North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia are largely unaware they are being sent to fight against Ukraine, South Korea’s unification minister said, as DPRK casualties have surpassed the 5,000 mark.

Pyongyang “deploys large numbers of troops to the Ukraine war without the soldiers even knowing they are heading to the battlefield,” Minister Kim Young-ho said in a video message to a human rights event in Geneva on Tuesday.

Addressing the “Voices of North Korean Defectors: Human Rights Testimony Conference” organized by the North Korean Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, Kim slammed the regime for “robbing young soldiers of their precious lives.”