🇰🇵🤝🇷🇺 South Korea says at least 1,500 North Korean special forces in Russia
South Korea’s spy agency reported Friday that at least 1,500 North Korean special forces are training in far eastern Russia, and it showed satellite photos tracking their movements.
Ukrainian officials have accused North Korea of preparing to send as many as 10,000 troops to fight on Russia’s side against Ukrainian forces, a move that could significantly exacerbate tensions between Pyongyang and the West.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it had first tracked a top Pyongyang missile development official visiting Russian front lines in August with dozens of other North Korean officers. They were providing “on-site guidance” to Russian forces using North Korean weapons, the agency said.
Then, from Oct. 8 to 13, the NIS tracked some 1,500 North Korean special forces troops moving to eastern Russia. The agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has pledged to support Russia in its war on Ukraine, inspected the troops twice before their deployment.
The troops were issued Russian uniforms, weapons and IDs, Seoul said, and assigned to units composed of Siberian soldiers to try to disguise them as Russians rather than North Koreans.
Seoul also reported that Pyongyang has provided some 13,000 containers of weapons to Russia in as many as 70 shipments since August 2023, including up to 8 million rounds of desperately needed 122mm and 152mm artillery shells.
Ukrainian spy chief Kyrylo Budanov told the War Zone, a military news website, on Thursday that 2,600 of those North Koreans will be deployed to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise counterattack in August and now controls of chunk of sovereign Russian territory.
Meanwhile, here’s Don Jr. worshipping at the feet of another demon god in India.
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The village of Piddington has voted for independence from the United Kingdom and to become a self governing village in a landslide vote.
91% Voting Leave
This comes after news that over 3,000 illegal migrants are to be dumped in their village.
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🇺🇸🛢 The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to 283.8M barrels, its lowest level since October 1982.
A year ago, September 2025, the SPR held 406 million barrels.
The current drawdown traces back to a 172 million-barrel release President Trump authorized in March, part of a coordinated 400 million-barrel release by 32 IEA member countries. Discharge began about a week later and was expected to take roughly 120 days, with the administration pledging to refill about 200 million barrels within a year at no cost to taxpayers.
Two different floors govern how far the reserve can fall. Federal law sets an operational minimum of 252.4 million barrels, while the generally accepted operational minimum is 250 to 300 million barrels on hand to pump and process oil efficiently, a level it is now testing.
Ben Cahill, an energy analyst at the Atlantic Council, has warned the releases carry diminishing returns: "at a certain point it becomes a self-defeating move, because releasing more...