled to one of the camps deep in the forest. A giant monument bearing the words "Our greatest leader Kim Il-sung lives with us forever" stood in the middle.
One of the buildings had a sign which read "Laboratory of Kim Il-sung's Theory" a commonly used slogan found on North Korean administration blocks. The camp even had its own theatre.
Further into the forest we found a group of North Koreans hard at work. They lived in a mobile wagon, decorated with portraits of the North Korean leaders.
Although reluctant to speak, one told me that he earned the equivalent of $200 per month. Another said that he earned $1 for each truck he loaded and that he could load up to nine per day, but he had not been paid since May.
Production targets
To try to find out who employed the North Koreans I travelled to Tynda, where the headquarters of the region's logging operations are based.
I met Sergey Sarnavsky, the director of a small local timber firm which has a contract with Association No 2, a state-owned North Korean organisation.
"The Koreans work year round with two days off per year," he told me. "All the other days are working days no matter what the weather conditions, they always work.
"The Koreans work for the government and their communist party, they've got production targets," he said. "If the quota is filled then everything is ok. If it is not fulfilled, well then they've got their Communist Party of North Korea, and everybody gets punished from the managers down to the worker who didn't fulfil the quota."
Escape
Many North Korean labourers have tried to escape the camps. Over the last two decades thousands have abandoned their work and now live in constant fear of arrest and deportation to North Korea.
Branded enemies of the people by their homeland they are wanted by Russian police and their own country's security services.
One worker, who ran away in the 1990s and had been given refuge by a Russian family, told me about life working in the camps, where winter temperatures regularly drop to 30C below zero:
"I was working endless hours. Twelve hours is normal in North Korea, but working 12 hours at the camps is very hard. In winter it's very cold... It's hard to work on an empty stomach. But the living conditions were the worst part.
"The logs cause injuries. The drivers drop logs and people get killed. Because people are so cold, they can't avoid falling trees and are killed."
'Treated as traitors'
Russian human rights organisations are working with North Korean defectors. They say that often, after months of work, the labourers are underpaid and sometimes not paid at all.
Svetlana Gannushkina's organisation is assisting some two dozen former loggers who escaped before 2001 and are now living in hiding. I asked her what would happen if they were handed over to the North Korean authorities.
"They can expect terrible suffering, they can expect a cruel death," she said. "We know of cases when people in the moment of their detention have simply, killed themselves. These people and their families become pariahs in their own country. They are treated as traitors."
Commercial benefits
So who benefits commercially now from North Korean labour in Russia's Far East?
The North Korean state, which provides the labour through Association No 2, take 35% of the proceeds from their logging operations in Russia - approximately $7m per year.
The remainder goes to a firm called Tynda Les, who are owned by the Russian Timber Group - the largest logging firm in the region with around 1,400 North Koreans working on its sites.
The Russian Timber Group was founded in 2004 by British businessman, Peter Hambro and a Russian business partner. Together they bought up a number of forestry rights across Russia covering an area roughly the size of Belgium.
I asked Russian Timber Group's CEO, Peter Hambro's son Leo, if they had any control over the loggers' welfare.
He told me that the Russian Timber Group makes sure that the company which provides the workers complies with the Russian labour code and that they get regularly inspected. He also said that Russian Timber Group had no involvement in how much the workers are paid.
"There is always going to be criticism... of any involvement with North Korea, especially as its been flagged by people like President Obama as an axis of evil," he told me.
"It is not in our interest - in our public relations interest - to continue our involvement with the North Korean workers. But at the moment our product sells... and we are happy to continue our involvement because they are workers who are prepared to work while there is timber to be sold at good values."
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A very interesting youtube vid series covering this very subject:
North Korean Labor Camps (Part 1 of 7)
11,313,958 views Dec 19, 2011 North Korea has come up with a new way to bring cold hard cash into its isolated country: export North Korean workers to slave away in the Siberian forest (often without telling them they're no longer in North Korea). We set out to investigate these camps and almost landed ourselves in quite a bit of trouble.
Runtime: 5:31
I think that it would be harder to control the soldiers as they take Ukrainian territory. They will see the TVs, clothes, cars, food etc. In a camp it is easy to keep them locked up and isolated.
Inflation is really hammering us. It is costing us some real serious Investment to try to get this WW3 off the ground! Maybe it is the 10% Being laundered for The Big Guy (Resident Biden ) that is making it just seem expensive...JUST IN - Biden admin to announce another $1 billion weapons package for Ukraine, the single largest so far, Reuters reports.
View: https://twitter.com/edwardrussl/status/1555629957459484674?s=20&t=oMSm189SMSawgUl03e90GA
Or get them muscled up on Russian food a bit before they are used to invade SK?Apparently the Norks expect war and want their troops blooded.
So this is a world war being fought solely in Ukraine.
Let's just hope you everyone can avoid using all those nukes.For the moment.
