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North Korea ‘supplying Russia’ with long-range rocket and artillery systems

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North Korea ‘supplying Russia’ with long-range rocket and artillery systems

Pyongyang has supplied Moscow’s army with long-range rocket and artillery systems, some of which have been moved to Russia’s Kursk region for an assault involving North Korean soldiers to push out Ukrainian forces, a Ukrainian intelligence assessment has found.

In recent weeks, North Korea provided some 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, said the assessment, which was shared with the Financial Times.

The new weapons deliveries from North Korea mark the latest expansion of the authoritarian state’s support for Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

Michael Kofman, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said they follow a pattern of deepening North Korean involvement, “from sending large volumes of ammunition, weapons, and becoming a direct party to this war, which could help Russian forces retake the Kursk region”.

North Korea has already played a critical role in providing millions of rounds of artillery ammunition for the Russian military in 2023, he noted.

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It has deepened its involvement this year by sending more than 12,000 troops, according to multiple western intelligence assessments, further internationalising the conflict.

The deliveries come at a pivotal moment, as the Ukrainian and Russian armies fight for territorial advantage before the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to force a swift end to the nearly three-year war.

Ukrainian officials provided information about the weapons after a photograph showing North Korean howitzers began circulating on social media this week.

The photograph, which open-source analysts were able to geolocate to central Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, showed several howitzers covered in camouflage netting and being transported by rail westward.

The heavyweight weapons systems can fire shells upwards of 60km. The M1989 howitzers, produced in 1989, are slightly upgraded versions of the original M1979 models first produced in the late 1970s, which Pyongyang supplied to Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war.

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The upgraded rocket system is based on the Soviet-designed BM-27 “Uragan”, or Hurricane system, a self-propelled 220mm multiple rocket launcher designed to deliver cluster munitions. North Korea said in May it had successfully tested the updated system with precision-guided munitions.

A senior Ukrainian official told the FT that Pyongyang now wants to test the weapons in combat. Kyiv expects them to be used against its forces that are currently holding some 600 sq km of territory inside Russia’s Kursk region. 

According to Ukrainian and western intelligence officials, Russia has massed a force of 50,000 troops, including 10,000 North Korean soldiers outfitted with Russian uniforms and arms, and are readying for an assault that could take place at any time. 

Ukraine’s forces in Kursk have lost nearly half of the 1,100 sq km of territory they captured in a surprise August incursion, according to military analysts. Kyiv is trying to hold the 600 sq km still under its control to use as leverage in any future negotiations with Russia.

But with Russia’s army on the march across much of the 1,000km frontline, North Korean troops bolstering their ranks and Ukrainian forces exhausted and stretched thin, they face a difficult task. 

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In recent months, Russia has used its advantages in manpower and firepower to seize more than 1,200 sq km in Ukraine, according to Deep State, a Kyiv-based war tracking group closely tied to the defence ministry.

The group said nearly 500 sq km of territory was occupied in October alone. Much of what Ukraine has lost is in the eastern Donetsk region, where its defences around the strategic cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove are buckling.

Russia’s gains, though, came at an enormous cost, said UK defence chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. He estimated that Moscow’s forces suffered about 1,500 dead and injured “every single day” in October, its worst month of casualties since its invasion in February 2022. Radakin put Moscow’s overall casualties at around 700,000.

Ukrainian officials told the FT on November 4 that their forces had fired at North Korean soldiers for the first time in Kursk. But the North Koreans, the first foreign military forces to enter the war, have not yet been part of larger ground assaults.

Ukrainian officials believe the North Korean troops, who include some of their country’s top special forces units, will play two roles in the looming Russian operation: some will fight among its infantry forces, while others will be used to hold and control territory retaken in the operation.

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“North Korean troops can tactically benefit Russian forces in Kursk, although much depends on the numbers and how they are used,” Kofman said.

By using them in Kursk, he said, Moscow can free its forces “to continue offensive operations elsewhere in Ukraine’s east”.

