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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   993 thread views

Transnational Thursday for April 10, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Two Chinese nationals fighting in Russian units were just captured in Ukraine. Potentially as many as 16 have been captured so far, and the Ukrainian intelligence services have identified approximately another 150. The Chinese government issued a somewhat milk-toast advisory about how Chinese citizens should avoid traveling to foreign war zones, but otherwise took no action.

It is possible that these men were simply private citizens who chose to join the conflict. There are adventure seekers, soldiers of conscience, professional mercenaries and penniless drop outs with no better options from many nations fighting on both sides of the conflict already. But the volume, and fact that there don’t seem to have been any Chinese nationals fighting until just recently makes me think that it might actually be People’s Liberation Army troops secretly but officially deployed to the conflict.

In my opinion, China has already been a firm supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they have just kept their support quiet and mostly laundered it through private companies in order to avoid retaliation. At this point China and Russia’s geopolitical interests align much more than they differ. America is stepping on the hopes and dreams of both, and it is in China’s best interest to keep America tied up in Europe for as long and to the greatest extent as possible. Redditors constantly point to a couple of border squabbles from 60 years ago as evidence that the two countries are constantly waiting to stab each other in the back, but the main interests of each are quite far apart: Russia’s in Europe, and China’s in the Pacific.

Given the recent tariffs, China might not have as much incentive to hide their support nearly as much. Full sanctions from the US are untenable, and they are already being tariffed as much as the US economy will bear.

16 verified and 150 "according to Zelensky" in a war with something like 500-700k per side is volume to you? There were far more North Koreans than that and even that was nonsense propaganda trying to drum up more public support since they seemed to just be in it for the chance at real combat experience not as a real supplementary force. If China wasn't being mostly neutral Ukraine would be wiped out by now. There'd be 1000 grean swarms daily with their industrial capacity.

support since they seemed to just be in it for the chance at real combat experience not as a real supplementary force.

while not disagreeing, it might be that they were intended as real force but found out than NK isn't ready for modern war due to isolation and lack of recent wars

The reports I've seen seem to indicate that the Norks were actually quite competent and adaptable soldiers who, if properly equipped and led, would have a much better chance of breaking Ukrainian lines than the Russian penal battalions. Despite being sent to the front with only small arms and encountering combat drones for the first time, they were in many cases able to bait them into the open and shoot them down with precise rifle fire.

Source and more information on the topic, please. Seeing North Koreans abroad is a little surreal.

This is the latest report, but I first came across these details on Twitter last month.

Sadly paywalled. Thanks anyways.

Open Sesame

Thanks!

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