More North Korean troops, missile launchers headed to Russia; U.S. and Iran pause attacks for second straight day; and new category established for American KIAs.
1. North Korea is preparing to send another 30,000 troops to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That figure is more than twice the number of North Koreans believed to now be serving alongside Russian forces, based on media reports. Zelenskyy — in an X post summarizing his nightly video address on Saturday — wrote that Russia wants more North Korean troops and has been preparing the Voronezh region — 289 miles south of Moscow — to receive additional manpower since June. Pyongyang is also planning to transfer more ballistic missile launchers to its ally, he said. “This is a threat not only to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy warned. “Russia is helping North Korea learn how to wage war, improve its weapons, and gain real combat experience in using them.”
2. The United States and Iran paused their attacks for a second straight day Sunday, as efforts continued to bring them back to negotiations on an interim ceasefire deal largely undermined by recent exchanges of fire. It was not clear why the U.S. has paused after targeting Iranian coastal areas and infrastructure in a nearly two-week escalation sparked by Iran’s firing at ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon did not respond to questions. U.S. President Donald Trump is “giving talks some space. He’s giving it a little bit of room,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News. “We’ve had both Oman and Iran, and a number of our other negotiators, engaged at every level, from the most senior levels all the way down to the technical level over the past few weeks, and particularly in the past few days.” Waltz dismissed the idea that the U.S. stockpile of interceptors crucial in defending against Iranian attacks is running low, but experts have questioned how long both the U.S. and Iran can afford to keep up attacks.
3. The four American troops killed during renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran in recent weeks are no longer listed as part of the Iran war death toll in the Pentagon’s official casualty count but have been placed in a new, separate category. It is raising questions about properly counting the impact to U.S. service members as the Trump administration has escalated strikes on Iran in a bid to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while providing little indication of how it intends to wind down a conflict that is unpopular with many Americans. The Defense Casualty Analysis System, which Pentagon officials have repeatedly pointed to as the definitive source on the numbers of dead and wounded from the conflict, removed the four fallen soldiers as well as dozens of wounded troops from its Iran war tally last week. On Sunday, a new category called “Overseas Operations” emerged on the system’s website, listing the four Army deaths by name as well as 207 wounded. It was unclear if all of the wounded were injured in the Iran conflict.
4. Suicidal thoughts among U.S. military veterans rose nearly 50% over the past five years, though planning of suicide and attempts to carry it out have remained relatively unchanged, a new national study has found. The study, led by researchers from the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Yale School of Medicine, found that younger and female veterans were more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and behaviors. “This study shows that suicide risk among veterans is not driven by single social hardships in isolation, but by the cumulative burden of multiple adverse social determinants of health,” Robert Pietrzak, a Yale psychiatry and public health professor and one of the study authors, told the Yale Daily News student newspaper. The findings come as suicide prevention remains a top priority for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has said more than 6,000 veterans take their own lives each year.
5. A Romanian F-16 fighter jet shot down a suspected Russian-made drone Sunday during the third consecutive day of unmanned aircraft incursions into the country. The latest incursion appears to have involved a drone of Russian origin, NATO military spokesman Col. Martin O’Donnell said Monday. Since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Romania has seen numerous drones stray into its airspace. In a statement Sunday, Romanian President Nicusor Dan said investigators confirmed that the initial drone incursion on Friday was carried out by a Shahed-type drone used by the Russian military in its war against Ukraine. The second incursion on Saturday is still being investigated. “It is inadmissible and intolerable for the Russian Federation to continue violating Romania’s airspace, which is, at the same time, NATO airspace and European Union airspace,” Dan said. “Such actions are unacceptable, and we treat them with the utmost seriousness, alongside our allies.”
- Security