Troops from the 55th Light Infantry Division (LID) stationed in Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone in northern Shan State, have surrendered to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), according to military analysts close to sources on the ground.
An analyst monitoring the fighting in northern Shan State reported, “Based on a video clip on social media and accounts of residents, it is believed that three battalions of about 60 soldiers each from the 55th LID [were stationed around Laukkai].
“This would suggest a total of 180 troops. Reports indicate that about half of them were killed [in fighting], while the remaining half chose to surrender.”
Bad title. An entire army division (10,000 to 20,000) surrendering would be a spectacular event. Turns out the article is talking about “some (~180) soldiers from a division”, which is totally not the same thing.
News media appears largely incapable of doing basic, intern-level contextualization and data gathering when it comes to most military-oriented matters. It’s probably in the interest of generating engagement, and I’m sure it will only get worse as we see AI-written articles continue to gain prevalence.
this is why it’s important to see news from multiple perspectives