Ukraine's obsession with proving there's north Koreans in combat is strange. I get why they are doing it. It's essentially a show to the west that if Russia is banding together with other geopolitical enemies of US/NATO then NATO should step into Ukraine to stop this growing threat of the evil axis alliance. The west of course is not willing and won't do that.

Battle for Tortetsk seems to be over, this was a very protracted and slow urban battle. With Toretsk falling, Chasiv Yar is probably next to fall, which then would start the battle for Kostiantynivka. I think any peace deal will take awhile to materialize, so i doubt Russia is going to stop driving and taking the rest of Donetsk oblast.

https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/01/12/woman-killed-in-reported-russian-airstrike-on-care-home-in-ukraine-occupied-sudzha-en-news

Russians hitting some high priority military targets yet again, this time old Russian woman got denazified.

Boris Johnson, the poster child of the great unwashed is at it again with his usual infantile tirades.

I think the main thrust isn't even toward NATO, it's toward SK. Unlike the Euros, SK has zero intrinsic reason to care about the fate of Ukraine or to feel threatened by a Russian ground invasion. By showing a NK involvement in this war, Ukraine provides SK with a reason to keep supporting them. SK is an industrial powerhouse and they have gone along with the sanctions and diplomatic efforts against Russia. Keeping them engaged, or perhaps even getting them to ramp up their support, would be very valuable for Ukraine.

I think an element of it as well is that South Korea is not a european country. a european country is probably more worried about things escalating then south korea is. south korea is also very closely aligned with the US, similar to say, Japan and Australia. It is helpful from a geopolitical standpoint for the US if countries like South Korea, Japan, Australia make noise about stuff like this, and the US will and does encourage this.

He's a pathetic weasel who fiddled as the UK burned

He's a WEF puppet who follow orders.

amazing

Financial Times - https://www.ft.com/content/9fa3b0ac-e33d-4784-8222-6b745aba3004

US president-elect Donald Trump intends to push Ukraine to lower its age of conscription in an effort to stabilise the country’s front lines ahead of direct negotiations with Russia. Speaking to US network ABC News on Sunday, Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security pick, gave the clearest picture yet of the new administration’s plan to end the war. Waltz said that its first steps would be to open dialogue with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin — to whom the US has not spoken directly since the war began — and to ask Kyiv to mobilise more men to stabilise Ukraine’s front lines ahead of negotiations.

“If Ukrainians have asked the whole world to be all in for democracy, we need them to be all in for democracy,” said Waltz. “And they certainly have fought bravely and they certainly have taken a very noble and tough stand. But we need to see those manpower shortages addressed.” He added: “This isn’t just about munitions, ammunition or writing more cheques. It’s about seeing the front lines stabilise so that we can enter into some type of deal.”


Waltz said preparations were under way for a Trump-Putin call, adding he expected it to take place over the coming weeks or days. Russian state television said on Sunday that Putin would have “important international contacts” this week, without specifying with whom. It is unclear how the Waltz comments will sit with the Zelenskyy government, as they put the onus on Ukraine to sacrifice more and with no promises of additional aid. Ukraine’s conscription age was lowered from 27 to 25 in April, but the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is 43. Lowering the age is politically unpopular and Ukraine has said it wants to protect its future generations. In recent months, Ukraine’s age for enlistment has been a source of tension between Washington and Kyiv. The outgoing administration of Joe Biden has publicly called on Kyiv to lower it further, while Ukraine has said it lacks enough weapons to arm the men they have already mobilised. US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in early December that the US would be prepared to train and arm more Ukrainian soldiers if Kyiv lowered the conscription age.

In response to Miller’s comments, Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukraine “must not compensate the lack of equipment and training with the youth of soldiers”. In late December, when speaking to reporters in Brussels, Zelenskyy pointed again to the need for the west to send more weapons. “Please tell me, if a person is standing in front of you without a weapon, what difference does it make if that person is 20 years old or 30? There is no difference,” said Zelenskyy. In September, Zelenskyy told CNN that Ukraine had 10 mobilised brigades — roughly 30,000 men — that they were unable to equip and use for battle because of weapons shortages. Despite the US allocating tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine in April, the country has constantly complained that the arms are arriving in dribs and drabs.

In August, Ukraine’s finance ministry had to use money allocated for soldiers’ salaries to buy more weapons.

This post was edited by ferdia on Jan 13 2025 11:54am

If you’re 18-25 years old and a man in Ukraine, it is definitely time to take that backpacking trip to Romania you’ve been thinking about.