UK media duped by fake ‘female North Korean soldiers in Russia’ photo
The Daily Mail has had to retract a story which falsely claimed to provide evidence that female North Korean soldiers are assisting Russia in the Ukraine conflict. The image upon which the report was based turned out to be doctored.
The story originally published by the British tabloid on Wednesday claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had sent women “to fight as cannon fodder for [Russian President] Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.” The allegation was based on a picture of two women in uniforms, which the newspaper claimed was taken in Zheleznogorsk, a large city in the northwest of Kursk Region. The women were identified as sisters “Wei and Lin.”
The fake image is apparently based on a still from a video published last year by a Donetsk-linked channel, featuring twin sisters, who tell a camera operator that they are 25 years old and come from the city of Makeevka. Both claim to have been serving in armed forces since 2014, initially as members of the Donetsk militia.
In a correction, the Daily Mail said later in the day that the fabricated photograph had been provided to it by a “trusted freelance reporter” and apologized for “confusion caused” by its erroneous reporting.
Kiev and its Western backers have been claiming for weeks that North Korean troops are helping Russia in Kursk Region. US sources told the media that the alleged deployment, which Moscow and Pyongyang have neither confirmed nor denied, justified granting permission for Ukraine to use long-range missiles donated by the West for strikes deep inside Russia.
Ukrainian troops interviewed recently by the BBC have cast doubt on the claims that North Korean troops are present on the battlefield.
“I haven’t seen or heard anything about Koreans, alive or dead,” one of the soldiers said, as quoted this week.
“It’s very difficult to find a Korean in the dark Kursk forest. Especially if he’s not here,” another one noted sarcastically, paraphrasing an expression from a popular Soviet TV series.
