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Fact Check: Is North Korea Sending 100K Soldiers to Fight Against Ukraine?

August 8th 2022

As Russian forces struggle to make new gains in Ukraine amid intense fighting and reported low morale among its troops, Moscow has reportedly turned to its allies for support. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, media and intelligence reports have claimed that Russia has received military support from Syria, some Kremlin-friendly African republics and Iran, which was reported to have supplied its combat UAVs to Russia (but has so far denied the claims). North Korea is another close ally of the Kremlin, but recent media reports that Pyongyang is prepared to send a 100,000-strong army of “volunteer” soldiers to fight in Ukraine have raised some eyebrows.

The Claim

Dozens of media users claimed over the past few days that as many as 100,000 “volunteers” from North Korea were offered to Moscow for its military operation in Ukraine. “Breaking: North Korea has just offered Russia 100,000 troops to help defeat Ukraine according to Russian state media,” one tweet stated.

The Facts

A number of news outlets published articles repeating the claim that 100,000 North Korean “volunteers” could be sent to fight for Russia in Ukraine, including Business Insider and the National Review. Several of them cited a New York Post article, which appears to have been the first English-language outlet to have picked up the claim. “North Korea has offered to send 100,000 soldiers to bolster Russia’s invasion attempt in Ukraine, Russian state TV has claimed,” the post article states. As evidence, it includes a short segment from a Russia’s state TV channel news show, in which defense pundit Igor Korotchenko says: “There are reports that 100,000 North Korean volunteers are prepared to come and take part in the conflict.”

The Ruling

The claim that North Korea has, or plans to, send up to 100,000 “volunteer” soldiers to fight alongside the Russians in Ukraine appears to be mere speculation by a Russian TV pundit and an Russian opposition party MP, which was amplified by state news outlets and anonymous Telegram channels. While North Korean leadership has made advances to tighten economic and military ties with Moscow, it has not made any public announcements suggesting that deployment of its troops in Ukraine was imminent.

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SOURCE = Newsweek

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Ukrainian soldiers are turning consumer drones into formidable weapons of war

August 8th 2022

Simple photography drones are being put to good use on the battlefield in Ukraine. Videos show soldiers using these drones – the same kind you can buy online for hobby use – to surveil Russian troops and find the best point of attack. Other drones have been refitted to hold small explosives that can be dropped directly on the enemy. These off-the-shelf UAVs showcase just one of the inventive, “DIY” methods the Ukrainian army has used to counter Russian attacks.

Since the Russian invasion on February 24, Ukrainian citizens have been called upon to join the war effort, either by joining the military, defending their homes with Molotov cocktails and other homemade weapons, or even donating their own drones to help surveil Russian troops. Commercial drones that have made their way to Ukraine are now a useful tool for troops, many of whom post photos and videos online to showcase how they’ve outfitted these devices for military use. 

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SOURCE = France 24

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Ukraine accuses Moscow of “kidnapping” children amid ongoing war

August 8th 2022

Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine — As the war in Ukraine grinds on the government in Kyiv is accusing Russia of kidnapping thousands of children and taking them into Russian-controlled territory. Ukraine says Russia is trying to force the children to become Russian, but as CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay found out, there are people working to rescue the kids and bring them home. He met Maxim and Ivan in a dorm room with a Ukrainian flag hung proudly on the wall. They were listening to Ukrainian music and wearing traditional Ukrainian clothing, but the two boys were almost forced to become Russian. “Russian forces took us away,” 16-year-old Ivan told Livesay. He and Maxim, 15, were living in an orphanage in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol when Russia’s invading forces arrived. The boys tried to flee, but say they were captured by Russian forces and then held with about 20 other children, some as young as eight.

“Were you ever afraid you would never come home?” Livesay asked Ivan. “I had such thoughts, yes,” he said. “Thoughts that I would not be able to come back to Ukraine until I turned 18 years old.” Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of systematically stealing the country’s children and stripping them of their identities. “Russia continues its kidnapping of Ukrainian children,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, told the global body in May. “After forcible transfer to Russia, they are illegally adopted by Russian citizens.” Russian TV has aired images of Ukrainian children in Russian-controlled territory, claiming they have been saved, rather than abducted. In one clip, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner is seen telling Vladimir Putin personally that Russian citizens “have big hearts, and are lining up to take the children.” “Very good,” responds the Russian leader, vowing to eliminate any delays in the process.

