It appears that Putin has imported North Korean troops to help his troops retake the Kursk area of Russia from the Ukraine troops….
What does North Korea GET for sending it’s troops?
A Russian commander wants only 2% of his conscripted criminal ‘solders’ surviving…..
The effort by the Ukraine get Russia to send some troops from other fronts has failed….
The Russian borrowing interest rate climbs above 20% fior a country fighting a war……..
Woa?
The Belarus leader, Lukashenko, says trying to add his country to Russia would mean WAR?
(See Daily Kos link below)
Several thousand North Korean soldiers have arrived in Russia’s western Kursk region, where they are expected to participate in a coming counteroffensive meant to dislodge the Ukrainian troops who have occupied a portion of the region since August, one Ukrainian and two American officials said on Friday.
The North Korean troops have not yet entered the fight, and it is not yet clear what role they will play, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. Whatever their role, the officials said, any significant contingent of North Korean troops will allow Russia to keep more of its forces in eastern Ukraine, where they can stay focused on seizing as much Ukrainian territory as possible before the harsh winter weather sets in.
For weeks, the governments of South Korea and Ukraine have warned that thousands of North Koreans were training alongside Russian soldiers, with Ukraine putting the figure as high as 12,000 troops. And this week, U.S. officials confirmed that a contingent of North Korean troops had been transported by ship to Vladivostok, a large Russian city on the Pacific Ocean, in what Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III called a “very, very serious” escalation.
On Wednesday, the first North Korean troops had made the nearly 4,000-mile journey to the Kursk region, with thousands more arriving each day since. A senior Ukrainian official with knowledge of the troop movements said that as many as 5,000 North Korean troops were expected to have mustered by Monday….
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The troops, according to the officials, are part of an elite unit of the Korean People’s Army. They are being flown from Vladivostok aboard enormous Il-76 transport planes to a military airfield in western Russia, then driven into the battle zone, the Ukrainian official said.
There were mixed signals about whether additional North Korean troops would be sent to fight on Ukrainian territory, the Ukrainian official said. At the moment, they are only concentrating in the Kursk region.
Ukrainian troops entered the Kursk region in early August, taking about 400 square miles of territory in the initial weeks of the incursion. But throughout October, Russian forces have been ratcheting up their attacks on Ukrainian positions in the region, taking back several villages, although Ukraine still occupies about 250 square miles…
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Russian interest rate climbs to 21%…..
Russia’s central bank raised the cost of borrowing in the country to its highest level in more than two decades on Friday in an effort to slow inflation that is being fueled by record military spending and recruitment.
The central bank raised Russia’s benchmark interest rate to 21 percent during its regular monetary policy meeting. That makes borrowing in the country even more expensive than at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the central bank sharply increased interest rates to calm the economy. The effective cost of borrowing in Russia is now the highest since 2003.
It was the third increase in a row, and Elvira Nabiullina, the central bank’s president, said that interest rates could rise further later this year.
“We don’t see inflationary pressures slowing down,” Ms. Nabiullina, who maintains some policy independence from the Kremlin, told reporters after announcing the new rate….
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia will imminently deploy North Korean forces to unspecified combat zones on October 27 and 28, as Russian and North Korean officials continued to issue vague yet suggestive statements regarding the possible presence of North Korean troops in Russia.
Daily Kos with todays grunt report….
Apparently the North Korean troops are NOT making the Russian Troops very happy….
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