Not that much of a danger for North Korea. North Korea been providing slave labor to Russia for over 15 years.
N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps
Page last updated at 21:45 GMT, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 22:45 UK
To the West, North Korea is a pariah state, best known for its secrecy, famines, belligerent politics and its leader's brutality.
N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps Simon Ostrovsky has travelled to remote far eastern Russia and obtained rare footage of North Koreans who are working there as labourers under an agreement between their secretive Stalinist state and a company run by British businessmen.
At home, North Koreans live under total government control and the watchful eye of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.
But in the Amur region of Russia, almost 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the border, North Korea has created a home away from home at a series of remote logging camps in which nearly 1,500 workers are employed.
I travelled to one of the camps deep in the forest. A giant monument bearing the words "Our greatest leader Kim Il-sung lives with us forever" stood in the middle.
One of the buildings had a sign which read "Laboratory of Kim Il-sung's Theory" a commonly used slogan found on North Korean administration blocks. The camp even had its own theatre.
Further into the forest we found a group of North Koreans hard at work. They lived in a mobile wagon, decorated with portraits of the North Korean leaders.
Although reluctant to speak, one told me that he earned the equivalent of $200 per month. Another said that he earned $1 for each truck he loaded and that he could load up to nine per day, but he had not been paid since May.
Production targets
To try to find out who employed the North Koreans I travelled to Tynda, where the headquarters of the region's logging operations are based.
I met Sergey Sarnavsky, the director of a small local timber firm which has a contract with Association No 2, a state-owned North Korean organisation.
"The Koreans work year round with two days off per year," he told me. "All the other days are working days no matter what the weather conditions, they always work.
"The Koreans work for the government and their communist party, they've got production targets," he said. "If the quota is filled then everything is ok. If it is not fulfilled, well then they've got their Communist Party of North Korea, and everybody gets punished from the managers down to the worker who didn't fulfil the quota."
Escape
Many North Korean labourers have tried to escape the camps. Over the last two decades thousands have abandoned their work and now live in constant fear of arrest and deportation to North Korea.
Branded enemies of the people by their homeland they are wanted by Russian police and their own country's security services.
One worker, who ran away in the 1990s and had been given refuge by a Russian family, told me about life working in the camps, where winter temperatures regularly drop to 30C below zero:
"I was working endless hours. Twelve hours is normal in North Korea, but working 12 hours at the camps is very hard. In winter it's very cold... It's hard to work on an empty stomach. But the living conditions were the worst part.
"The logs cause injuries. The drivers drop logs and people get killed. Because people are so cold, they can't avoid falling trees and are killed."
'Treated as traitors'
Russian human rights organisations are working with North Korean defectors. They say that often, after months of work, the labourers are underpaid and sometimes not paid at all.
Svetlana Gannushkina's organisation is assisting some two dozen former loggers who escaped before 2001 and are now living in hiding. I asked her what would happen if they were handed over to the North Korean authorities.
"They can expect terrible suffering, they can expect a cruel death," she said. "We know of cases when people in the moment of their detention have simply, killed themselves. These people and their families become pariahs in their own country. They are treated as traitors."
Commercial benefits
So who benefits commercially now from North Korean labour in Russia's Far East?
The North Korean state, which provides the labour through Association No 2, take 35% of the proceeds from their logging operations in Russia - approximately $7m per year.
The remainder goes to a firm called Tynda Les, who are owned by the Russian Timber Group - the largest logging firm in the region with around 1,400 North Koreans working on its sites.
The Russian Timber Group was founded in 2004 by British businessman, Peter Hambro and a Russian business partner. Together they bought up a number of forestry rights across Russia covering an area roughly the size of Belgium.
I asked Russian Timber Group's CEO, Peter Hambro's son Leo, if they had any control over the loggers' welfare.
He told me that the Russian Timber Group makes sure that the company which provides the workers complies with the Russian labour code and that they get regularly inspected. He also said that Russian Timber Group had no involvement in how much the workers are paid.
"There is always going to be criticism... of any involvement with North Korea, especially as its been flagged by people like President Obama as an axis of evil," he told me.
"It is not in our interest - in our public relations interest - to continue our involvement with the North Korean workers. But at the moment our product sells... and we are happy to continue our involvement because they are workers who are prepared to work while there is timber to be sold at good values."
@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@
A very interesting youtube vid series covering this very subject:
North Korean Labor Camps (Part 1 of 7)
11,313,958 views Dec 19, 2011 North Korea has come up with a new way to bring cold hard cash into its isolated country: export North Korean workers to slave away in the Siberian forest (often without telling them they're no longer in North Korea). We set out to investigate these camps and almost landed ourselves in quite a bit of trouble.
Runtime: 5:31
Apparently the Norks expect war and want their troops blooded.
If there is that much concern about the Reactor - shut it down - will take a few days for the reactions to cool - but would solve the major problem, Besides WHY would Russia hit the reactor - their troops are DOWN WIND from it???