May Your Decisions End the War and Bring Lasting Peace, not a Temporary Illusion – Speech by the President at the 76th Session of the Nordic Council

29 October 2024 – 13:52

Thank you very much for your words, for the invitation, a great honor to be here.

Mr. Speaker, Madam President, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen!

I am pleased to have this opportunity to address you today.

First of all, I would like to thank each of you, as well as the people you represent – Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland. We truly feel your support, and we will always remember the heartfelt commitment of the Nordic nations in helping us defend our country, our people, our freedom. Thank you so much! Your support is one of the strongest in the world. It’s true!

Here in Iceland, and especially in this historic Alþingi building, one can distinctly sense what it means to value time. It becomes clear how important it is for a society to grow and preserve its best qualities not just for years, but for our generations. Your respect for freedom, human life, and environment reflects the time you’ve had to live in peace, build your culture, and preserve that unique spirit found only in the Nordic countries.

You have had this precious time – time in peace. Ukraine, too, has the right to such time. Our people, our strong people deserve generations of peace – a time to live, to develop our culture, and to freely share with the world what makes Ukraine unique. Not a temporary pause of the horror that Russia, Putin and their aggression has unleashed, nor a few years of quiet before the next Russia’s invasion, and certainly not a lifetime under the will of some madman in the Kremlin. Ukrainians have the right to true and lasting peace, and I thank you for helping us achieve it. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to stand strong. Thank you for all your help.

Dear friends!

Ukraine has not wasted a single day in its efforts to bring peace closer. Tomorrow, a special conference will begin in Canada on one of the most sensitive issues in our Peace Formula. The Ukrainian team and many of our partners will work on the matter of bringing back Ukrainian children who were taken by Russia. This is one of the most painful aspects of this terrible war.

We are talking about tens of thousands of children who were abducted by Russia from Ukraine’s occupied territories. For some of these children, we know where they are, what condition they’re in, and the ways they are being taught to forget Ukraine, even being lied to – that they have no families. But for most of them, we don’t yet know their whereabouts.

These are children from orphanages in Russian-occupied areas, children who lost their parents to Russian bombs, and those separated from their families during Russia’s “filtration” processes. They are infants, teenagers, and so many young lives that should not be scattered across Russia, taught to hate Ukraine, but instead should be with their loved ones, in their own country.

Forcing children from one nation into another and erasing their identities is clearly a genocidal practice. Russia has been doing this since the very beginning of the invasion. The International Criminal Court has already issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest based on these actions.

While we have managed to bring some of these children back, each child who spends a year or two in such conditions loses far more than just time. This is, in many ways, a loss of their own future.

Wars often leave monuments to unknown soldiers. But let us at least not leave a monument to the stolen and deported futures of these Ukrainian children.

This is one of the many reasons why this war cannot simply end with mere silence on the front lines after behind-the-scenes discussions and private agreements by a handful of politicians. We must bring back the deported and captured people to Ukraine. We must restore justice for the millions, millions whose cities and villages were destroyed by Russian bombs. We must prevent any return of Russian aggression, and this requires fully restoring the power of international law and the UN Charter. We must secure Ukraine’s sovereignty and our territorial integrity, our people’s safety, and our right to live freely, just like your nations, just like any other people.

Real peace always has many components. It means addressing the needs of both people and security. We have all the answers necessary for this. I am grateful to your countries and all our partners who support Ukraine’s Victory Plan. It is a clear and powerful set of points that can force Russia into a true peace. Yesterday, we discussed it with Prime Ministers of your countries at the Ukraine-Nordic Summit. And we spoke about defense, we spoke about joint production, geopolitical and economic matters – all the things that give us shared strength. And I thank for the willingness to implement the Victory Plan – we agreed on this yesterday with the Prime Ministers of your countries.

Dear friends!

The free world has everything it needs to defend itself and everything people value in life. It has everything – from moral integrity to military strength. All that is needed – is the resolve to act, to implement what is necessary for peace.

