From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Ryan Meilstrup

Ukraine and Russia are both vying to make territorial gains ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and his expected push for a peace deal.

Trump has said on multiple occasions that he would bring a swift end to the war, relying on his relationships with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ability to negotiate with both. In anticipation that Trump will broker a peace settlement in short order, both Russia and Ukraine are making potential last-ditch efforts to grab territory for the other that they could possibly use as leverage during negotiations, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“They’re assaulting all the time—morning, day, night,” a Ukrainian battalion commander told the WSJ.

One current flashpoint is the Kursk region of Russia, which Ukrainian forces seized part of during an invasion over the summer. Russian forces are desperately vying to take back the territory, according to the WSJ. Moscow has deployed roughly 45,000 troops to the region, and in recent weeks has taken back half of it. North Korea has additionally deployed 10,000 troops to Kursk to aid Russian forces.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has been making use of U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia, the first time Ukraine has been allowed to do so after two years of war. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine use the missiles puzzled some national security experts, given the national security risks.

There’s some concern in Kyiv that Trump will approach U.S. support for Ukraine differently than Biden has, and that Trump’s bid to end the war could end up benefiting Russia, according to the WSJ. Ukraine believes Russia wants to retake Kursk before Trump is inaugurated.

“It’s the best Ukrainian forces against the best Russian forces,” a Ukrainian sergeant fighting in Kursk told the WSJ. “At this rate, I see no reason for us to withdraw.”

Russia is losing roughly 1,000 men a day in the fight to retake Kursk, some Ukrainian troops told the WSJ. Russia has lost an estimated 700,000 fighters total since the war began.

Ukraine is betting that if it can hold onto Kursk, it can use the region as leverage in future ceasefire negotiations with Russia, according to the WSJ.

“The Ukrainian strategy there is to hold on to it as a bargaining chip and obtain a favorable attrition ratio vis-à-vis the Russians,” Vienna-based military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady told the WSJ. While it would be difficult for Ukraine to hold on to Kursk, Gady said, “I think the Russians will have a tough fight.”

But the sentiment among some Ukrainian soldiers is wavering, with some feeling anger or confusion toward the Kursk operation and whether it was worth the cost, according to the WSJ. And Moscow hasn’t stopped throwing men toward the frontlines. Ukraine has suffered from a lack of manpower since the war began, and fighters don’t have access to the same military or communication equipment that Russia does.

“I think they’ll eventually push us back,” the Ukrainian battalion commander told the WSJ. “They add more power and more resources, and they have a goal to reach the border at any cost, so they will do it.”

National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Morgan Murphy

As wars tend to do, the battle over Ukraine continues to escalate.

It was reported this week that North Korean soldiers in the conflict total 10,000 thus far and that Russia has rewarded Pyongyang by sending its excellent air defense systems to the Korean Peninsula in exchange.

Last month, the National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, warned that any North Korean troops fighting in the conflict would be, “fair game and fair targets.”

His green light delivered this week when “a high-ranking North Korean military officer [became] a casualty” according to a Wall Street Journal story on Thursday. That strike was allegedly conducted with British Storm Shadow missiles.

Just these recent events further entangle the U.S., U.K., North Korea, South Korea, and China within the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

But the week’s biggest Ukraine news rattled many Americans — the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with the American-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

“The missiles will speak for themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy boasted.

They sure will. First of all, the U.S. doesn’t have many of the $1.3 million missiles to lob around. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo warned an audience at the Brookings Institute this week that the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine are “now eating into stocks … and to say otherwise would be dishonest.”

I’ve met and been briefed by Admiral Paparo, who is one of the most positive and straight-talking flag officers in our military. If he is publicly ringing the warning bell, U.S. policy leaders should take heed.

Putin did not take the news of the ATACMS well. In response, he announced the use of a hypersonic ballistic missile on Thursday, carefully noting that it didn’t carry a nuclear warhead. The unspoken part: next time, it might.

What’s the goal in Biden’s escalation? It seems the White House is trying to prevent the inevitable or blame Trump for Ukraine’s upcoming defeat.

What they won’t admit is that the metrics of the war are not in Ukraine’s favor, and frankly never have been. No supersonic missile will change the immutable: Russia boasts a population five times Ukraine’s and when it comes to war materiel, Russia is winning. Despite Biden’s attempt to hobble the Russian economy, Putin’s war industry is outproducing the West by three times in the basic munitions needed to prosecute a land battle.

But aren’t Russians dying en mass on the battlefield?

Western leaders keep touting Russia’s high death toll, which estimates now place at 600,000. To military strategists here in the United States, such a human cost is unimaginable. Add up every American combat death going back 160 years through the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, and even the Union combat deaths in the Civil War, and the number does’t reach what Russia has lost in the past 1,000 days.

American and NATO leaders are foolish to underestimate Russian resolve.

Since its initial blundering and poorly-executed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has recovered from its mistakes, Russian public support for the war remains high, and the Russian economy hasn’t fallen apart. Putin may have lost the virtue-signaling battle of Ukrainian flag lapel pins, but make no mistake: he’s on a path to win the war.

Biden’s deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh, says don’t worry. On Thursday she told reporters the administration was sending as much American weapons and support to Ukraine as it can muster, “in the weeks and months ahead left of this administration. So, that’s what we’re really focused on.”

What did she make of Putin’s nuclear threat?  “I mean, you know, we’ve seen this type of, you know, dangerous, reckless rhetoric before from President Putin,” Singh said.

“I mean, you know?” No, we don’t know. The world hasn’t seen nuclear threats like this since Harry S. Truman demanded Japan surrender.

For anyone worried about the state of our national security, January 20th can’t come quickly enough.