North Koreans in Ukraine – 8 Officers Killed in Action, Says Chinese Merc

A Chinese mercenary fighting for the Russian military has claimed that eight North Koreans in Ukraine, officers, were killed in action during their first day of deployment.

The mercenary, who goes by the name “Dian Yuzhan” on social media (meaning “prison warden” in Chinese), made the claim during a live broadcast with another Chinese mercenary who has reportedly returned to China after fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

The video was shared by X user whyyoutouzhele. Kyiv Post has been able to partially establish Dian Yuzhan’s identity, but cannot verify the claims made in the video.

Dian Yuzhan claimed in the video that he submitted a list of those killed in action, which comprised 153 Chinese nationals on the Luhansk front, before mentioning the North Koreans in Ukraine.

At 1:20 into the video, he said that despite the preconception of Pyongyang troops being fierce, eight officers were killed “in just one day” upon joining the war, where he then laughed, presumably at the seemingly poor performance of the North Korean troops.

“We have North Korean soldiers here, goddamn it, they were gone just after entering [the war]… and [people say] they are fierce… Just entered and gone. Just one day. Eight people, [they were] even officers,” Dian Yuzhan said. He did not specify the date and location of the alleged incident.

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When asked by the other mercenary if he and his units had issues with deserters, Dian Yuzhan said they were shot on sight.

Earlier in the video, the other mercenary could be heard discussing his experience in Ukraine. At 0:19, he criticized the poor command of the Russian military and said “commanders’ failure is a norm” across different units.

Then he went on to criticize Russia’s lack of compensation for those killed in action, He said in some cases “those [who were] missing… corpses littered everywhere, bombed to unidentifiable state” were not compensated, as he said Russia claimed they could not identity the bodies.

Kyiv Post cannot establish Dian Yuzhan’s true identity but has located footage he posted on social media about his experience serving with the Russian military, including one clip in which he stood in front of a Russian BMPT Terminator armored fighting vehicle (AFV).

The clip was part of a video that falsely claimed he was killed in action on Aug. 14, a report that was picked up by Radio Free Asia, though he was later seen posting videos to dispel the rumors.

While Radio Free Asia, as well as some Chinese outlets, claimed the man’s real name was Xu Hang, there were conflicting reports from other outlets that claimed his name was Wang Wei.

Read more about the alleged North Korean troop deployments in Ukraine here.