And I urge you to continue to work with us and with all other partners to protect life from Russia’s attacks. And I urge you to keep pressing Russia for this war. Effective sanctions against Russia, stopping Russia’s shadow tanker fleet that funds Putin’s aggression, and providing all necessary weapons to our soldiers – these are all tools that bring true peace closer. I ask you to continue building all necessary shared and national production that secures freedom. Air-defense, weapons, microchips – all of it matters.

We must develop our cooperation in Europe and the Euro-Atlantic region. Unity is crucial. Unity keeps Europe peaceful. And this is why Ukraine strives to be part of this unity. Our people, our nation deserve to join the EU and NATO, and I am grateful to your countries for supporting us on this path to geopolitical certainty. And please remember – in wartime, every decision made by a partner country of the one-under-attack is, first and foremost, a decision about timing. Time for how long the war will last. How long injustice will last. How long there will be no true, lasting peace.

May your decisions end the war and bring real lasting peace, not a temporary illusion. This is absolutely possible. Ukraine deserves true peace. It is just as crystal clear and transparent as the water we saw yesterday here in Þingvellir.

Thank you!

Glory to Ukraine!

“We are against freezing the conflict. We do not want a third war. The 2014 war was frozen with thousands of negotiations, but the full-scale war in 2022 still started” – Zelensky shares his view on ending the war. pic.twitter.com/qyJvP96Uq9

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) October 28, 2024

The cost:

I passed by this building today. It was bombed early in the full-scale invasion. A girl I know worked at the pharmacy on the first floor. She was injured by shattered glass and trapped under the rubble during the attack.

Her husband, who helped the rescuers to save her,… pic.twitter.com/yDcC4XXr1C

— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 28, 2024

I passed by this building today. It was bombed early in the full-scale invasion. A girl I know worked at the pharmacy on the first floor. She was injured by shattered glass and trapped under the rubble during the attack.

Her husband, who helped the rescuers to save her, immediately joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces as soon as she recovered.

Less than a year ago, during a severe ammunition shortage, his unit came under fire somewhere near Kupyansk. His commander believes he didn’t survive, but his body was never recovered.

His wife refuses to accept his death. Without the chance to see his body or say goodbye, she clings to the hope that he was injured and is being held captive. This hope, though likely futile, sustains her still.

This story is not uncommon in Ukraine. Such heart-wrenching tales are everywhere i look. This war breaks hearts, crushes souls, and claims the lives of our best and bravest. And i can’t help but wonder what will remain of us, if anything, in the end?

Czech president @prezidentpavel has decorated a 🇨🇿Czech national and 🇺🇦Ukraine’s International Legion volunteer, Karl “Charlie the Czech” Kučera, who was killed in action at Bakhmut, with the country’s Medal of Heroism.

Zelensky also decorated him with Ukraine’s Order of… pic.twitter.com/VWC4eusl2S

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 29, 2024

Czech president @prezidentpavel has decorated a 🇨🇿Czech national and 🇺🇦Ukraine’s International Legion volunteer, Karl “Charlie the Czech” Kučera, who was killed in action at Bakhmut, with the country’s Medal of Heroism.

Zelensky also decorated him with Ukraine’s Order of Courage 3rd Class.

Karl was just 22.

Glory to the hero. Ukraine remembers you.

Apparently one of the secret annexes to President Zelenskyy’s peace plan including asking the US for Tomahawk missiles.

“In one part not made public, Mr. Zelensky proposed a “nonnuclear deterrence package” in which Ukraine would get Tomahawk missiles, a totally unfeasible request, a senior U.S. official said” https://t.co/uMoUVkqyTm

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) October 29, 2024

From The NY Times:

For weeks, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has pushed Western leaders to support his so-called victory plan, which he claims will end the country’s war with Russia next year. But Mr. Zelensky has received only lukewarm rhetorical support.

