Representative image showing a man watching porn on phone.
Credit: iStock Photo
North Korean soldiers who are allegedly fighting against Ukraine have reportedly become addicted to porn after getting unrestricted internet access for the first time in Russia.
“A usually reliable source tells me that the North Korean soldiers who have deployed to Russia have never had unfettered access to the internet before. As a result, they are gorging on pornography,” the Financial Times foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman wrote in a post shared on social media platform X.
While there were no more details added in the post about the internet habits of North Korean soldiers, Army Lt Col Charlie Dietz told Task & Purpose, "As entertaining as that sounds, I can’t confirm any North Korean internet habits or virtual ‘extracurriculars’ in Russia."
"Right now, our attention remains on supporting Ukraine and addressing the more significant regional security concerns," he added.
This comes after President Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday said that Russia could hold military drills with North Korea.
"We'll see. We could also conduct exercises. Why not?," Putin said, when asked whether Moscow would conduct joint military drills with Pyongyang.
Putin, who has neither denied nor confirmed the presence of North Korean troops inside a Russian region partly controlled by Ukrainian troops, said a Russian partnership deal with North Korea signed earlier in the year had spelled out the contours of Moscow's cooperation with North Korea.
Meanwhile, "There is also the fourth article, which speaks of mutual assistance in the event of aggression by another state," Putin said.
"Everything is there. And I repeat once again, there is practically nothing new compared to the treaty which had simply expired since the days of the Soviet Union," Putin said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that North Korean troops had suffered casualties in combat with Kyiv's forces and that some of the 11,000 troops he said had been sent to Russia's Kursk region had taken part in fighting.
(With Reuters inputs)