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SOURCE = CBS News

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Russia withdraws its nuclear weapons from US inspections

August 8th 2022

On 8 August, Russia informed the United States that it was suspending inspections of its nuclear weapons under the bilateral Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Source: the Russian newspaper Kommersant, quoting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Quote from the statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry: “Statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry regarding the situation with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). On 8 August 2022, the Russian Federation officially informed the United States of America through diplomatic channels that our country is temporarily withdrawing its facilities subject to inspections under the START Treaty from the scope of inspections under this Treaty. This withdrawal also applies to facilities where screenings stipulated by the Treaty can be held.”

Reference: Under the bilateral treaty between Russia and the United States on the mutual reduction of their arsenals of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, each of the parties undertook to reduce their deployed nuclear warheads. It has been in effect since 1991. On 29 January 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin extended the treaty once again until 5 February 2026.

SOURCE = Ukrainska Pravda

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Putin has forced Ukrainians to view Russian culture as a weapon of war

August 8th 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has amplified the ongoing debate over Russia’s cultural presence in Ukrainian society and accelerated efforts to remove vestiges of the imperial past. Some Russian intellectuals have voiced concern over the targeting of Russian culture in Ukraine, with author Mikhail Shishkin going as far as to ask in a recent piece for The Atlantic whether a Ukrainian author would “speak up for Pushkin.” This raises challenging questions regarding the separation of culture from politics and the role played by culture in Russian imperialism. With Russian troops occupying vast swathes of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin proudly declaring the return of “historic Russian lands,” is now the right time for Russian intellectuals to rally in defense of Pushkin?

Figures like Shishkin certainly have the right to speak out over perceived attacks on Russian culture in wartime Ukraine. Yet others also have the right to challenge the intent behind such statements. As Russia’s genocidal campaign enters its sixth month with no apparent end in sight, what message do famous Russian intellectuals wish to convey when they use their name recognition to focus on the preservation of Russian culture in Ukraine? Are they really tone-deaf to the centuries of imperial politics underpinning the formerly dominant position of Russian culture in Ukraine? Do they not see how Putin has weaponized Russian culture in his quest to rebuild the Russian Empire?

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SOURCE = Atlantic Council

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Russia using Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as army base – Ukraine

August 8th 2022

Russian forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have turned the site into a military base to launch attacks against Ukrainian positions, the head of Ukraine’s nuclear power company says. Petro Kotin told the BBC the threat to the plant was “great”, but that it remained safe. For days, Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for attacks on the site, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, raising concerns of a major accident. The complex has been under Russian occupation since early March, although Ukrainian technicians still operate it. Over the weekend, Ukraine accused Russian forces of attacking the Soviet-era site, saying two workers were taken to hospital with shrapnel injuries and that three radiation sensors had been damaged.

Mr Kotin, who heads Enerhoatom, said 500 Russian soldiers were at the plant, and that they had positioned rocket launchers in the area, claims that cannot be independently verified. “They [Russian forces] use it [the power plant] like a shield against the Ukrainian forces, because nobody from Ukraine is going to do something,” Mr Kotin said. “The Ukrainian Armed Forces know that these are Ukrainian personnel and this is a Ukrainian plant and there are Ukrainian people [there] so we aren’t going to kill our people, our staff and damage our infrastructure.”

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SOURCE = BBC News

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The U.S. Will Send Another $1 Billion in Aid to Ukraine.

August 8th 2022

The United States will send more ammunition to Ukraine, including rockets for the HIMARS launchers that have been credited with destroying Russian command posts and ammunition depots, the Pentagon said Monday. The new shipment of up to $1 billion worth of weapons and supplies will come from the Pentagon’s own stockpiles, and will be the 18th such package of military aid since August 2021, Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon. Most of the ammunition, including 75,000 shells for 155-millimeter howitzers and additional air-defense missiles, are resupplying weapons that have already been shipped to Kyiv. One weapon not known to have been sent previously is the 120-millimeter mortar. The weapons will come with 20,000 rounds and be included in this new series of shipments. Mortars of that size are infantry weapons that generally can fire a projectile containing about seven pounds of high explosive to a range of approximately four and a half miles.