No country has agreed to allow Ukraine to fire Western long-range missiles at military targets deep inside Russia. Nor has any major power publicly endorsed inviting Ukraine into NATO while the war is raging.

By those measures, Mr. Zelensky’s lobbying tour of the United States and Europe over the past six weeks could be seen as a failure.

But the real audience for the plan might be at home, some military analysts and diplomats say. Mr. Zelensky can use his hard sell — including a recent address to Parliament — to show Ukrainians that he has done all he can, prepare them for the possibility that Ukraine might have to make a deal and give Ukrainians a convenient scapegoat: the West.

With waning Western support, losses along the eastern front and in the Kursk region of Russia, and a looming U.S. election that could mean a drastically different policy toward Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky might have few other options.

“He has to go cap in hand to push the plan, sort of carve out a position and then say at home, having asked, that this is now what we have to do,” said Michael John Williams, a professor of international relations at Syracuse University and a former adviser to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He added: “At least he can say he’s tried. He’s exhausted the possibilities.

”Mr. Zelensky is doing whatever possible to get the United States and other allies to commit to what Ukraine believes it needs, so he can negotiate from a position of strength. The Ukrainian president is using the arrival of North Korean troops to fight alongside the Russians in Kursk — confirmed by the head of NATO on Monday — to try to build some momentum for his plan.

In an interview session with reporters last week, Mr. Zelensky said that there was no evident Plan B if the West didn’t support his plan.

“I’m not insisting that they do it exactly this way,” Mr. Zelensky said. “I said it will work. If you have an alternative, then please, go ahead.”

He reiterated that he was still against ceding territory. But he also talked about diplomatic steps to resolve issues like protecting energy infrastructure and establishing a safe shipping corridor out of Ukraine on the Black Sea.

And he hinted at one approach that might allow Ukraine to save face if it does not reclaim all the land Russia has captured. “No one will legally recognize the occupied territories as belonging to other states,” he said.

U.S. officials have privately expressed some exasperation with Mr. Zelensky’s victory plan, calling it unrealistic and dependent almost entirely on Western aid. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military information.

Case in point: In one part not made public, Mr. Zelensky proposed a “nonnuclear deterrence package” in which Ukraine would get Tomahawk missiles, a totally unfeasible request, a senior U.S. official said. A Tomahawk has a range of 1,500 miles, more than seven times the range of the long-range missile systems called ATACMS that Ukraine got this year. And the United States sent only a limited number of those, senior U.S. officials said.

Ukraine also hadn’t made a convincing case to Washington on how it would use the long-range weapons, the U.S. officials said. The target list inside Russia far exceeded the number of missiles that the United States or any other ally could supply without jeopardizing missiles earmarked for potential problems in the Middle East and Asia, they added.

Four U.S. officials told The New York Times recently that Mr. Zelensky was stunned that President Biden didn’t grant him permission to use U.S. long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia when they met in Washington in September. In the past, Mr. Biden had usually relented after initially refusing Ukraine’s requests for weapons like Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets and ATACMS.

Mr. Zelensky’s office confirmed that he had been stunned. Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky, said Ukraine had explained repeatedly why it needed to use long-range missiles. “All the details, the list of targets and the arguments are with the Americans,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is still no political decision to proceed.”

Much more at the link.

This seems to have led the usual suspects to lose their shit.

To all those who are now losing their shit over NYT’s reports on Zelensky requesting Tomahawk missiles as part of his ‘peace plan’ secret part, I’d love to pose a question — what’s the alternative?

What’s the alternative to Ukraine’s ability to properly undermine Russia’s…

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 29, 2024

To all those who are now losing their shit over NYT’s reports on Zelensky requesting Tomahawk missiles as part of his ‘peace plan’ secret part, I’d love to pose a question — what’s the alternative?

What’s the alternative to Ukraine’s ability to properly undermine Russia’s ability to fight this war by targeting or rendering unusable its key military facilities used against Ukraine?