North Korea previously supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and artillery shells. In exchange, Moscow has provided Pyongyang with military technologies to help with its missile programmes, as well as “money”, a senior Ukrainian official said. 

South Korea, the EU and the US, which have condemned the deployment of North Korean forces, have expressed concern that Moscow could reward Pyongyang with nuclear and ballistic technology.

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Obama responds to Trump sharing racist AI video depicting him as an ape

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Obama responds to Trump sharing racist AI video depicting him as an ape

Former President Barack Obama addresses the Obama Foundation’s 2024 Democracy Forum on Dec. 05, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

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Former President Barack Obama has responded to the racist video posted by President Donald Trump’s social media account earlier this month.

During an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama said many Americans “find this behavior deeply troubling.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office,” Obama said in the interview, which was posted on YouTube Saturday.

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“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television,” Obama added, describing much of the noise around Trump’s presidency as a “distraction”.

Obama’s response follows outrage over the video, which depicted Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the clip, saying “please stop the fake outrage.” Trump refused to apologize for the social media post, telling reporters “I didn’t make a mistake” aboard Air Force One.

The video, which was posted at the beginning of Black History Month, has since been deleted. The White House blamed a staffer for “erroneously” posting the video clip.

Obama also shared his thoughts on the immigration crackdown and protests in Minnesota and elsewhere around the country, telling Cohen they have left a good number of American people saying “we’re going to live up to those values that we say we believe in.”

“It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the way that federal agents, ICE agents were being deployed, without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of their homes, using five-year-olds to try to bait their parents, all the stuff that we saw, teargassing crowds simply who were standing there, not breaking any laws,” the 44th president said.

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Obama called the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month “a heartbreaking tragedy” and said it was “a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.”

He also said that the Trump administration has given explanations for the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent, “that aren’t informed by any serious investigation.”

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A man shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis was charged with assaulting law enforcement. A startling admission ended the case | CNN

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A man shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis was charged with assaulting law enforcement. A startling admission ended the case | CNN

Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna was on shift in Minneapolis on a Wednesday evening last month, making deliveries as a DoorDash driver, when he realized he was being followed by ICE agents, his attorney said.

He drove home and was tackled by an agent but broke free and ran into the house where his cousin Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was standing, the attorney said. As he shut the door and was trying to lock it, Sosa-Celis said he was shot in the leg by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Coming just seven days after a federal agent fatally shot Renee Good, the incident spawned renewed protests and heated clashes with police. An account of the events from the Department of Homeland Security soon after the incident conflicted with the narratives from the two men and their family members.

DHS claimed Sosa-Celis was driving the car and he, Aljorna and another man assaulted the agent before the agent fired his weapon.

The first inkling of the government questioning the DHS account came from the US Department of Justice. In a January 16 court filing supporting criminal charges against the two men, the DOJ asserted Aljorna was the one driving the vehicle.

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In a stunning reversal, the Justice Department on Thursday filed a motion seeking to drop criminal charges against the two Venezuelan men. In it, the DOJ said federal prosecutors provided incorrect information to the court, while ICE issued a statement admitting its federal agents made “false statements” under oath.

The two federal agents involved have been placed on administrative leave while the Justice Department investigates their “untruthful statements,” which were revealed by a review of video evidence, ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement.

The two officers may be fired and potentially face criminal prosecution, Lyons said.

DOJ’s motion cited “newly discovered evidence” contradicting statements the agency included as the basis for filing criminal charges against the men.

It’s not clear what video evidence was uncovered, described in the motion as “materially inconsistent with the allegations” from federal prosecutors in the charging document. CNN has reached out to DHS for further clarity on the evidence and whether it stands by the initial statement following the shooting but did not hear back. The DOJ declined to comment on the motion when contacted by CNN.

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“This was an absolute unreasonable use of force, and the officer was fabricating claims against my client to justify that,” said Aljorna’s attorney, Frederick J. Goetz.

