US Says NKorea Shipped 10,000 Containers of Munitions to Russia

Jung Pak, the U.S. Senior Official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, told VOA on Monday that there have been at least 10 instances where North Korean missiles have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine. Pak told VOA’s Nike Ching that the U.S. still assesses North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is not currently planning an imminent attack on Washington’s allies, South Korea and Japan.

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Austin Hosts First In-Person Ukraine Defense Contact Group of 2024

Ramstein, Germany — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is in Germany to build upon the international community’s military support for Ukraine, even as the U.S. Congress has yet to approve additional funding for Kyiv.

This is Austin’s first international trip since he was hospitalized on Jan. 1 due to complications from surgery to treat his prostate cancer in late December. On Tuesday, he will host another round of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), which brings together officials from more than 50 nations to coordinate their Ukraine efforts. 

Ukrainian forces have continued to fight back against Russian forces in the east while inflicting “considerable damage” to Russian forces in the Black Sea. However, Moscow— with the help of North Korea and Iran — has drastically ramped up its defense production capacity, forcing Ukraine to retreat from some battles due to ammunition shortages, according to a senior defense official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity ahead of the UDCG. 

“Ukraine is heavily outgunned on the battlefield. We’ve received reports of Ukrainian troops rationing or even running out of ammunition on the front lines,” said the official. 

The U.S. has contributed about $44 billion in security assistance for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with allies and partners also committing more than $44 billion in that time frame.

But the U.S. military has run out of congressionally approved funds for replenishing its weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine, and leadership in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has so far refused to bring new aid for Ukraine up for a vote.

Last week, the United States announced its first new round of military aid for Ukraine since late December, in what defense officials have called an “ad hoc” package made possible through U.S. Army procurement savings.

The military assistance package is valued at up to $300 million and will provide Ukraine with immediate air defense, artillery and anti-tank capabilities, along with more ammunition for HIMARS and 155-mm artillery rounds. But officials say it is unclear if there will be future procurement savings to produce another extraordinary package of aid.

“This is not a sustainable solution for Ukraine. We urgently need congressional approval of a national security supplemental,” the senior defense official said.

“There isn’t a way that our allies can really combine forces to make up for the lack of U.S. support,” the official added.

The emphasis on ammunition and air defense will likely be as strong as ever during this UDCG meeting.

“They need interceptors for a whole variety of their air defense systems, and over time, they keep running out as they try to defend against these wave upon wave of attacks that we’re seeing from Russia,” the senior official said.

Coalition leadership group

To better organize how the UDCG provides Kyiv with military weapons and equipment, the group’s members have formed capability coalitions to identify ways to increase Kyiv’s efficiency and cut costs.

Defense officials say Austin will convene a meeting of the leads and co-leads of all the capability coalitions for the first time on Tuesday, during a special coalition leadership group session.

Air Force capability is co-led by the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands. The armor capability is co-led by Poland and Italy. The artillery capability is co-led by France and the United States. De-mining is co-led by Lithuania and Iceland. Drone capability is co-led by Latvia and the United Kingdom. Information technology is co-led by Estonia and Luxembourg. Integrated air and missile defense capabilities are co-led by Germany and France, and maritime security is co-led by the United Kingdom and Norway.

Critics like Sean McFate, a professor at Syracuse University and author of “The New Rules of War,” told VOA the international community is putting its money into expensive military aid that falls short in modern warfare.

“It’s not conventional warfare that beat back Russia’s blitz. It was Ukrainian guerrilla warfare,” he said. “Ukraine was winning the unconventional fight. But then in fall of 2022, they decided to go conventional against Russia, which was strategically silly.”

McFate added that giving Ukraine more conventional war weapons was, in his view, “the strategic definition of insanity.” 

Instead, he said Ukraine and its allies needed to think about unconventional ways where they can leverage their power to defeat Russia, such as guerilla operations and more direct actions deep inside Russia to build upon the Russian population’s unfavorable opinions of the war.

“Use your conventional forces to hold the line, but don’t invest them to create an offensive which requires a lot more resources,” McFate told VOA.

“M1A1 Abram tanks and F-16 fighter jets … will win tactical victories on the battlefield, but we all know that you can win every battle, yet lose the war, because wars are won on the strategic level, not at the tactical level of warfare,” he said.

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Блінкен: у 2024 році на виборців у багатьох країнах чекатиме «потік брехні» та дезінформації

За словами Ентоні Блінкена, використання цифрових технологій – соцмереж і штучного інтелекту – різко прискорило темпи поширення дезінформації

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Київ очікує, що новий Фонд допомоги Україні стане складовою загальної безпекової угоди з ЄС – Зеленський

Володимир Зеленський подякував Євросоюзу за створення нового Фонду допомоги Україні в межах Європейського фонду миру.

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Russian Opposition Activists in Seattle Remember Navalny as Putin Claims Victory

In Seattle, there were no polling stations for Russian citizens to join the worldwide movement known as “Noon Against Putin,” a symbolic protest of the re-election of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, they commemorated opposition leader Alexey Navalny and wrote letters to the growing list of political prisoners in Russia. Natasha Mozgovaya has the story.

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European Far-Right Firebrand Prevented From Speaking at Swiss Event

Berlin — A prominent European far-right figure was prevented from giving a speech at an event in Switzerland and thrown out of the region where it was taking place.

Martin Sellner of the Identitarian Movement said in a video posted on social media network X, formerly Twitter, that he had been invited by a local group, Junge Tat (Young Deed), to “talk about remigration and the ethnic vote” and what happened at a recent meeting in Germany that prompted a string of large protests there. Remigration refers to the return, sometimes forced, of non-ethnically European immigrants back to their place of racial origin.

Sellner, who comes from neighboring Austria, said that a few minutes after he started speaking at the event Saturday, the electricity was turned off and he was taken to a police station, then told he was thrown out of Aargau canton (state) and escorted to Zurich.

Regional police said in a statement that they tracked down the Junge Tat event in the small town of Tegerfelden on Saturday after receiving several tips. They found some 100 people at the venue and said that, after the landlady found out about the contents of the planned meeting, she canceled the contract for it.

Police said they told organizers to end the event, but they didn’t obey. Without identifying Sellner by name, they said the speaker was held and ordered out of the region “to safeguard public security” and prevent confrontations with opponents.

Germany has seen large protests of the far right following a report that extremists met in Potsdam in November to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship. Sellner presented his “remigration” vision for the deportation of immigrants there.

That meeting has prompted widespread criticism of the Alternative for Germany party, some of whose members reportedly attended. The party has sought to distance itself from the event, while also decrying the reporting of it.

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Галущенко: Україна не планує продовжувати транзит російського газу після 2024 року

Міністр додав, що Євросоюз також планує відмовитися від російського газу до 2027 року, причому йдеться як про трубопровідний, так і про зріджений газ

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