What exactly should the West, particularly the U.S., go on waiting for, with all those limitations on the Ukrainian use of Western weapons on Russian territory?

What’s the plan?

Should it go on waiting for Putin to finally come to reason, get horrified by all the piles of dead bodies he sent to the slaughter, and leave Ukraine alone forever?

Are big people in D.C., London, Paris, and Berlin waiting for a lucky blood clot that would suddenly put this all to an end and relieve them of the trouble of putting their electoral ratings at risk by helping Ukraine repel the largest European aggression since Adolf Hitler?

I’m afraid miracles are not real in this world.

Or should they go on stalling time into nothing until Ukraine bleeds out under Russian glide bombs and finally collapses, with Putin’s hordes coming to their borders?

Who would be out there to answer for all that demagoguery of “We’re Tired of Ukraine” when Putin decides who is next to be declared “not a real country” and devoured after Ukraine?

Something tells me that the “costs” of helping Ukraine now are nothing compared to the perspective of facing Russian armies in a Europe without Ukraine.

What exactly are we waiting for?

Attempts to avoid key decisions and hide from Russia’s war only made things worse by giving Putin over 2 years to launch his war machine, and this “escalation management” put us as far as Russia directly involving North Korea into the boots-on-the-ground war against Ukraine.

What exactly are we waiting for next, is it for Putin feeling unpunishable enough to nuke Kyiv and Lviv and pose ultimatums next year?

I really want to know.

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The point, however, of arming Ukraine in way to allow them to take reciprocal action in response to Russia’s genocidal targeting of civilian infrastructure is to demonstrate that Putin does not get to have things all his way, which actually increases the likelihood of deescalation rather than escalation.

In the past, I assessed that one of Ukraine’s viable options to safeguard its infrastructure lies in its capacity to inflict retaliatory damage and deter further attacks. This idea was initially met with ridicule by pro-russians who denied it, but I was right. Again https://t.co/V8L6aRS4wi

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) October 29, 2024

“There’s very early talks about potentially restarting something,” said a diplomat briefed on the negotiations. “There’s now talks on the energy facilities.” https://t.co/kAQlPb3x4R

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) October 29, 2024

From The Financial Times:

Ukraine and Russia are in preliminary discussions about halting strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, according to people familiar with the matter.

Kyiv was seeking to resume Qatar-mediated negotiations that came close to agreement in August before being derailed by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, said the people, who included senior Ukrainian officials.

“There’s very early talks about potentially restarting something,” said a diplomat briefed on the negotiations. “There’s now talks on the energy facilities.”

An agreement would mark the most significant de-escalation of the war since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this month that a deal to protect energy facilities could signal a Russian willingness to engage in broader peace talks.

Moscow and Kyiv have already reduced the frequency of attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks as part of an understanding reached by their intelligence agencies, according to a senior Ukrainian official.

With winter approaching, Ukraine faces severe challenges due to the extensive Russian missile strikes that have decimated nearly half of its energy generation capacity.

The nation now relies heavily on its nuclear power facilities and energy imports from European partners.

Both Kyiv and Moscow have previously accepted that stopping attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and Russia’s oil refining capacity was in their mutual interest.

But Putin is unlikely to agree a deal until Russia’s forces oust Ukrainian troops from its Kursk region, where they still control about 600 sq km of territory, according to a former senior Kremlin official briefed on the talks.

“As long as the [Ukrainians] are trampling the land in Kursk, Putin will hit Zelenskyy’s energy infrastructure,” the person said.

Ukraine nevertheless plans to keep striking targets, including oil refineries, to pressure Russia into the talks, according to the senior Ukrainian official.

Beyond Kyiv’s long-range attack capabilities, which have allowed it to hit energy targets and military facilities inside Russia, “we do not have a lot of leverage to [force the Russians] to negotiate”, they added.

Much more at the link!

Sweden:

Sweden allocates €63 million for a military support package to Ukraine.