Mr. Kahl declined to say exactly how many guided rockets the United States has sent for use with HIMARS launchers thus far, beyond saying that the total was in the “multiple hundreds.” Noting that the last shipment of arms from the United States included a “tremendous number” of these rockets, Mr. Kahl said they had a significant impact on Ukraine’s ability to fight Russian troops. “They have been very effective in hitting things that previously the Ukrainians had difficulty hitting reliably,” Mr. Kahl said, adding that the HIMARS “made it more difficult for the Russians to move forces around the battlefield.”

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SOURCE = New York Times

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Missiles for NASAMS systems and ammunition: Pentagon released a list of new aid package to Ukraine

August 8th 2022

The Pentagon has released a list with the amount of new military aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Defense announced the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $1 billion to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs. It is also stated that this package “provides a significant amount of additional ammunition, weapons, and equipment – the types of which the Ukrainian people are using so effectively to defend their country.” The package includes additional ammunition for the M142 HIMARS rocket systems (undisclosed quantity). Ukrainian soldiers will receive 20 120mm mortar systems and 20,000 rounds of 120mm mortar ammunition.

The infantry will receive 1,000 Javelin and hundreds of AT4 anti-armor systems, Claymore anti-personnel munitions, C-4 explosives, demolition munitions, and demolition equipment. Ukraine will receive 50 armored medical treatment vehicles for the treatment and evacuation of the wounded. The Pentagon also announced the transfer of munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine. As previously reported, the air defense of Ukraine will receive two batteries of the NASAMS air defense system. The US Ministry of Defense reported that they have already begun the procurement of NASAMS air defense systems for Ukraine.

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SOURCE = Mil In UA

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Attack on Ukraine nuclear plant ‘suicidal’, says UN chief as he urges access to site

August 8th 2022

The UN secretary general has called for international inspectors to be given access to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over the shelling of Europe’s largest atomic plant at the weekend. “Any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing,” António Guterres told a news conference in Japan on Monday, two days after attending the Hiroshima peace memorial ceremony to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing. Guterres said the International Atomic Energy Agency needed access to the plant. “We fully support the IAEA in all their efforts in relation to create the conditions of stabilisation of the plant,” he said.

Ukraine said renewed Russian shelling on Saturday had damaged three radiation sensors and hurt a worker at the Zaporizhzhia power plant, the second hit in consecutive days on the site. Ukraine’s ambassador to the IAEA, Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, echoed the call for international inspectors and said Russian forces were attempting to cause electricity blackouts in southern Ukraine by shelling the plant, which was captured by Russian forces in early March but is still run by Ukrainian technicians. He said Zaporizhzhia staff were “working under the barrels of Russian guns”.

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SOURCE = The Guardian

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Anti-Radiation Missiles Sent To Ukraine, U.S. Confirms

August 8th 2022

Colin Kahl, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, confirmed today that American authorities have transferred unspecified “anti-radiation missiles” to the Ukrainian armed forces that they can launch from at least some of their existing aircraft. Though Kahl did not say what type of missiles had been passed to the Ukrainians, his remarks follow the emergence of pictures on social media showing the apparent remains of an AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) said to have been fired at a Russian position. You can read more about what we know already about the potential use of AGM-88s in Ukraine in this recent War Zone report.

Anti-radiation missiles (ARMs) home in on enemy radio frequency emissions, primarily from radar arrays belonging to enemy air defense systems, and destroy or disable them. Kahl made his comments at a press briefing today where he announced a new U.S. military aid package for the Ukrainian armed forces, which could ultimately have a value of up to $1 billion. This particular aid package includes additional Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets for use in U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), unspecified munitions to go along with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) American authorities are providing, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, and more.

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SOURCE = The Warzone

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