North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un with troops during an inspection at a military training base at an undisclosed location in North Korea, October 2, 2024

EA on RTE: Anticipating 2025 — From Israel-Gaza-Yemen to Syria to Ukraine-Russia

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1756 GMT:

As expected, Russian State energy company Gazprom energy corporation has announced that it will halt gas supplies to Moldova from January 1.

“Gazprom will introduce a restriction on natural gas supplies to the Republic of Moldova to zero cubic meters per day from 0500 GMT on January 1, 2025,” the Russian company said in a statement. It accusing Moldova of failing to settle debts.

Moldova, neighboring Ukraine and Romania, has introduced a 60-day state of emergency.

UPDATE 1349 GMT:

Ukraine’s military says it destroyed a storage and maintenance depot for long-range, Iran-type Shahed drones in Russia’s Oryol region on Thursday.

The General Staff said the operation had “significantly reduced” Russia’s ability to launch mass drone attacks on Ukraine.

UPDATE 1306 GMT:

Without taking responsibility, Vladimir Putin has apologized to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, for the “tragic incident” of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day.

Putin also phoned Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to express his condolences.

The flight was destined for Chechnya’s capital Grozny. A preliminary investigation by Azerbaijan indicated the plane was hit by Russian anti-aircraft fire, and analysts say its GPS was jammed.

When the pilot’s request to land was unanswered, the flight turned back. Of the 62 passengers and five crew, 38 were killed in the crash.

Repeating the findings of the preliminary investigation, Aliyev told Putin “that the multiple holes in the aircraft’s fuselage, injuries sustained by passengers and crew due to foreign particles penetrating the cabin mid-flight, and testimonies from surviving flight attendants and passengers confirm evidence of external physical and technical interference”.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed condolences to Aliyev:

The key priority now is a thorough investigation to provide answers to all questions about what really happened.
Russia must provide clear explanations and stop spreading disinformation.

Flydubai and Turkmenistan Airlines are the latest operators to suspend their flights in Russia.

UPDATE 1240 GMT:

Pro-Kremlin hackers have attacked several websites including Milan’s Malpensa and Milan-Linate airports, the transport systems in Siena and Turin, and the Foreign Ministry.

The group NoName057(16) claimed responsibility for the attacks in a Telegram post. it has previously targeted public institutions and strategic sectors in NATO countries supporting Ukraine’s resistance of Russian invasion.

UPDATE 0801 GMT:

A “source with direct involvement” says the Eagle S, the oil tanker suspected of damaging an underwater power cable between Finland and Estonia on Christmas Day, is equipped with special transmitting and receiving devices used to monitor naval activity.

Another source which provided maritime services to the tanker said the hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed power from the ship’s generator that to repeated blackouts.

The Cook Islands-flagged tanker has been detained by Finnish police on suspicion that it deliberately dragged its anchor to cut the cable. The tanker sailed from a Russian port and is suspected of being part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” to evade international sanctions.

UPDATE 0708 GMT:

“Senior US officials” say Ukraine is running short of long-range ATACMS missiles supplied by Washington.

In November, the Biden Administration lifted a months-long ban on the use of the ATACMS are long-range ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 300 km (186 miles), inside Russia.

The officials said Ukraine is limiting the attacks because of the dwindling supply of the weapons and potential changes in US policy when Donald Trump returns to the White House next month.

They estimated Kyiv has only about 50 of the missiles left.

Adm. Rob Bauer, NATO’s top military officer, said recently that ATACMS strikes “seriously hit a number” of weapons factories and ammunition depots in Russia. Moscow had been forced to move many logistics facilities farther back from the front.

They don’t like the ATACMS coming in their own country, through the air — they don’t, because they are effective.

“That limits their ability to fight effectively at the front, and that’s what you want.

The question is, then, is it enough to win?

UPDATE 0658 GMT:

Singer Eduard Sharlot, 26, who burned his passport in protest of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, has been sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison by a Russian court.

Sharlot was convicted of “publicly insulting” the religious feelings of believers and “rehabilitating Nazism” by the court in the city of Samara.

In June 2023, the singer posted in which he burned the passport. In another video he nailed a photograph of Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church and a staunch advocate of the invasion, to a crucifix.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and US officials spoke on Friday of “heavy losses” among North Korean troops used as a “human wave” in fighting in the Kursk region in western Russia.

In his nightly video address to the nation, Zelensky said of around 11,000 North Koreans deployed alongside the Russian military, most of them in Kursk:

They are suffering heavy losses, and it’s evident that the Russian military and their North Korean overseers have no interest in these soldiers’ survival.

Everything is done in a way to prevent these North Koreans from being captured by us — their own side finishes them off; there are such facts. Moreover, Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection.

Zelensky updated that “several” North Koreans had been captured but died of their wounds.

South Korean intelligence reported earlier in the day, citing Ukrainian colleagues, that Kyiv’s forces had captured a North Korean for the first time. Seoul said in the afternoon that the soldier had died.

Zelensky called on Beijing to check the North Koreans in their support of Russia’s 34-month invasion: “If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not expend, it needs to exert the necessary influence on Pyongyang.”

The Biden Administration supported Zelensky’s assessment. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said “human wave” of North Korean soldiers were being sent to their deaths, with troops killing themselves rather than risking capture.

Kirby estimated that more than 1,000 North Koreans were killed or wounded in the past week:

It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses….

I hope they’re loading up their commanders with a bunch of body bags, because they’re clearly going to need it.

Zelensky spoke earlier this week of more than 3,000 casualties. South Korean intelligence put the number at 1,100.