The package includes €20 million for the procurement of defense equipment through the Ukrainian defense industry. This is an excellent demonstration of the “Danish model” implementation.

Sweden also… pic.twitter.com/SwzoB2sWar

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 29, 2024

Sweden allocates €63 million for a military support package to Ukraine.

The package includes €20 million for the procurement of defense equipment through the Ukrainian defense industry. This is an excellent demonstration of the “Danish model” implementation.

Sweden also intends to allocate EUR 43 million to capability coalitions within the #UDCG: coalition for fighter jets, maritime coalition, demining coalition, and IT coalition.

Ukraine is grateful for Sweden’s steadfast support!
Together, we are stronger!
@ForsvarsdepSv @PlJonson @SwedeninUA

🇺🇦🤝🇸🇪

Chechnya:

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones attack Ramzan Kadyrov’s “Vladimir Putin Russian Spetsnaz university” in Chechnya.

General Don Don must be maaaaaad. pic.twitter.com/9LV5qkrGuh

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 29, 2024

North Korea:

CSIS has published a deep dive into what’s up with the North Korean troops deployed to fight the Ukrainians. This was published before it was confirmed that 10,000, not 3,000, North Korean Special Forces had been deployed.

Q4: How many North Korean troops are involved?

A4: The White House confirmed on October 23 that about 3,000 North Korean troops arrived in Russia between early and mid-October. South Korean officials assessed they were given Russian uniforms and IDs and are training to operate drones and other equipment. North Korea reportedly plans to send a total of four brigades, or between 10,000 and 12,000 troops, to Russia by December 2024 and may send additional units next year. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) cites a Russian intelligence report with similarly high numbers.

Many of these soldiers reportedly are part of XI Corps — or “Storm Corps”— a special forces army unit trained on infiltration, infrastructure sabotage, and assassinations. The corps may trace its history to the unit that carried out the 1968 Blue House raid that unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee.

The South Korean Ministry of Defense puts North Korean special forces at 200,000 men, so North Korea retains most of its personnel even after the anticipated deployment.

Q5: How good are these troops?

A5: The effectiveness of the North Korean military as a whole is questionable. Although numerous and ideologically prepared, its equipment is mostly obsolescent, and readiness is poor because of fuel shortages. Troops are often diverted to help with the civilian economy. Defectors report that supplies to special operations forces are “not smooth” due to poor economic conditions Its conventional forces train for homeland defense and do not maintain capabilities for external deployment. Instead, North Korea has focused on nuclear weapons and missiles and, with these, has made itself a major regional presence.

ISW reports that the Russians are training North Koreans in bases mostly in eastern Russia. Nevertheless, if these are special operations forces, they will be much better prepared than the average North Korean unit. Further, based on what other militaries do, these deployed troops will be well trained and equipped because they have an immediate “real world” mission and not an “on call” mission. Typically, units planned for deployment undergo a special training program to prepare them and possess a full set of equipment, even if other units have to be stripped. In any case, the North Koreans will arrive trained and organized, not needing a long preparation.

Q6: What will these North Korean troops do?

A6: Neither Russia nor North Korea has announced what the role of these troops will be. Some have speculated that the troops might engage in deep reconnaissance and direct action for which they were trained (if, indeed, they are from North Korean special forces). However, having these troops fight on the front lines would be a risky strategy. It would make North Korea a direct combatant in the war, something that would be very difficult diplomatically. Further, there is the risk of desertions and prisoners. Both would embarrass North Korea because of what these troops might say. The high casualties are not likely to be a North Korean concern, given its control of state media.

Instead, the troops might perform support activities like transportation and maintenance. Russian logistics are notoriously bad, and additional personnel might help. Combat support roles like drone operations are possible. North Korean special operations forces might train Russian special forces and replacements. In whatever role, substituting North Koreans would free up Russian personnel for frontline service.

Q7: How much of a military impact will this North Korean deployment have?

