tequila4kapp said:
You can't really cite Russia's failure to use of conscription as proof they haven't had substantial losses when they are bringing in fighters from North Korea, the middle east and Africa.
The gap between reality and wartime propaganda is huge here. There is no sizeable presence of Norks or Africans on the front, or any evidence of that beyond a few grainy pics of Asian troops in Russian uniforms or articles from Ukraine or NATO sources. If as you claim Russia has been using a significant number of mercs from NK or Africa, the same way NATO has been using foreign fighters from Europe, N and S America, stronger evidence would have surfaced by now.
Russia has Asian minorities in the east, who are overrepresented in their army rosters, the same way minorities are overrepresented in the US army.
Buryat Russian soldiers
What we do know is that 11,000 North Korean troops did train near Vladivostok earlier this Fall - 9 time zones away from Ukraine.
NATO/Ukraine have been pushing the NK narrative hard in order to get South Korea to commit to their campaign. SK is the only remaining high-quality high-volume moderate cost military industrial power in the broader NATO orbit. They have been reluctant to supply Ukraine with their large inventory of shells and hardware to date, because they don't want Russia to retaliate by supplying cutting edge military tech to North Korea.
