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North Korean troops are reportedly already inside Ukraine.
“It seems that a good many of them are already in action,” a Western intelligence official said, according to CNN, adding that the number of North Korean soldiers inside Ukraine is expected to grow as they complete training in eastern Russia and await deployment on the war frontline.
South Korea and its allies estimated that at least 11,000 North Korean soldiers have been moved to Russia, with more than 3,000 of them now deployed close to the front lines in Ukraine, a presidential official said on Wednesday.
The US confirmed some North Korean soldiers were in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August and hold hundreds of square kilometres of territory. A couple of thousand more were heading there, the Pentagon said.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said the deployment of North Korean troops in the Ukraine conflict has increased the possibility of the war becoming more fierce.
It comes as Ukraine drafted 160,000 more troops in the anticipation of grinding warfare and a frozen battle zone in the upcoming winter – the third such under Russian invasion.
Prosecutors seek a 17-year prison term for Pentagon secrets leaker Jack Teixeira
Prosecutors plan to argue that a Massachusetts Air National Guard member who pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine should serve nearly 17 years in prison.
In a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, prosecutors said Jack Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”.
“As both a member of the United States Armed Forces and a clearance holder, the defendant took an oath to defend the United States and to protect its secrets — secrets that are vital to US national security and the physical safety of Americans serving overseas,” prosecutors wrote. “Teixeira violated his oath, almost every day, for over a year.”
Teixeira’s attorneys will argue that US District Judge Indira Talwani should sentence him to 11 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced 12 November.
In their sentencing memorandum, they acknowledged that their client “made a terrible decision which he repeated over 14 months.”
“It’s a crime that deserves serious consequences,” the attorneys wrote. “Jack has thoroughly accepted responsibility for the wrongfulness of his actions and stands ready to accept whatever punishment must now be imposed.”
Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in March to six counts of the willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act nearly a year after he was arrested in the most consequential national security leak in years.
The 22-year-old admitted that he illegally collected some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and shared them with other users on the social media platform Discord.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 19:00
Poland’s commission looking into Russian influences finds ex-defence minister at fault
The head of a special commission investigating Russian and Belarusian influences in Poland has said that it will refer to prosecutors a former defence minister whose decisions it said impaired Poland’s defences ahead of Russia’s 2022 war on Ukraine.
The commission was launched in May by the pro-European Union government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk to investigate cases of Russia and Belarus exerting influence on Poland’s politics since 2004.
Tusk and other officials say Poland, a key ally of Ukraine, is facing intensified hybrid attacks from Russia and its neighbor and ally Belarus that include acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and growing migrant pressure along the Poland-Belarus border.
Poland’s previous government was in the hands of the conservative Law and Justice party, which put Poland at odds with the EU, chiefly over changes to the country’s justice system and rule-of-law principles. The current administration has been taking steps to hold officials of the previous government accountable for what it says are serious irregularities.
On Wednesday, Gen. Jaroslaw Stróżyk, head of the commission and the Military Counterintelligence Service, presented the first unclassified conclusions that saw some of the former government’s decisions as potentially hurting Poland’s interests.
He said that some of the documents the commission has reviewed suggest the existence of “direct influence” by Russia, without providing further details. He said many of the documents remain classified.
Stróżyk said that Antoni Macierewicz, defence minister in 2015-18, without any analysis or consultation, cancelled plans to purchase seven tanker aircraft for Poland’s F-16 jet fighters, thus reducing their airborne time and defense capabilities.
The commission said the decision was dictated by Macierewicz’s “personal aversion to partners in the EU” and called it a “diplomatic treason.” Stróżyk said the commission will refer the former defence minister to prosecutors, who will decide whether to take further action.
The commission also blamed Macierewicz for hurting operations handled by Poland’s special services and intelligence by closing 10 of their 15 regional bureaus in 2017.
Stróżyk said the commission found no signs that the previous government held any debates or took any pro-defence decisions in response to US warnings that Russia was preparing to attack neighboring Ukraine.
Macierewicz on Wednesday dismissed the report, calling it “absurd”.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 17:00
Zelenskyy expects Ramstein meeting on Ukraine aid in coming weeks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the next meeting of the Ramstein group that coordinates military support for Ukraine should be held in the coming weeks.
Initially scheduled for October, the highest level meeting to date of the Ramstein group was postponed after US President Joe Biden cancelled his trip to Germany because of hurricane in his country.
“We are also already seeing the contours of the Ramstein meeting, which should take place in the coming weeks,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address on Wednesday.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 16:17
Ukraine has received only 10% of latest approved aid from US, Zelenskyy says
Ukraine has received only 10 per cent of US military aid approved by Congress earlier this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video released on Wednesday.
Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, has accelerated its advances in the east and Kyiv’s military is outgunned and outmanned by its more powerful foe.
Ukraine is also bracing for what could be the toughest winter of the war after long-range Russian airstrikes destroyed what officials say is about half of its power generating capacity.
“You do your job. You count on reserves, you count on special brigades, you count on such equipment. And if you get 10 per cent of all the package (that) has already been voted on… it’s not funny,” Zelenskyy said in remarks in English to Nordic journalists on Tuesday that were published in full on his Telegram page on Wednesday.
