North Korean troops head for Ukraine as Pentagon announces more weapons

(Originally published Oct. 22 in “What in the World“) U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin paid a surprise visit to Kyiv and announced another $400 million in weapons for Ukraine.

The new package includes a familiar list of goodies—armored vehicles, antitank weapons, and munitions. So honestly it’s difficult to determine whether or not this package is distinct from the $425 million package U.S. President Joe Biden announced last week after a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The White House and the Dept. of Defense run their own external communications, and they often don’t seem to be coordinated.

All we know for sure is that the U.S. has now given Ukraine $59.5 billion in weapons since Russia invaded. With U.S. elections just days away, Washington seems a bit desperate to shore up Zelensky, who’s been barnstorming Europe demanding membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as part of his “victory plan” for battling Russia to the negotiating table. Both sides appear to be expending an increasing number of missiles and drones, and while Russia has scored some territorial gains in recent months, the front lines are moving imperceptibly if at all.

Moscow may be hoping that North Korea can help turn the tide. Zelensky recently said Pyongyang’s commandos were already in Ukraine, a charge Washington has said it is investigating. Seoul summoned Russia’s ambassador to South Korea after its intelligence service spotted Russian ships transporting North Korean soldiers to Siberia, ostensibly to train them for deployment in Ukraine. North Korea and Iran have already been providing Russia with missiles and other weapons. But so far the only foreign troops in Ukraine have been Russian and Western volunteers fighting for Ukraine—and, of course, the U.S. special forces in Kyiv.

Seoul is now reportedly considering sending Ukraine 155mm artillery shells. Ukraine expended so many artillery rounds holding Russia back in the first year of the war that they have become a rare commodity, and the war has shifted increasingly to using longer-range missiles and drones, with Zelensky repeatedly begging Biden to let him use long-range U.S. Atacms to hit Russian bases firing from well inside Russia’s own borders.

Lloyd also said in Kyiv that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad, system the Pentagon said last week it was sending to Israel is already operational. Given that it’s been only nine days since plans were announced to send the Thaad, that the U.S. has only seven of them, and that each unit consists of at least nine trucks and trailers to power, operate and launch Thaad’s missiles, it seems likely that the Pentagon is merely announcing the deployment of a Thaad it has had sitting in Israel since 2021. The Pentagon also said it would send a Thaad to Israel, perhaps temporarily, shortly after the war in Gaza erupted a year ago.

So, the Pentagon has either been using the same Thaad it sent to Israel back in 2021, or it’s got three there now. Because judging from how rare and complex the Thaad is and how much deliberation goes into where the U.S. puts one (whether in Romania, Saudi Arabia, or in South Korea), you don’t just toss Thaads around like throw pillows to accent your theater of war.