Allied armies: How many soldiers do Russia and North Korea have?

During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June 18-19 visit to the DPRK, he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a new comprehensive strategic partnership agreement, which specifically stipulates that one party should provide immediate military assistance if the other party is attacked.

So what is the joint military potential of the Russian and North Korean armies in terms of the number of troops and military hardware? Here’s the data based on open sources.

🇷🇺Russia

The Russian Armed Forces currently has 1.32 million soldiers, in line with last year’s decree by President Vladimir Putin to expand the country’s army by 8.3%.

🔺Army Aviation (including helicopters and transport planes): 1,156
🔺Artillery systems: 2,000
🔺Multiple launch rocket systems and operational-tactic missile systems: 1,700
🔺Tanks: about 13,000
🔺Surface ships (including warships and motor boats): 207
🔺Submarines (including nuclear-powered and diesel ones): 54
🔺Nuclear warheads: 4,380

🇰🇵North Korea

The Korean People's Army, which encompasses the combined military forces of North Korea and the armed wing of the Workers' Party of Korea, has about 1.37 million people, even though some sources put the figure at 850,000 and 650,000.

🔹Army Aviation (including helicopters and transport planes): 1,200
🔹Artillery systems: 4,500
🔹Multiple launch rocket systems: 2,920
🔹Tanks: 5,845
🔹Surface ships (including warships and motor boats): about 505
🔹Submarines (including nuclear-powered and diesel ones): between 54 and 70
🔹Nuclear warheads: up to 30

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Shock and awe: What reaction has renewed Russia-North Korean alliance evoked in the world?

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean head of state Kim Jong Un rocked the world this week as they signed a new strategic partnership agreement, which, among other things, contain a mutual military assistance clause.

News of these development have predictably rattled the United States and its allies as their continuous efforts to isolate both countries have once again proven futile.

🔸 South Korea, for example, promptly summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded that Moscow halt military cooperation with North Korea as it allegedly violates the UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang. South Korea even threatened to consider directly shipping weaponry to Ukraine in response.

🔸 Japan’s reaction seemed more restrained in comparison. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa insisted that the prospects of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang cause “great harm to the security situation around” Japan, which is “of great concern” to the Japanese government. She also claimed that Tokyo should boost its security capabilities and cooperate more closely with North Korea’s adversaries such as South Korea and the United States.

🔸 Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, unsurprisingly, “strongly condemned” the Moscow-Pyongyang pact during a phone conversation with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul. Both officials claimed that this treaty "poses a significant threat to the security of both South Korea and the United States," according to Yonhap news agency, with Blinken saying that the US will "consider various ways to respond" to this alliance.

🔸 While House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said Washington is not surprised by the pact, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller branded the possibility of Russia supplying weapons to North Korea as “incredibly concerning”.

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US funding of Ukraine: Already more expensive than Marshall Plan – in all ways

Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Western leaders at the recent G7 summit in Italy to come up with a new “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine, referring to the initiative of the American diplomat George Marshall to provide aid to war-torn Europe in 1947-1952. Meanwhile, statistics reveal: Biden spent on Ukraine more than Marshall did on all of Europe.

When a French columnist Renaud Girard wrote in Figaro that Americans are giving Zelensky more money than they gave US Secretary of State Marshall to save 16 European states from hunger, it looked like a hyperbole. But here are the facts:

▫️ According to the Marshall Plan, the US lent Europe $12.4 billion, which would be worth $146.3 billion now. The money was disbursed on “targeted” projects, which made Europe look more attractive than the USSR, whose Western lands suffered the worst destruction.

▫️ The total amount of US aid to Ukraine, according to the US Council of Foreign Relations, is $175 billion dollars, out of which $107 billion already went directly to the Kiev regime.

▫️ The main source of information from the US government is the response to a congressional request by senator J.D.Vance, signed by the Director of the White House’s Budget Office Shalanda Young. In her letter, sent in March and quoted by Fox News, she wrote that US funding of Ukraine totaled $113.4 billion. The remaining $61.38 billion were added after the congressional vote in April. That makes the US aid to Ukraine more costly than George Marshall’s aid to all of Western Europe.