A $61 billion aid package from the United States, stalled by Republicans in Congress from December last year, was approved in April.
Zelenskiy added that the slow pace of weapons supplies was not a question of funding. “It’s always the question of bureaucracy or logistics, ideas or scepticism… This we will give you, this – will not,” he said.
He also said that NATO countries had pledged to supply Ukraine with six or seven air defence systems, which Ukraine increasingly relies on to repel long-range Russian strikes, by the beginning of September but that Kyiv had not yet received all of them.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 15:43
US cracks down on Russia sanctions evasion in fresh action
The United States has imposed curbs on hundreds of targets in fresh action against Russia, taking aim at sanctions circumvention in a signal that the US is committed to countering evasion.
The action, taken by the US Treasury and State departments, imposed sanctions on nearly 400 entities and individuals from over a dozen different countries, according to statements from the Treasury and State departments.
The action was the most concerted push so far against third country evasion, a State Department official told Reuters. It included sanctions on dozens of Chinese, Hong Kong and Indian companies, the most from those countries to be hit in one package so far, according to the official. Also hit with sanctions were targets in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Switzerland and elsewhere.
The action comes as Washington has sought to curb Russia’s evasion of the sanctions imposed after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The US has repeatedly warned against supplying Russia with Common High Priority Items – advanced components including microelectronics deemed by the US and European Union as likely to be used for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“This should send a serious message to both the governments and the private sectors of these countries that the US government is committed to countering the evasion of our sanctions against Russia and to continue putting pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 274 targets, while the State Department designated more than 120 and the Commerce Department added 40 companies and research institutions to a trade restriction list over their alleged support of the Russian military.
“The United States and our allies will continue to take decisive action across the globe to stop the flow of critical tools and technologies that Russia needs to wage its illegal and immoral war against Ukraine,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in the statement.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 15:14
UK’s chancellor pledges more cash for defence spending
The UK’s chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to provide the defence ministry with an additional £2.9billion next year and promised an annual £3billion support for Ukraine would continue for “as long as it takes”.
In her first Budget speech presented on Wednesday, Ms Reeves said the extra spending would take Britain towards its goal of allocating 2.5 per cent of GDP towards defence, and ensure the country exceeded the NATO commitment of spending 2 per cent.
She added that the promise to maintain the annual military support to Ukraine came on top of a £2.26billion loan, part of the G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration agreement announced last week, to aid the country in its war against Russia.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 14:30
Zelenskyy strongly hints Ukraine seeking Tomahawk missiles from US
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has strongly suggested that Kyiv has requested supplies of long-range US Tomahawk missiles, as he made critical remarks about “confidential” information he said had been leaked.
Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles), far greater than any missile Ukraine currently has in its arsenal. Such a weapons delivery would almost certainly be seen by Russia as an escalation in its war in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy travelled to the United States last month to pitch a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden, which he said could help pressure Moscow to negotiate an end to the war in good faith.
The Ukrainian leader has since said the plan envisages a “non-nuclear deterrence package” that would only be used if Moscow does not end its full-scale invasion and continues to escalate the conflict.
Some of the plan’s details have been kept confidential, something Zelenskyy alluded to in remarks in English to Nordic journalists on Tuesday that were published in full on his Telegram page on Wednesday.
The New York Times also cited a senior US official on Tuesday as saying that Zelenskyy had asked for Tomahawk missiles, something the official said was totally unfeasible.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 14:00
Zelenskyy: Russia won in Georgia, ‘on its way’ to doing same in Moldova
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the West should admit Russia has “won” in Georgia and is on its way to doing the same in Moldova unless Western rhetoric against crossing Moscow’s red lines was dropped.
“We have to recognise in Georgia for today Russia won. First, they took part of Georgia, then they changed policy, the government. And now [Georgia] has a pro-Russian government,” he said in English in a video released on Wednesday.
He added that Russia was “on the way” to doing the same in Moldova. “And they will do, if of course the West will not stop dialogue [against] crossing of red lines,” Zelenskiy said.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 13:30
Russia claims UK using Black Sea corridor to supply Ukraine with arms
Russia has claimed Britain is using a Black Sea grain corridor to deliver arms to Ukraine, after denying London’s allegations that Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports had disrupted crucial grain supplies for other countries.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that an increase in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was delaying vital aid reaching the Palestinians and stopping crucial grain supplies from being delivered to the global south.
The United Nations said last week that Russian attacks on Ukrainian Black Sea ports had damaged six civilian vessels as well as grain infrastructure since 1 September, calling the ramp-up in strikes “distressing”.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Starmer’s allegations that Moscow was damaging global food security with such strikes were wide of the mark.
“Such baseless yet thunderous outrage from London once again confirms just the opposite: the direct involvement of the UK in supplying arms to the Kiev regime using the Black Sea sea corridor,” she alleged in a press briefing.
Zakharova referred to what she said was recent video evidence concerning the port of Yuzhny, in Ukraine’s Odesa region, and purported arms supplies published by Russia’s Ministry of Defence.
Her claims could not be independently verified and there was no immediate response to them from London.
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 13:02
Watch: Putin launches drills of Russia’s nuclear forces
Tara Cobham30 October 2024 12:57
