A train carrying fuel for the Russian military burns after an Ukranian attack, Zaporizhzhia, southern Ukraine, December 15, 2024

Sunday’s Coverage: Zelensky — “Significant Numbers” of North Koreans Joining Russia’s Assaults

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1646 GMT:

Ukraine has called on the international community to impose the “most stringent sanctions” on Russia after the sinking of two Russian oil tankers off the coast of occupied Crimea on Sunday (see Original Entry).

Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak noted that the tankers were built more than 50 years ago and were not suitable for use during winter storms. He said they were among a 1,000-vessel shadow fleet” used by Russia to circumvent oil sanctions.

Most tankers were “hopelessly outdated” with “fictitious insurance policies” and hidden owners, and “overloaded” oil at sea, Podalyak said. Further large-scale accidents are “statistically inevitable”, leaving neighboring countries to pay for clean-up operations.

On Monday the European Union added 52 vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet to its sanctions list, bringing the total to 79. Tougher measures were also taken against several Chinese entities.

Norway said it is allocating $242 million to the Ukraine Navy, helping it deter Russian threats in the Black Sea, protecting Ukrainians from missile attacks, and safeguarding grain exports.

UPDATE 1008 GMT:

Ukraine says its troops have killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean soldiers deployed in the Kursk region in western Russia.

“Army units from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have suffered significant losses near the villages of Plekhovo, Vorozhba and Martynovka,” said Ukrainian military intelligence.

Ukrainian, South Korean, and US officials say North Korea has deployed around 11,000 troops in Russia. Most are serving alongside Russian units in Kursk, part of which has been held by Ukraine since a cross-border incursion on August 6.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday, “The Russians have begun to use North Korean soldiers in their assaults — a significant number of them….Losses among these North Korean troops are already noticeable.”

UPDATE 0939 GMT:

Citing “sources involved in the investigation”, the Wall Street Journal says a Chinese ship suspected of damaging telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea acted under orders from Russian intelligence.

On November 18, the telecommunications cable — the only direct underwater communication line to Central Europe — was damaged after the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 passed over it. Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Lithuania reported the damage.

The sources said Russian intelligence services instructed the ship’s captain, Russian national Alexander Stechentsev, to damage the cables with the ship’s anchor.

In spring 2024, the Yi Peng 3 visited Russian ports, including Murmansk and Ust-Luga, for the first time since 2015.

Ahead of the suspected attack, the Russian Black Sea Fleet corvette Merkury arrived in the Kattegat area to conduct reconnaissance, relaying classified information to headquarters in Kaliningrad.

UPDATE 0832 GMT:

Air defenses downed 27 of 49 Russian attack drones launched overnight. Another 19 were lost to electronic counter-measures, and three are still over Ukraihne.

No damage or casualties were recorded.

UPDATE 0819 GMT:

South Africa will not invite Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in November 2025.

A spokesperson of the South African President said Pretoria would recognize the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Putin, issued in March 2023 because of the mass deportation of Ukrainian children from their homes.

“The legal situation has not changed since the BRICS summit in Johannesburg. We cannot influence the ICC’s decisions in any way,” said Vincent Magwenya.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine struck the Russian military’s fuel supply and hit a Russian National Guard campus on Sunday.

The Ukrainian State security service confirmed that it destroyed 40 rail cars carrying fuel to Moscow’s troops in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine.

An SBU unit sabotaged a railway as the train was moving near the village of Oleksiivka. When the train stopped, with tanker cars on fire, Ukrainian forces fired US-supplied HIMARS rockets.

The National Guard campus was hit in Chechnya in Ukraine’s second attack on the region in three days.

Video showed a drone low over the Chechen capital Grozny, 800 km (500 miles) southeast of the frontline in Ukraine, and then exploding.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed the drone hit the site belonging to the Akhmat Grozny riot police battalion.

The strike is the fourth by Ukraine on the region, suppressed by Moscow in two bloody wars between 1994 and 2000.

Russia suffered another setback with the loss of two tankers carrying oil products in the Black Sea near Ukraine.

The cargo ship Volgoneft-212 broke in half after it was hit by a large wave off the east coast of Russia-occupied Crimea, 5 miles from the Kerch Strait.

The 55-year-old tanker was carrying 4,300 tons of mazut, a low-grade heavy fuel oil.

Shortly afterwards, another cargo transporter, the Volgoneft-239, sank with 4 tons of fuel oil.

Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesperson for the Ukraine Navy, said, “These are quite old Russian tankers. You can’t go to sea in such a storm. The Russians violated the operating rules. The result is an accident.”