The dismissed case fits into a larger pattern in which the federal government has been quick to release accounts after a shooting by its law enforcement agents, which were later proven to be false, misleading or incomplete, according to CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Examples include video evidence after federal agents fatally shot Good and Alex Pretti, which appeared to undermine elements of the government’s accounts of what happened.

Similarly, prosecutors last year filed to drop charges against Marimar Martinez in Chicago, who the government said rammed a federal agent’s vehicle before he shot her several times. A judge, who noted the government’s case included omissions that caused her to tread carefully, dismissed the charges against Martinez last year.

Martinez asked for evidence in the case to be released. When it was put out last week, the evidence bolstered Martinez’s account that hers was the vehicle rammed, not the agent’s. And text messages from the agent showed him bragging about the number of times he shot her. In a news release, the DHS called the shots “defensive fire.”

The shifting narratives from the federal government in the case of Sosa-Celis and Aljorna have further chipped away at the Trump administration’s credibility, as the motion to dismiss the charges with prejudice is a more dramatic admission from federal prosecutors because it indicates they put forth wrong information and means the case cannot be brought back, Honig said.

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Lawyers for both Sosa-Celis and Aljorna commended the department’s motion, calling it “extraordinary” and “exceedingly rare” in statements to CNN.

Here’s what we know about the case and how it fell apart:

In a January 15 news release, DHS claimed federal agents were targeting Sosa-Celis in a traffic stop – not Aljorna – as part of an immigration enforcement operation on January 14 when he attempted to evade arrest, crashed into a parked car and tried to flee on foot.

Sosa-Celis allegedly began to “resist and violently assault” one of the officers and the two were in a “struggle on the ground,” then “got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick,” at which point the officer fired a “defensive shot,” DHS said. Two other people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer, the agency said.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described the men’s actions as “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” The agency stood by its initial statement a few days after the shooting when contacted by CNN.

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On January 16, however, the Justice Department offered an account painting a different picture of the events in a filing supporting criminal charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna. That document said the driver of the car was Aljorna, who prosecutors said was zigzagging through traffic while agents pursued the vehicle.

Aljorna, the affidavit claimed, hit a light pole before fleeing from the car, with an ICE agent chasing him on foot toward the home. Both Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were accused of hitting one of the agents with a shovel or broom before the agent pointed his weapon at the two men, causing them to run toward the home, the affidavit said.

As Sosa-Celis and Aljorna ran inside, the agent fired one round from his pistol “towards the vicinity” of the two men but at the time, the officer was “uncertain if his shot struck any of them,” the DOJ’s affidavit said.

Aljorna’s attorney told CNN the Trump administration’s claims his client and Sosa-Celis attacked federal agents with a broomstick or shovel “never happened.”

Sosa-Celis, speaking from a hospital room on a livestream video on his Facebook account, described engaging in some sort of struggle with federal agents as he was helping his cousin escape arrest and get inside their shared home.

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As Aljorna was being followed in his car, the fatal shooting of Good the week prior was fresh in his mind and he was fearful, according to Goetz, his attorney. Aljorna called his family members, who told him to get home.

Approaching his home, Aljorna lost control of the car due to ice on the roadway and hit a snowbank, Goetz said. Aljorna was then tackled by an ICE agent after running from the car, just 10 feet away from the door, where Sosa-Celis had walked out and called for him to get inside, the attorney said.

Aljorna was able to slip out of his jacket, freeing himself from the agent’s grasp, and ran to his cousin, Goetz said. They both got behind the door and closed it when a shot rang out, he added.

The accounts from the two men were reiterated by their family members in interviews and livestream videos of their 911 calls, which differed from DHS’ statement.

One of them showed a video call made by Sosa-Celis’ partner and reviewed by CNN, frantically describing to family members what she says happened, according to Alicia Celis, Sosa-Celis’ mother, who spoke to CNN.