A7: This is more than symbolism. These troops will help Russia’s war effort by providing needed military functions and easing manpower shortages. However, their presence at the U.S. reported levels will not be decisive. Russia has an estimated half million troops in Ukraine. Three thousand North Korean troops would constitute less than a 1 percent increase.

Q8: What should observers watch for?

A8: The two big questions are how many troops North Korea sends and what roles they take on. If the numbers are limited and roles confined to support and logistics, then this will be helpful for Russia but not decisive. However, if the roles change or the numbers expand significantly, as the South Koreans believe, then this could have a major effect on the course of the war. That will become clearer in the next few weeks.

And here’s reporting on this from earlier today from The Financial Times:

Kyiv is on high alert as it awaits the possible entry of North Korean forces into Russia’s war against Ukraine as soon as this week, in what would be the first intervention by a foreign army with its own troops on either side of the conflict.

Senior Ukrainian intelligence officials told the Financial Times that about 3,000 North Korean troops have been secretly transported in civilian trucks from Russia’s far east to its western Kursk region. One official said that only a few hundred of those 3,000 were special forces, the others being regular troops. They were housed on Monday in barracks about 50km from the Ukrainian border, where they were awaiting further orders from Russian command, the officials said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said he had “shared data with his South Korean counterpart on the North Korean deployment, which he said was “expected to increase to approximately 12,000”.

“The conclusion is clear — this war is becoming internationalised, extending beyond two countries,” Zelenskyy said.

The entry of North Korean forces in Russia’s war in Ukraine would represent a significant expansion of the conflict. Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte confirmed on Monday that North Korean troops had been deployed to the Kursk region, in what he called “a significant escalation in the DPRK’s ongoing involvement in Russia’s illegal war”.

According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the first contingent of North Korean troops to arrive in Russia earlier this month were from the country’s Eleventh Army, an elite light infantry unit known as the “Storm Corps”.

The North Korean deployment is expected to bolster a 50,000-strong Russian force that has stepped up efforts in recent days to wrest back control of Kursk, where Kyiv has lost nearly half of the 1,100 sq km of territory it claimed to have captured in a surprise August incursion, according to military analysts.

But Ukrainian intelligence officials have questioned the quality and fighting ability of the North Korean arrivals, describing the majority as inexperienced, low-ranking foot soldiers.

“They have never left their country before . . . They have never fought in actual combat and their experience is very far from the reality of modern warfare,” said a senior Ukrainian intelligence official.

The North Korean troops only got their first glimpse of the various types of killer drones that have become ubiquitous on the battlefield at Russian training camps “in recent weeks”, the official added.

Ukrainian officials said they believed the North Koreans could be used as “cannon fodder” by the Russians, who have employed a brutal yet effective assault tactic of sending “meat waves” of troops across no man’s land.

“Have they engaged in trench warfare before? I doubt it,” said another Ukrainian intelligence official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Scott Boston, a senior defence analyst at the Rand Corporation, said such tactics would discourage Pyongyang from sending higher-quality troops.

“You don’t use good iron to make a nail,” said Boston. “You don’t send your very best if they’re going to just be fed into the woodchipper.”

But Yang Uk, a defence expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, questioned the feasibility of such a strategy given the co-ordination required for joint offensive operations with Russian units.

“The North Koreans will not be able to speak Russian and the two armies will have a very different strategic culture, so to co-ordinate with them while using them as ‘disposable troops’ would be very risky and difficult,” he said.

“If I were a Russian commander, I would use [the North Koreans] for defensive operations, which would require much less preparation time,” Yang added.

One of the Ukrainian officials noted that if used as storm troops, the North Koreans would be at greater risk of capture, which would shatter Moscow and Pyongyang’s veneer of deniability about their engagement.

A senior intelligence official told the FT last week that the North Koreans had been given false documents identifying them as Buryats, an indigenous group in Siberia, to conceal their identities.

But according to South Korean lawmakers briefed by the NIS, the two sides are struggling with communication issues.

