Pawns for Putin.
North Korea will send troops to the front lines of the Donetsk region to help Russia fight Ukraine.
I doubt these poor troops are North Korea's finest.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/world-on-the-brink-as-north-korea-sends-cannon-fodder-troops-to-ukraine/ar-BB1oVJ16?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=fffb1629feaf4ad28d9cc0f68c29757d&ei=12
i've seen earlier reports, that NK had sent some technicians to fix, or repair the whole slew of defective artillery shells that NK delivered to russia, that were blowing up the russian howitzers or tanks, resulting in dead russians. Putin wasn't too happy about that.
also, that Norks were sending REMF-type officers and engineers, not front-line infantry, at least not yet. For technical assistance, training, and also so that the Norks could acquire real-world war-fighting skills, knowledge, and strategies. There was a video by WillyOAM where he mentioned it in his near-daily Ukraine-Russia war updates. Aside from the defective artillery shells due to piss-poor Nork QC, at this point, I think it's knowledge-sharing. Also seems that the chinese also want to gain from this experience, fighting against US technology.
I suspect that it was just "wrong place, wrong time" that those half-dozen norks got killed by a some kind of drone or missile strike, behind the front lines, where they probably thought they were relatively safe, but still in Donetsk Oblast, IIRC. Some of those Ukraine drone/missile strikes against airbases, fuel, ammo depots inside Russia are way behind the front lines. They're hitting targets upwards of 500km away, maybe even 1,000km inside Russia.
I guess if you're the largest land-mass country on the planet, kinda hard to air-defense such a large area against modern small drones. On the other hand, Israel is much tinier, it's technologically feasible to be more successful to defend a postage-stamp sized area, in comparison. Modern warfare starting to look like some of that Arnold-genre Terminator movies, it's For Real, and scary A.F.
ETA: just saw an update that NK sent something like 3,000 troops to russia or donetsk.