The EU, in the meantime, hit the “Marshall mark” earlier. In February 2024, Odile Renaud-Basso, the head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), said: “Financial aid to Ukraine from the EU is much greater, whatever method of estimate you choose, than the aid from Marshall Plan.”

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FAB-3000: What is known about this deadly Russian bomb

While hammering Kiev regime forces in the Kharkov region, Russian troops may have deployed one of the most powerful and destructive weapons at their disposal.

Commenting on the recently-released footage of a Russian airstrike against Ukrainian positions in the town of Liptsy, several Russian military bloggers claimed that this attack was carried out using a FAB-3000 gravity bomb.

If these claims are accurate, the attack would be the first use of a FAB-3000 bomb outfitted with the universal gliding and correction module (a kit that essentially transforms a ‘dumb’ gravity bomb into a precision-guided gliding munition).

So, what are the specifications of the FAB-3000?

🔹 It is a Russian high-explosive gravity bomb that weighs over 3,000 kilograms and has a kill radius of 230 meters.

🔹 Shrapnel from a FAB-3000 bomb can kill and maim enemy personnel located as far as 1,200 meters from the blast.

🔹 The FAB-3000 is usually deployed from an altitude of about 16 kilometers and can attain a speed of up to 1,200 kilometers per hour in flight, according to the data from open sources.

🔹 The bomb is designed to take out reinforced structures and fortifications, which makes it a bane of strongpoints and industrial facilities alike.

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❗️Ukrainian Armed Forces hit Raduga substation, damaging the transformer — Energodar city authorities

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Why is the US fuming over China-Georgia Black Sea port project?

Washington's Ambassador to Georgia Robin Dunnigan has "crossed red lines" by criticizing Tbilisi for having awarded a contract to build a deep-water port in Georgia's Anaklia to a Chinese consortium, a group of Georgian MPs said, as quoted by Russian media.

🔸 Under the Anaklia port project, the state would own a 51 percent share of the port, while the remaining 49 percent would go to private investors. Georgia also considers establishing a "free economic zone" near the port.

🔸 The capacity of the first stage of the port is due to reach 600,000 containers, creating thousands of new jobs.

🔸 The Anaklia port is meant to become part of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) linking China to the EU. In 2023, the TITR handled 2.8 million tons of cargo, an 86% increase compared to 2022.

🔸 The construction of the deep-water port of Anaklia makes sense only if cargo from China will pass through it, given the almost $800 billion EU-China trade turnover, according to Paata Kvizhinadze, chairman of the Georgian parliamentary finance and budget committee.

🔸 After the contract was awarded to China in May 2024, the US groundlessly accused the Chinese contractor of being involved in financing "the Russian military".

🔸 The Georgia-US "Anaklia Development Consortium" won the 2016 tender to build the Anaklia port, but the contract was terminated in 2020 over non-fulfillment of obligations. US lawmakers immediately accused then Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia of the project's "politicization" and urged the Trump administration to "investigate" the "ties" of then chair of the political party Georgian Dream, Bidzina Ivanishvili, to Russia.

🔸 In 2024, Georgian Dream politicians were subjected to sanctions by Washington for adopting a "foreign agent" law which requires media and NGOs to inform the government about their foreign sponsors.

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📹 Houthis demonstrate successful test run of Tufan-1 unmanned boat

Capable of carrying up to 150 kg in munition, Tufan-1 "features enhanced speed, high maneuverability and stealth," the military group stated.

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📹 A history lesson for a State Dept spokesman

US journo Matt Lee attempted to clarify with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller how the White House feels it can criticize Russia for its presence in Ukraine given its own history in Vietnam...

👉 Check out the video to find out what happened next!

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Putin sends clear message to NATO by announcing changes to nuclear doctrine

The West is the major addressee of Russian President Vladimir Putin's remarks about possible changes to nuclear policy, according to Dmitry Kornev, the founder of the Military Russia portal. However, Kornev ruled out any dramatic corrections.

"There are no changes related to… strategic nuclear forces, the deployment of nuclear weapons, etc., in the basic documents," Kornev tells Sputnik.