“The Russian military was teaching the North Korean military some 100 Russian military terms such as ‘back to your position’, ‘fire’ and ‘launch’ . . . but the North Korean military was struggling [to understand],” Lee Seong-kweun, a member of the South Korean National Assembly’s intelligence committee, told reporters on Tuesday.

Over the weekend, the GUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, published what it claimed were intercepted calls over encrypted lines between Russian troops criticising the North Korean soldiers.

In one of the calls — which could not be independently verified by the FT — intercepted in the Kursk region, a Russian soldier expresses anger over orders to allocate armoured vehicles, which are already in short supply, to the North Korean troops.

In another, a Russian officer is heard saying that one translator and three Russian servicemen will be assigned to every group of 30 North Korean soldiers. But the Russians express doubts about whether high command will be able to send enough commanders to lead the foreign units.

Much more at the link.

The US:

“RTX, producer of the Standard Missiles, can make a maximum of a few hundred a year, a U.S. defense official said. That production, however, isn’t all for the Pentagon, since at least 14 allies also buy Standard Missiles, according to RTX” https://t.co/iGRiKRfJQe

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) October 29, 2024

From The Wall Street Journal: (emphasis mine)

WASHINGTON—The U.S. is running low on some types of air-defense missiles, raising questions about the Pentagon’s readiness to respond to the continuing wars in the Middle East and Europe and a potential conflict in the Pacific.

Interceptors are fast becoming the most sought-after ordnance during the widening crisis in the Middle East, as Israel and other U.S. allies face an increasing threat from missiles and drones fired by Iran and the militias it supports. The shortfall could become even more urgent after Israel’s Friday night strikes on Iran, which U.S. officials fear might spark another wave of attacks by Tehran.

Standard Missiles, which are usually ship-launched and come in various types, are among the most common interceptors the U.S. has used to defend Israeli territory from Iranian missile attacks, and are critical for stopping Houthi attacks on Western ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. has launched more than 100 Standard Missiles since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, the U.S. officials said.

The Defense Department says it doesn’t publicly disclose its stockpiles because the information is classified and could be leveraged by Iran and its proxies.

“Over the course of the last year, the Department of Defense has augmented our force posture in the region to protect U.S. forces and support the defense of Israel, while always taking into account U.S. readiness and stockpiles,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.

The heavy use of the Pentagon’s limited stockpile of missile interceptors is raising concerns about the ability of the U.S. and its allies to keep pace with unexpected, high demand created by the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. The Pentagon worries it could run through its inventory faster than it can replace them, leaving the U.S. vulnerable in a potential conflict in the Pacific, analysts and officials said.

“The U.S. has not developed a defense industrial base intended for a large-scale war of attrition in both Europe and the Middle East, while meeting its own readiness standards,” said Elias Yousif, a fellow and deputy director of the Conventional Defense Program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “And both of those wars are extended conflicts, which was not part of the U.S. defense planning.”

Increasing production of weapons has proved difficult for the Pentagon, since it often requires that companies open new production lines, expand facilities and hire additional workers. Companies are often reluctant to invest in that expansion without knowing that the Pentagon is committing to buying at increased levels over the long term.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers in May testimony that he was pressing industry to increase production of Standard Missiles because the U.S. had deployed so many interceptors in the Middle East. There are “some increases” in two variants of Standard Missiles, he said, but acknowledged the difficulty of ramping up production.

“The more sophisticated the missile, the harder it is to produce them,” he said.

The concerns over a shortage of interceptors have prompted senior Pentagon officials, including Del Toro, and Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, to look at alternate technology, including drawing on newer companies to help increase production of new types of air-defense missiles.

The U.S. had built up interceptor stocks over recent years, but the U.S. in any one month of the conflict in the Middle East has launched dozens of missiles, and production capacity can’t keep up, according to analysts and defense officials.

