U.S., South Korean team up for first-of-its-kind live-fire drill; Zelensky urges allies to take steps before North Korean soldiers reach battlefield; VA budget shortfall not as large as originally reported.
1. Unmanned aerial vehicles from the United States and South Korea recently teamed up to improve their combat effectiveness via first-of-their-kind live-fire drills, according to the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul. The training took place Friday, a day after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile off its eastern coast, although the timing is unrelated, according to email Monday from 7th Air Force spokeswoman Master Sgt. Rachelle Coleman. A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper dropped an inert, 558-pound GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, using reconnaissance data from a South Korean air force RQ-4B Global Hawk, according to Coleman and a ministry news release three days earlier.
2. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged its allies to stop “watching” and take steps before North Korean troops deployed in Russia reach the battlefield, and the country’s army chief warned that his troops are facing “one of the most powerful offensives” by Moscow since the all-out war started more than two years ago. Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a preemptive Ukrainian strike on camps where the North Korean troops are being trained and said Kyiv knows their location. But he said Ukraine can’t do it without permission from allies to use Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia.
3. The Israeli military said Sunday it has carried out a ground raid into Syria, seizing a Syrian citizen involved in Iranian networks. It was the first time in the current war that Israel announced its troops operated in Syrian territory. Syria did not immediately confirm the announcement. Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria multiple times over the past year, targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iran, the close ally of both Hezbollah and Syria. But it has not previously made public any ground forays into Syria.
4. A shortfall in the Department of Veterans Affairs' health-care budget isn't as big as previously predicted, but the department will still need some extra money next year, department officials told Congress this week. In a memo to lawmakers, VA officials said costs have been lower than expected, but that some of the things the department has been doing to live within its budget "are not sustainable in the long run. That's why, as requested by the administration last fiscal year, we still need a funding anomaly by the end of this calendar year to ensure that we are able to continue to provide veterans with the world-class care and benefits they deserve through FY 2025," the memo to the House Veterans Affairs Committee said.
5. Iran's supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people. Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.
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