Russia launches more than 100 drones at Ukraine overnight. At least 300 North Korean troops have been killed and 2,700 others wounded in Russia’s war against Ukraine, South Korea says. Trump’s incoming security adviser says Ukraine should lower its draft age to stabilize the frontline.
Russia launches more than 100 drones at Ukraine overnight
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Monday that it shot down 78 out of 110 drones launched by Russia overnight. Thirty-one more drones disappeared off radar after likely being disabled by electronic warfare systems.
The Shahed attack drones and decoy drones were launched from the area of Russia’s Millerovo, Oryol, Bryansk, and Primorsko-Akhtarsk.
The intercepts took place over the regions of Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia and Zhytomyr, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
Falling drone debris damaged industrial sites, commercial and public buildings, homes and cars in the regions of Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Zaporizhzhia. There were no casualties.
In Kyiv region, an air raid alert lasted more than five hours. Air defenses were at work, and an unspecified number of aerial targets have been intercepted, the Kyiv regional military administration said.
The drone wreckage caused damage to four private houses, a dormitory and a medical facility in an unnamed town in Kyiv region. The buildings sustained minor damage, including shattered window glass and damage to the facades, authorities said.
Three vehicles and an ambulance car were damaged. No casualties were reported, and no critical infrastructure sites sustained damage. In Zhytomyr region, emergency power cuts were implemented following the drone attack.
At least 300 North Korean troops have been killed, 2,700 others wounded in Russia’s war against Ukraine, South Korea says
At least 300 North Korean troops deployed to Russia have been killed with another 2,700 injured in combat against Ukrainian forces, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Monday.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the information with lawmakers during a closed-door meeting by the parliamentary intelligence committee, according to Lee Seong-kweun, a lawmaker on the South Korean parliament intelligence committee
The NIS said it attributed the rising number of casualties of North Korean soldiers to their “lack of understanding of modern warfare,” including their “useless” act of shooting at long-range drones, based on the agency’s analysis of a combat video it obtained recently.
The spy agency also said North Korean authorities appear to have called for its troops to commit suicide to avoid being captured alive by the Ukrainian military.
Captured North Korean soldiers had not shown an intention to come to South Korea, Lee said, commenting on a recently released video of the two soldiers being interrogated.
The NIS assessed the two soldiers were with the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a key North Korean military intelligence agency.
In the footage released by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi on X on Sunday, one of the captured North Korean soldiers says he wants to remain in Ukraine when asked if he wishes to return home. Zelenskyi also said Kyiv is ready to hand over the soldiers to their leader Kim Jong Un if he can facilitate their exchange for Ukrainians held captive in Russia.
Ukraine’s military announced the capture of North Korean soldiers on Saturday, releasing separate videos showing two soldiers taken captive. One was captured by Ukrainian special forces, and the other by Ukrainian paratroopers.
Ukraine’s Security Service released images of a Russian military ID card issued in the name of another person from Tuva in Russia, which it said was being carried by one of the captured soldiers.
Four thousand North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded since they were sent to fight alongside Russia’s troops in its war against Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said, delivering remarks at the 25th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Thursday.
Trump’s incoming security adviser says Ukraine should lower draft age to stabilize the frontline
Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, told ABC News on Sunday that Ukraine should lower the draft age from 25 to attract hundreds of thousands of new troops and stabilize the frontline amid “real manpower issues.”
“The other thing we’re going to need to see is really stabilizing things on the battlefield, and one of the things we’ll be asking of the Ukrainians is, they have real manpower issues. Their draft age right now is 26 years old [Ukraine’s military draft age is actually 25 – ed.], not 18. I don’t think a lot of people realize that they could generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers. So when we hear about morale problems, when we hear about issues on the front line, look, if the Ukrainians have asked the entire world to be all in for democracy, we need them to be all in for democracy,” Waltz said.
“This isn’t just about munitions, ammunition or writing more checks. It’s about seeing the front lines stabilized so that we can enter into some type of deal,” he added.
When asked about a possibility of lowering the draft age during a news conference in Brussels in December, President Zelenskyi said arming and training the troops was a more daunting task.
He added that he sees the calls by the west for Ukraine to lower the draft age as unfair, citing problems encountered when training Ukrainian troops abroad.
Ukrainian military analyst with the Information Resistance group, Oleksandr Kovalenko, expressed skepticism about deploying younger people to the front lines.
“According to Mike Waltz, it will allow to attract hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Ukraine’s defense forces, but the question is what to arm them with? Any unit can engage in offensive and defensive combat operations if there’s adequate weapons supply.
“For example, if 100,000 people are drafted, an equivalent of around 125 battalions will need to have 1,375 tanks, 4,125 combat vehicles, 1,500 pieces of artillery etc. The question is where Ukraine could get if from, if we’ve received directly from the U.S. just 31 M1A1 tanks. Will Mr. Trump send 1,375 M1A1 Abrams to arm 125 battalions? More than 5,500 of these pieces are collecting dust in warehouses, while 2,500 of them are in working condition,” Kovalenko said.