RTX, producer of the Standard Missiles, can make a maximum of a few hundred a year, a U.S. defense official said. That production, however, isn’t all for the Pentagon, since at least 14 allies also buy Standard Missiles, according to RTX.

The company declined to comment on its production capacity, but RTX spokesman Chris Johnson said, “We work closely with the Department of Defense to meet their production needs for Standard Missiles.”

Since the war between Hamas and Israel began last year, U.S. ships have launched more than $1.8 billion worth of interceptors to stop Iran and its proxies from attacking Israel and ships traveling through the Red Sea, according to the Navy.

The Navy often launches two interceptors for every one missile when responding to attacks, essentially as an insurance policy to ensure the target is hit. A single Standard Missile can cost millions of dollars, making it an expensive way to defend against Iranian-made weapons, which cost much less.

“Those are really expensive munitions to shoot down crappy Houthi targets,” one congressional official said, “and every one they expend takes months to replace—and at high, high cost.”

We are now almost three years into Russia’s genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine and over a year into whatever it is we’re doing in the Middle East as a result of the Israel-Hamas war and no one has put the US defense industrial base on a war footing. No actual ramp ups in production. Just announcements that facilities programmed years ago to expand or come online years ago are finally doing so. No sense of haste. No sense of urgency. No strategy. I’m not even sure there are tactics at this point either.

The Kurakhove direction:

This is our land! Our mission is to protect it from russian evil!
The warriors from the 46th Airmobile Brigade destroyed two russian tanks and one mine-cleaning vehicle in the Kurakhove direction. pic.twitter.com/W2idZgaKbP

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 29, 2024

The Donbas:

Roads clogged with destroyed Russian armored vehicles somewhere on the fronthttps://t.co/VPf8w8cHRn pic.twitter.com/uZ6uSp8KFD

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 29, 2024

Russian occupied Luhansk Oblast:

/2. Something detonating on the ground in Luhansk after a reported strike. pic.twitter.com/wVRj4Avbyo

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 29, 2024

Detonation on the ground as a result of this morning strike on Russian targets in Luhansk https://t.co/SlnuLme6p1 pic.twitter.com/8HZR0BkirD

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 29, 2024

The Kremmina front:

60th Brigade of Ukraine repels Russian attack on the Kreminna front:

New Russian AFV losses shown on the video: 2хТ-62М; 1хМТ-LB; 2xBTR-82; 1xBMP-2M. https://t.co/bOMmHEc2BN pic.twitter.com/Z0aP5yZizs

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 29, 2024

Kharkiv:

Last night at 3 AM, russia struck Kharkiv with a guided aerial bomb, killing 4 people and destroying several houses. pic.twitter.com/jBZZXMwEpr

— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 29, 2024

In the evening, russian forces struck a symbol of Kharkiv – something that carried the city’s past. But that wasn’t enough. At night, they unleashed another bomb, not for stone or memory, but for a house where four people lay sleeping. None of them woke up.

📷Suspilne Kharkiv pic.twitter.com/9w9Aj2PsUt

— Iryna Voichuk (@IrynaVoichuk) October 29, 2024

The morning finds Kharkiv in pieces again – homes demolished by russian bombardment, four lives taken in an instant. The dawn brings no answers, only the weight of all that’s been lost. pic.twitter.com/tNN06KdS91

— Iryna Voichuk (@IrynaVoichuk) October 29, 2024

“Bow in memory of the fallen and honor the living. To the victims of nazi persecution – residents of Kharkiv region.”

Today, these words stand amidst new destruction, brought by russia, as history repeats in the cruelest way.

📷place_kharkiv pic.twitter.com/IGxZN279NT

— Iryna Voichuk (@IrynaVoichuk) October 29, 2024

That’s enough for tonight.

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Here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense

Future technologies win wars.
Robo-dog in service with Khartiia Brigade.

📹: @UKRINFORM pic.twitter.com/QwjYCoMBEr

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 29, 2024

Open thread!