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In one video call, Sosa-Celis’ partner said, “Julio arrived first. They were chasing Alfredo – he had to jump from his car.”

“He ran and they threw themselves on top of him. After, Julio threw open the door, and they shot,” she added.

A different video obtained by CNN shows what was happening outside the home while the family waited inside, revealing agents approaching the home and setting off a flash-bang. Smoke can be seen, and ramming sounds are heard as someone says, “They’re in! There’s more than a dozen of them.”

“He told me, ‘Mom, ICE was chasing me,” Aljorna’s mother Mabel Aljorna later said. “Once we were inside, they shot at Julio,’” she added.

In his livestream from the hospital, Sosa-Celis said, “The shot that was fired happened when my cousin managed to escape, and he entered inside. I closed the door and as I was locking it, I heard the shot, and that’s when I realized I had been shot in the leg.”

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Sosa-Celis is “relieved that the federal criminal case is over,” his attorney Robin Wolpert said on his behalf, adding he is “determined to seek justice and hold the ICE officer accountable for his unlawful conduct.”

Confrontations involving federal agents have routinely been captured on video from multiple angles, which later served to discount parts of the government’s narrative of events. Videos from the killing of Renee Good, a mother of three, in her vehicle, raised questions about the federal agent’s tactics and decision to use deadly force.

Similarly, footage showing federal agents killing Alex Pretti revealed the ICU nurse was holding a phone in his right hand, and an officer removing a gun from his back waistband before the shooting. The Trump administration claimed an agent “fired defensive shots” and asserted Pretti was “brandishing” a firearm.

“It’s mind-boggling that DHS continues this pattern of making immediate, definitive statements about what happened that are very quickly disproved by actual evidence,” said senior CNN legal analyst Honig.

Judges across the country who were appointed to the bench by presidents of both political parties have made findings on record about DHS not being forthcoming, truthful or credible, according to Honig.

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The Trump administration has faced mounting credibility issues as its immigration crackdown has rolled out in blue cities nationwide. Even as several judges have acknowledged parts of its narratives may be true, others have described the government’s claims in court as “unreliable,” “untethered to the facts” and “simply not credible,” CNN previously reported.

The motion to dismiss the charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna with prejudice is “remarkably unusual,” said Honig. It speaks to how the government has rushed to put out possibly premature statements, which are at times incomplete or inaccurate, only later to be contradicted by emerging facts, he added.

Federal prosecutors are put in a “very difficult position” when they realize later “that something they’ve said to a court is not true,” Honig said, but they nevertheless have a duty to correct the record.

“While judges ordinarily give the Justice Department a lot of deference and a lot of implied credibility, that’s changing now,” he continued. “You have credibility only until you give it away.”

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Four people on NASA’S Crew-12 arrive at the International Space Station

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Four people on NASA’S Crew-12 arrive at the International Space Station

In this image from video provided by NASA, a SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying Americans Meir and Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev, approaches the International Space Station for docking on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026.

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The four members of NASA’S SpaceX Crew-12 mission docked at the International Space Station on Saturday afternoon.

The crew blasted off before dawn on Friday morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The Crew-12 mission includes two NASA astronauts, Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. During their eight-month mission, the crew will conduct scientific research to prepare for human exploration beyond earth’s orbit and enhance food production in space.

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“With Crew-12 safely on orbit, America and our international partners once again demonstrated the professionalism, preparation, and teamwork required for human spaceflight,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.

The mission replaces the crew from NASA’s Crew-11 mission, which departed the ISS a month ahead of schedule in January due to a medical evacuation of one of the crew members. Since then, the space station has been operating with a reduced staff of three people — well below it’s typical seven-person staff.

Isaacman also said that NASA is simultaneously making preparations for the 10-day Artemis II mission, which would send a crew of four astronauts around the moon. It’s the first crewed mission to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972 and is slated to take off as soon as March.

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