There are four conditions determining the possibility for Russia's use of nuclear weapons, according to the Fundamentals of Nuclear Deterrence State Policy, which was published on June 2, 2020.

"A more detailed denoscription of these conditions may most likely follow," Kornev assumes.

At a press conference in Vietnam on June 20, the Russian president noted that the changes could be due to the West's attempts to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Putin particularly referred to the Western military experts discussing the idea of a limited use of low-yield nuclear arms.

Indeed, low-yield nuclear weapons with the range from 0.5 to 50 kilotons already exist, retired Lieutenant-General Yevgeny Buzhinsky, chairman of PIR-Center think tank and executive board and professor of Higher School of Economics, tells Sputnik. He added that he doesn't see any merit in "miniaturizing" nuclear arms.

For their part, American proponents of low-yield weapons speculated that their use could not lead to an all-out nuclear confrontation due to their limited impact.

According to Kornev, there should be no illusions about limited nuclear strikes:

"Nuclear weapons have no threshold. Everywhere in the world it is believed that the use of nuclear weapons is the use of nuclear weapons, no matter what power, no matter what targets," the pundit emphasizes.

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🔸 Putin sends clear message to NATO by announcing changes to nuclear doctrine
🔸 Is the US secretly upgrading its nukes in Europe?

🔸 Allied armies: How many soldiers do Russia and North Korea have?

🔸 Red Alert: Russian troops march on New York

🔸 FAB-3000: What is known about this deadly Russian bomb

🔸 Why is the US fuming over China-Georgia Black Sea port project?

🔸 US funding of Ukraine: Already more expensive than Marshall Plan – in all ways

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The high professionalism of a Russian Su-35 pilot prevented a collision with three MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance-attack drones of the US-led "coalition" in Syria, the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Enemy Parties said.

The incident took place Friday afternoon in Homs province at altitudes between 7,000 and 8,000 meters.

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S Korea's hint at supplying weapons to Ukraine: Nothing new for Russia

Seoul may reconsider its policy of not sending lethal aid to Ukraine following the strategic partnership agreement between Russia and North Korea, said presidential National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin.

In reality, Seoul and Washington have cooperated in sending weapons to Ukraine, despite South Korea officially claiming it provided only non-lethal aid. Seoul likewise denies reports of arms transfers via the US.

Neither did it protest when President Putin said in October 2022 that “We know that the Republic of Korea decided to supply weapons” to Ukraine and warned Russia could restart cooperation with Pyongyang in response.

So, what did South Korea do?

🔸 Soon after Putin’s statement, on November 10, 2022, the WSJ reported a “confidential deal” between Seoul and Washington, under which “the US will purchase 100,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition that will be delivered to Ukraine.”

🔸 On May 24, 2023, the WSJ reported that the US had already provided “more than two million 155mm artillery rounds to Ukraine,” and that part of this number went through “a confidential agreement,” according to which Seoul transferred shells to the US, “which in turn has arranged for them to be sent to Ukraine.”

🔸 According to the WSJ, “routing the deal through the US allows South Korea to stick to the letter of its public commitment not to send lethal military support to Ukraine.”

🔸 South Korea also sold billions of dollars’ worth of K2 tanks and K9 howitzers to Poland. While South Korean military hardware is yet to show up in the Ukrainian conflict zone, these sales help Poland replenish its own arsenals, allowing it to send Polish arms and equipment to Ukraine.

🔸 In December 2023, South Korea also secured a deal to supply 129 Redback infantry fighting vehicles to Australia who also previously supplied military hardware to Ukraine. Whether this deal would help Australia send more military gear to Kiev remains to be seen.

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South African skateboarder praises BRICS' sporting opportunities

"One thing I must throw in here is skateboarding is constantly reinventing itself. All of us skaters from all corners of the globe are making it, [as] it is. For years I’d only look West but now there is a strong attraction for me to look to the East for work opportunities. In the last month having been to China and Russia, I can sense their economies are robust and their determined people have a strong admirable work ethic," South Africa's Olympian skateboarder Dallas Oberholzer said on social media.

