Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front + The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.

While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say

Related:

Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city

But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.

Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.

Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.

Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.

WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight

The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.

The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea): Full Text of Kim Jong Un Speech On Nuclear Weapons Policy

We are pleased to present to our readers a very significant policy speech given by Kim Jong Un, the General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party and President of State Affairs. In this speech, he clearly warns the United States that he and his government are prepared to defend the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, known in the US as “North Korea”), including the use of nuclear weapons if the DPRK is faced with an invasion from the USA, the South Korean puppet regime of the US, or both.

The context of the speech is important. As we wrote in the previous article to this one, the United States has engaged in decades of deadly provocations against the Korean workers state in the form of constant “war games” in preparation for initiating an attempt to overthrow the DPRK and restore capitalist exploitation to North Korea. However, in the past several years, the United States has started to openly proclaim its intention to “decapitate” the leadership of the DPRK in a massive attack from South Korea which may include the use of nuclear weapons to destroy the defensive underground bunkers which the workers of the DPRK constructed to survive the massive bombing campaign the US launched against them in the Korean War, killing an estimated 3 million North Koreans. In response, North Korea has – in spite of crushing US sanctions that have caused immense suffering for the workers of the DPRK – embarked on a crash program to develop a nuclear arsenal capable of defending their country. We wholeheartedly agree with this heroic attempt by North Korea to defend itself from the psychotic warmongers of the US imperialist capitalist class and their murderous gangster regime in Washington. The US government is the #1 terrorist threat in the world today! Defend the DPRK! End All Sanctions Against the DPRK Immediately! US Out of the Korean Peninsula Now!

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea): Full Text of Kim Jong Un Speech On Nuclear Weapons Policy