Ukraine claims Russia fired ‘North Korean’ missile: The Frontline with Jerome Starkey

Ukraine claims Russia fired ‘North Korean’ missile: The Frontline with Jerome Starkey

Ukraine has been hit by North Korean missiles in two of the biggest bombardments since the start of the war we’re in h again and this is a scene of yet another Russian strike my name is Jerome staki I’m the defense editor at the Sun newspaper and

This is the latest Roundup of the most important news from the war in Ukraine we’re going to start with these two missile bombardments either side of New Year’s day which have been the deadliest uh since the War Began almost 2 years ago us officials have said that they believe North Korean missiles were

Included in The Barrage of more than 300 missiles and 200 drones fired over two days on the night of the 29th of December and the night of the 2nd of January Ukrainian officials say more than 50 people killed and at least 160 people injured many of those missiles

Were shot down including the largest flight of kinal hypersonic missiles those are Russia’s most sophisticated Advanced uh missiles that in theory can maneuver at enormous speed uh but so far Ukrainian officials insist all of the kar’s fired uh since us Patriot air defense systems arrived uh Ukrainian

Officials say the Patriots have shot the kinel down nonetheless John Kirby the spokesman for the uh National Security Council in America described the inclusion of North Korean ballistic missiles as a a worrying escalation sign that Russia is managing to get its hands on more advanced weapons it comes at the time we

Understand separately Moscow is also pressing on with talks with Iran to get its hands on Iranian ballistic missiles as well now what does this show us well in one sense it confirms what we’ve already known which is that Russian St stockpiles of weapons particularly of its most advanced sophisticated and

Expensive weapons are depleting and that’s because Russia is firing so many of them and it’s because Russia is struggling to uh reproduce them to manufacture them because many of those weapons rely on imported parts and those parts have become harder to get hold of because of sanctions nonetheless you’ll

Remember that at the end of last year North Korea’s leader Kim Yong un traveled to Russia met President Vladimir Putin and it would appear that the fruits of that meeting are beginning to arrive in Russia’s Arsenal we’re seeing uh at least one North Korean missile according to John Kirby

According to the White House fired on the night of the 29th of December now that he said that missile had a range of around 900 kilm it was fired in a southwesterly direction from a groundbased launcher in Russian territory and it landed in a field near zapia heartening in one sense it appears

That the missile did not reach its Target but Kirby warned that North Korea and Russia would learn from these firings a few days later several missiles fired he said the US was still analyzing uh information about where those missiles may have been aimed at and what they may have hit the White

House didn’t say what kind of missiles North Korea had provided but it did say that it had intelligence that North Korea had given Russia several missiles and several missile launchers the primary concern appears to be that this is a boost to Russia’s uh stockpile of boost to the number of missiles that it

May be able to unleash against Ukraine the next thing I wanted to talk about today is the way that Ukraine has been striking back since our last update there have been a number of uh really interesting uh developments perhaps the most dramatic is the uh destru ction of

Another rucha class Landing ship the novas in an Eastern port in occupied Crimea so on the far side of Crimea from the territory that Ukraine’s Armed Forces currently uh control this was a ship that had been uh damaged before in the war appeared to been indoc for

Repairs and hit by we think crw missiles this would bring to at least 13 the number of Russian warships and of course a submarine that have been destroyed uh since the start of the war almost 2 years ago a significant result for Ukraine uh We’ve also seen in the last

Couple of days footage which appears to show a suo 34 an Su 34 fighter bomber aircraft on fire at an Airfield More Than A Thousand Miles inside Russian territory the suggestion from Ukrainian officials that this was uh the result of Ukrainian sabots showing once again their ability to strike deep inside

Russian soil and only today the latest news is of more explosions in occupied Crimea uh both in yaria and in Sebastapol so on the southern tip of the peninsula and on the western uh Edge not so far away these strikes is not clear what they’ve hit yet but in the past

What we have seen is strikes against command post strikes against uh anti-air defenses to try and limit Russia’s ability to defend the peninsula that is then often followed by more attacks against high value targets like the ships the submarine and as we’ve seen the headquarters of Russia’s uh

Black Sea Fleet the naval headquarters in Sebastapol the final thing I really want to talk about today is an element is good news uh there has been a significant prisoner swap the uh one of the largest prison swaps of the War uh some almost 500 soldiers uh being

Returned to their native countries that was uh 230 Ukrainian prisoners mostly military handful of civilians returned to Ukraine 248 Russians uh returned to Russia and it brings to nearly 3,000 uh the number of Russian soldiers who’ve been returned from Ukraine over the course of the conflict this swap was significant not

Only because of its size but also because it was uh the first big prisoner swap since August and the the talks the sort of background talks between Russia and Ukraine that facilitate uh these swaps have been under uh some strain uh Ukraine thanked the United Arab Emirates

The UAE for the part that it played in facilitating these negotiations while we’re on uh the subjects of negotiations perhaps one other thing uh to mention is an ongoing discussion that’s bubbling around at the moment over whether or not uh Ukraine missed an opportunity to make peace with

Russia in the first few weeks of the war now this this uh this Theory this narrative focuses on talks that were taking place in Istanbul between Ukrainian and Russian uh negotiators uh on the 29th of March so just a couple of months after Russia Unleashed its fullscale Invasion Russ and Vladimir

Putin have have repeatedly claimed that these talks had effectively reached an agreement uh it was at that point that Russia uh certainly this is what the Russians say agreed to withdraw their troops uh from around keev they claim that uh Ukraine somehow appeared to reneg on its agreement and

Then decided to fight on um significantly about 10 days after those talks uh Britain’s former prime minister Boris Johnson arrived in keev he was one of the first uh heads of government to visit president zilinski in keev there’s a suggestion from Russia that America uh and possibly also Britain were