The skater, who competed in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, said he was looking for partnerships with countries that saw his worth, and that Russia was one of those countries as it continued inviting him for skating events and saw value in his experience and vision for developing skateboarding.

"I clearly see the current shift of power to the East, it’s definitely happening now. Even my country South Africa puts the BRICS countries before the West while the rest of Africa continues to find infrastructure development through the East," Oberholzer said.

The athlete argued that there was no point denying the global power shifting to the East and suggested that the West should "stop fighting it."

Russia's Nizhny Novgorod hosted the BRICS Skate Cup from June 6-9. The competition drew athletes from BRICS member states and beyond, including from Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Senegal. The Skate Cup became Russia's largest sporting event last year by participant geography, with athletes from 41 countries competing in the event.

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Cuba joins South Africa's lawsuit against Israel at ICJ

Cuba has decided to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel’s alleged genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said.

"In accordance with a firm and permanent commitment to support and participate to the fullest extent possible in the legitimate international efforts to stop genocide against the Palestinian people, the government of the Republic of Cuba has decided to participate in the lawsuit of the Republic of South Africa against the State of Israel in the International Court of Justice," the ministry said in a communique.

On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a lawsuit with the ICJ against Israel over alleged genocide in the Gaza Strip. On January 26, the ICJ ruled provisional measures ordering Israel to take urgent steps to prevent acts of genocide and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to the enclave.

At the same time, the ICJ did not order an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In early March, the African nation went back to the ICJ to call for additional provisional measures against Israel that would address widespread starvation among Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

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Russian cancer vaccine trials on volunteers will begin by mid-2025

Clinical trials of a cancer vaccine on patients with cancer are scheduled to begin by mid-2025, Alexander Gintsburg, the director of the Moscow-based Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, told Sputnik.

“I think that by the middle of next year we will begin clinical trials of the vaccine with the participation of patients with cancer,” Gintsburg said.

He noted that now the vaccine is being tested in preclinical studies on mice, and the technology is being developed to not just extend the life of animals with melanoma by 2-3 times, but to create such drugs that would allow for guaranteed destruction of both the tumor and metastases.

According to Gintsburg, if it is possible to work out this technology, the vaccine will help patients with non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, certain types of kidney cancer, melanomas. Moreover, in these diseases metastases appear at early stages, so this vaccine will be very relevant for these patients, the specialist explained.

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❗️Russian forces hit Ukrainian military facilities and depots in western Ukraine - underground network coordinator

Facilities and depots in the Lvov region of western Ukraine, where aircraft parts were stored, were hit, the coordinator of the Nikolayev underground network, Sergey Lebedev, told Sputnik.

Earlier, Lebedev reported damage to energy infrastructure in the Lvov region, as well as in the Vinnitsa, Khmelnytsky, Volyn and Ivano-Frankovsk regions.

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🔸 IDF admits Israel is unable to defeat Hamas

🔸 Why has US State Dep Assistant Secretary for Palestinian-Israeli affairs left his post?

🔸 Cuba joins South Africa's lawsuit against Israel at ICJ

🔸 Why is there nothing new in Seoul’s hint at supplying weapons to Ukraine?

🔸 No end in sight for the drama in French politics, analyst believes

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Biden reportedly fumbles US-Ukraine gas deal

US President Joe Biden's decision to suspend approval of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects has become an obstacle for Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Earlier, the Ukrainian company D.Trading signed an agreement with US Venture Global to supply US LNG to Ukraine and Eastern European countries to help them wean themselves off gas supplies from Russia and support "energy security" in the region.

However, there is a catch: the gas is to be purchased through Venture's CP2 terminal, which is now under Biden's moratorium.

This has created "enormous political uncertainty" over future US LNG supplies, because if re-elected, Biden is likely to make it permanent, the WSJ wrote, adding that Biden "surrendered to an army of [climate change] TikTokers" in deciding whether to allow the supplies.

Western nations have decided not to buy Russian natural gas since the Ukrainian conflict began, blaming Russia for cutting off gas supplies itself.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, insisted that the US was simply using European countries in its own interests by forcing them to buy its expensive liquefied natural gas.

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