{"id":53605,"date":"2023-01-03T15:00:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T06:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=53605"},"modified":"2023-01-03T05:44:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T20:44:58","slug":"a-guard-at-kim-jong-uns-pyongsong-villa-deserts-with-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/a-guard-at-kim-jong-uns-pyongsong-villa-deserts-with-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"A guard at Kim Jong Un&#8217;s Pyongsong villa deserts with weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A soldier with the 81st Brigade of the Supreme Guard Command, which is tasked with guarding North Korean leader Kim Jong Un\u2019s ultra-luxurious Chamosan Villa in Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province, recently deserted with his weapon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to a Daily NK military source in North Korea on Friday, the 19-year-old soldier \u2014 identified by his family name of Ri \u2014 went missing with his automatic rifle and blank shells while he was patrolling a road at around 1 AM on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His desertion caused an uproar in the 81st Brigade given that it took place amid the holding of the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The military leadership had previously called for the prevention of &#8220;even a single irregular incident or accident&#8221; during the plenary meeting period. That failure has cast a pall over the 81st Brigade.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, the authorities are treating the armed desertion of a soldier at a villa frequented by Kim for rest and relaxation as a \u201cgrave matter\u201d pertaining to protecting the safety of the supreme leader himself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The source said that authorities in South Pyongan Province and Pyongyang have put out wanted notices for the 19-year-old soldier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;A brigade security platoon and military police have been dispatched to the surrounding area as part of efforts to seek out the missing soldier and arrest him,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>TORMENTED TO DESERTION?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, an investigation by the Defense Security Bureau reportedly revealed that Ri \u2014 a new soldier who enlisted less than a year ago \u2014 was regularly tormented by his squadmates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not only did they force him to wash their uniforms, socks, footwraps and underwear, but they also made him do additional sentry shifts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since the start of the winter training period in early December, Ri had been performing over four hours of overtime a day, according to the source.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, higher-ranking soldiers reportedly did not let him sleep when he returned from guard duty, forcing him to memorize a list of things \u201csentries aren\u2019t allowed to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily NK&#8217;s source said that the command of the 81st Brigade and Supreme Guard Command believe Ri ultimately chose to desert his post due to psychological stress from the torment he suffered at the hand of older soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, the 81st Brigade is making every effort to quickly arrest the missing soldier, believing the incident \u201cdisgraces the Supreme Guard Command.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThey are also searching the mountains near Chamosan Villa everyday, leaving open the possibility that he deserted without his weapon and gear after abandoning them in the mountains,\u201d the source said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20221230-3\/\"><i>Read in Korean<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A soldier with the 81st Brigade of the Supreme Guard Command, which is tasked with guarding North Korean leader Kim Jong Un\u2019s ultra-luxurious Chamosan Villa in Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province, recently deserted with his weapon. According to a Daily NK military source in North Korea on Friday, the 19-year-old soldier \u2014 identified by his family [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":43588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,646],"tags":[724],"class_list":["post-53605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-military","tag-kim-jong-un"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A guard at Kim Jong Un&#039;s Pyongsong villa deserts with weapon - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/a-guard-at-kim-jong-uns-pyongsong-villa-deserts-with-weapon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A guard at Kim Jong Un&#039;s Pyongsong villa deserts with weapon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A soldier with the 81st Brigade of the Supreme Guard Command, which is tasked with guarding North Korean leader Kim Jong Un\u2019s ultra-luxurious Chamosan Villa in Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province, recently deserted with his weapon. 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