Instrumental in uh encouraging Ukraine to fight on rather than make peace however from what I can tell uh there was a combination of factors uh Ukraine for a start has been adamant that no agreement was reached no commitments were made and of course what happened is as Russian soldiers retreated from ke

This wasn’t necessarily a retreat they made uh as they claimed as a gesture of free will it they made that Retreat because their assault on keev was in chaos uh they’ had that 40 mile Convoy that had been bogged down in mud uh they’d lost huge numbers of armored

Vehicles and troops from harassing and Guerilla style attacks from the ukrainians they were forced to retreat and as they did as the ukrainians reclaimed those Northwestern suburbs of keev places like bua Bor Janka Arin but particularly bua uh the atrocities that they uncovered made the prospects of negotiations uh with the Russians uh

Untenable I mean that was the certainly uh the message coming out of president zalinsky who described what had happened as a genocide and a report in the Wall Street Journal from a very well-informed journalist suggest that when Boris Johnson visited uh zilinski the message he gave was pretty clear which was that

It is entirely up to the ukrainians to make the decision as to whether or not they want to fight on but if they did fight on then Britain would be ready to support them uh 100% as ever thank you very much for your questions uh if you’re watching on YouTube and you have

Questions please uh write them in the comments below and we’ll Endeavor to answer them next time some of the questions from the last episode uh a few questions in fact have focused on losses Russian losses numbers of losses and why there appears to be a discrepancy

Between the figures uh put out by the Ukrainian government and the figures shared by uh Western officials both in the United States and the United Kingdom and elsewhere uh the current Ukrainian estimate of Russian losses stands at about 360,000 uh the last time I heard uh an estimate of Russian losses from

Senior British officials uh it was at about they estimated Russia had lost about 300,000 now there is a bit of a discrepancy what most of this tends to be uh the qu one of the questions is is Ukraine overstating them are the West being over cautious there’s probably a little bit

Of that uh but one of the things to point out is that these figures it’s not always clear whether these figures are referring to soldiers killed in action or combination of killed and wounded in action um Ukraine talks about combat losses often a soldier who is wounded is

Effectively a combat loss because he or she cannot rejoin the fight so whilst there is a discrepancy it’s not perhaps as large as people think uh the Western estimates that I’ve heard as I said 300,000 Russian losses and perhaps around 880,000 of those are soldiers who’ve been killed in action but you

Know that figure I’m referring to uh is a few weeks old and indeed us officials have said recently they think at least 13,000 russan soldiers have been killed not just wounded killed uh in the ongoing assault on Aviva in eastern Ukraine adiva appearing to be another bahmut in that sense a place where

Russia is expending huge resources particularly Human Resources but military material as well as it tries to take uh a town in the Eastern donbass uh second question today is about China’s relationship with Russia and whether or not China is supplying weapons you may remember a few weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine Vladimir

Putin met Xi Jinping China’s Premier and they announced a friendship with no limits and what’s become clear since the invasion is that Russia has pushed that friendship very much to its limits Russia was hoping uh that China would furnish it with arms uh with ammunition we understand there has been some supply

Of weapons from China to Russia but certainly or at least uh it doesn’t appear to be at a level which Western officials say is changing uh the nature of the conflict or tipping it decisively in Russia’s favor so whilst uh Beijing appears to be sort of hedging its bet

Giving Russia weapons uh but not giving them enough to sort of invoke the anger of uh the West third and final question today is about uh you know how this conflict is likely to evolve and specifically uh if Ukraine were to get the 500,000 extra troops which President zalinski has said his military

Commanders want and if it was to get the uh aid from both United States and Europe uh which it wants Aid which is currently sort of held up in administrative hurdles political hurdles in Washington and in Brussels is there any guarantee that in six months time uh

The situation would be any different to what it is now and crucially I think you know the question was would it be less desperate well there is no guarantee um what we’re seeing is from both sides is an effort to find new sources of resources uh to fight the conflict in

Many ways as we’ve said before the conflict on the ground on the battlefield has reached a sort of stalemate that’s a characterization president zilinski has repeatedly uh rejected but it is a characterization that many uh indeed his own military and independent military analysts would probably agree with potentially uh large numbers of

Troops new weapons uh new technology might be able to tip the conflict in one side’s favor or another but we know General’s illusion Ukraine’s General who said he doesn’t think that there will be a clean and beautiful breakthrough he doesn’t think necessarily that the technology exists uh to create that sort of overwhelming

Change in uh the balance on the battlefield more likely then is that this is a war of attrition uh both attrition of resources and attrition of will um Russia certainly shows no sign at the moment of any let up in its ambition or its will uh nor does Ukraine

Where both sides are struggling is in resourcing their armies and we know that um there’s about $60 billion doar of us Aid which has been held up by uh us Republicans objections from us Republicans uh in Washington uh there’s a um about a similar quantity of Aid in

Europe which has been held up by objections from Hungary those are the problems those remain uh significant challenges for Ukraine I’ve said many times before the greatest threat to Ukraine Remains the resolve of its International allies thank you again for watching and listening as I said before if you do

Have any questions please ask them in the comments below the YouTube video and we’ll Endeavor to answer them uh next time

On this week’s episode of The Frontline with Jerome Starkey Ukrainian authorities have claimed Russia launched a North Korea missile at Kharkiv during Putin’s bombardment over the New Year.

The Sun newspaper brings you the latest breaking news videos and explainers from the UK and around the world

Become a Sun Subscriber and hit the bell to be the first to know

Read The Sun: http://www.thesun.co.uk
Like The Sun on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesun/
Follow The Sun on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSun
Subscribe to The Sun on Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/The_Sun/1633225139
#frontline #ukraine #russia