Important Takeaways:
- North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine within “the next several weeks,” the Pentagon said Monday, in a move that Western leaders say will intensify the almost three-year war and jolt relations in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
- Earlier Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte NATO confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.
- Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army. It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.
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Important Takeaways:
- The minister, Andrei Belousov, delivered this stark warning during a high-stakes meeting with Belarusian defense officials in Minsk. “The increasing involvement of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine creates global risks,” he declared. “The desire to inflict maximum damage on Russia could lead to a direct military clash between nuclear powers.” This statement is one of Russia’s clearest indications yet that it views the Ukraine conflict as a potential flashpoint for global warfare, particularly as NATO members continue to supply Ukraine with weapons and military aid.
- Belousov’s remarks have raised fears that Russia may resort to using nuclear weapons in response to any attack on Belarus, its closest military ally. “Changes in the military-political situation have necessitated the clarification of the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence,” Belousov stated, hinting at a possible nuclear retaliation if Belarus is threatened. He added that Moscow is adapting its defense strategies to new global realities, heightening concerns that the Ukraine war could spiral into a wider and more catastrophic conflict.
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Important Takeaways:
- South Korea warned Tuesday it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea allegedly dispatching troops to Russia, as both North Korea and Russia denied the movements. NATO’s secretary general said that would mark a “significant escalation.”
- South Korean officials worry that Russia may reward North Korea by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that can boost the North’s nuclear and missile programs that target South Korea.
- The officials agreed to take phased countermeasures, linking the level of their responses to progress in Russian-North Korean military cooperation, according to the statement.
- Possible steps include diplomatic, economic and military options, and South Korea could consider sending both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, a senior South Korean presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity in a background briefing.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has flatly stated that any long-range missile strikes carried out by Ukraine against the territory of Russia will constitute an act of war against the Russian Federation by NATO.
- He warns that if Ukraine is empowered to strike Russia with long-range missiles supplied by NATO, the alliance would be at war with his country:
- Putin notes that Ukrainian drone attacks have already taken place within Russia, most recently in Moscow. However, “When it comes to using high-precision long-range Western-made weapons, it’s a completely different story.”
- “The Ukrainian army is not able to strike with modern long-range precision systems of Western manufacture. It cannot do this. It can only do so using intelligence from satellites, which Ukraine does not have. This is data from [European Union] satellites, or from the United States, in general from NATO,” he said.
- Putin believes only NATO servicemen can enter flight assignments for the missile systems, arguing the real question is whether NATO wants to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine or not.
- Putin’s ominous words come after Biden-Harris Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hinted that Ukraine may get the green light to use long-range missiles against Russia earlier this week.
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Important Takeaways:
- NATO is planning to deploy an armored brigade in Finland to serve as a deterrent against Russia, newspaper Iltalehti reported on Thursday, citing sources within the US-led military bloc and the government in Helsinki.
- The unit, which could range in size from 4,000 to 5,000 troops, will be stationed at Mikkeli in the south-eastern part of Finland, according to the daily. Mikkeli, which has a population of 51,000, is just 87 miles (140 kilometers) from the border with Russia.
- According to the newspaper’s sources, the brigade will comprise NATO troops from neighboring Sweden and Norway.
- Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told state-owned broadcaster Yle on Wednesday that Helsinki was in talks with several NATO states about deploying their soldiers to Finland even if the country does not face an immediate military threat. The bloc’s contingent should be “comprehensive and large enough to form a sufficient presence in crisis situations,” he stressed. According to Hakkanen, soldiers from his own and from other NATO countries could, among other activities, stage large-scale military exercises if there is a “tense atmosphere at the border” with Russia.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese defense ministry said in a statement that forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.
- The exercise aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally
- NATO’s European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.
- In response, China accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Its foreign ministry maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the war in Ukraine.
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Important Takeaways:
- Orban, a longtime Trump supporter, also visited Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the past two weeks on a self-styled ‘peace mission’ to end the Russia-Ukraine war which has angered Hungary’s NATO allies.
- Orban’s so-called peace initiative has irked many members of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Hungary took over at the start of this month.
- Hungary’s Viktor Orban has met with former US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida where they discussed the “possibilities of peace”, the latest stop in the prime minister’s solo run to secure a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.
- “It was an honor to visit President [Donald Trump] at Mar-a-Lago today. We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!” Orban said on X.
- On Friday, Germany’s foreign ministry said Orban had already caused damage in the first 12 days of his country’s rotating EU presidency.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he was not informed by Orban of his onward trip to Russia, has dismissed the prime minister’s ambition of playing the peacemaker.
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Important Takeaways:
- Biden spoke forcefully and fluently about foreign policy, one of his favorite subjects.
- He gave detailed responses about his work to preserve NATO and his plans for a second term.
- Perhaps Biden’s biggest slip-up in the press conference came early on when he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” in saying he picked her because he believed she could beat Trump.
- The press conference ended with Biden being asked directly whether he’d step down for Harris if he saw polling showing she had a better chance of beating Trump. “No, unless they come back and said there’s no way you can win,” Biden responded. Then he added, in a stage whisper, “No poll’s saying that.”
- Overall, his presentation was a reminder that people are focused on him now with an almost clinical eye toward possible slip-ups and mistakes, the kind of pressure that is unlikely to go away for as long as Biden insists he’ll stay in the race.
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Important Takeaways:
- Stoltenberg said nuclear transparency should be the cornerstone of NATO’s nuclear strategy to prepare the alliance for what he described as a more dangerous world.
- A decade ago, when the 65-year-old assumed his role at the top of the bloc, nuclear exercises were conducted in complete secrecy.
- Now he openly praises a number of its 32 allies for contributing to the deterrent, including most recently The Netherlands for investing in dual-capable fighter jets that can host US nuclear weapons.
- “Transparency helps to communicate the direct message that we, of course, are a nuclear alliance,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons, but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world where Russia, China and North Korea have nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is a more dangerous world.”
- He warned that China in particular was investing heavily in modern weaponry including its nuclear arsenal, which he said would grow to 1,000 warheads by as early as 2030.
- Stoltenberg insisted that the US and its European allies were now modernizing their nuclear deterrent in the face of increased threat from Russia.
- The number of operational nuclear weapons is top secret but estimates suggest the UK has about 40 of 225 deployed at any one time. The US has about 1,700 of 3,700.
- France, NATO’s third nuclear power, does not make its atomic arsenal available to the alliance because of a long-held decision to maintain independence over its own deterrence.
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Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine last night claimed it successfully hit a missile system inside Russia using U.S. weapons.
- It said the country’s forces destroyed Russian missile launchers with a strike in the Belgorod region.
- Senior politician Yehor Chernev claimed Ukrainian forces used a High Mobility Rocket Artillery System, or HIMARS, The New York Times reported.
- Meanwhile, Joe Biden has ruled out Ukraine joining NATO in a major policy shift. The development comes after the defense alliance’s members, including the US and Britain, released a communique last year declaring ‘Ukraine’s future is in NATO’.
- While his remarks were met with heavy criticism in Kyiv, analysts believe Mr. Biden’s comments could bring a settlement closer.
- Russia has repeatedly referred to Ukraine’s possible membership of NATO to justify its invasion and occupation of the country.
- It comes as NATO countries are set to collaborate to create a ‘drone wall’ on the security alliance’s eastern flank that aims to provide round-the-clock monitoring of threats across the border from Russia and Belarus.
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