North Korea, Russia Join Forces against Ukraine

“I came, I promised to support your war, I left.” That paraphrase of Kim Jong Un’s visit with Russian president Vladimir Putin this week describes their bonhomie. Afraid of an air attack, the North Korean leader spent at least 40 hours on his luxury train, traveling about 37 mph from Pyongyang to the Vostochny Space Center before returning to safety. 

The massive green armored train is equipped with attack weapons and a helicopter for escape. Kim has used it for seven international trips, four of them to China, since he gained power in 2011. His father, Kim Jong Il, died on the train while on a “field guidance” visit. Nicknamed the “Moving Fortress,” the train has bulletproof windows and reinforced walls and floors to protect against explosives.

In a five-hour meeting with Putin, Kim promised “full and unconditional support” for him, apparently ignoring U.S. warnings not to arm Putin for his Ukrainian invasion. Putin wants Kim’s aging ammunition and rockets for Soviet-era weapons; Kim wants Russian help in developing military reconnaissance satellites to enhance his nuclear-capable missiles. After a failed second attempt last month to launch a military spy satellite, North Korea plans another try next month. From an examination of the debris, South Korea concluded the satellite’s technology is not sufficiently advanced to conduct space-based reconnaissance.

Buying arms from or providing rocket technology to North Korea violates international sanctions previously supported by Russia and increase Russian isolation, begun 19 months ago with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Hours before Kim’s meeting with Putin, North Korea fired two more ballistic missiles into waters off its East Coast outside the country’s economic zones, continuing distraction by Russia’s war to build his weapons’ development.

Last year, Russia used up to 11 million shells in Ukraine and plans to fire another seven million rounds this year. Putin’s officials claim that its relationship with North Korea isn’t an obstacle to Russia’s permanent membership on the UN Security Council. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated that Russia would continue to block continued sanctions resolution against North Korea, one of five countries declining to condemn Russia’s invasion and supporting Russia’s illegal takeover of Ukraine. Kim called it a “sacred struggle to defend its state sovereignty.”  

According to hacked documents, Russia is recruiting over 100 male Cuban mercenaries for his war for “a one-time cash payment in the amount of 195,000 rubles,” about $2,000. Monthly payment would start at “204,000 rubles per month,” depending on rank, accompanied by spousal and family benefits. The hacked Russian officer didn’t deny his recruiting Cubans but responded to questions from Intercept with expletives and denouncing NATO and declaring “Russia will win.”  

Ukraine reported it retook control of four gas drilling platforms in the northern Black Sea, near the Crimean Peninsula. Russia had taken over the Boyko Towers in 2015, soon after it illegally annexed Crimea. Platforms command valuable hydrocarbon resources and are used for deployment, helicopter landing sites, and long-range missile systems positioning. Ukraine has been fighting for control of the northern Black Sea. Last year, Russia’s control of the platforms and Snake Island were seen as part of its threat to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Since then, Ukrainian drones and commandos launched raids on the northwestern Crimea, even planting a Ukrainian flat at a radar base on the Tarkankut Peninsula to mark Independence Day on August 24.

This overview of the Russian invasion depicts it as a disaster from the beginning when 180,000 soldiers attacked five axes of advance, counting the axis toward Kherson oblast and advance toward Zaporizhzhia oblast in the south as separate ones. Advances toward Kyiv (Axis 1) failed and toward Kharkiv (Axis 2) was halted. Attempts to push through Ukraine’s fortified lines in Donbas (Axis 3) couldn’t move any line of defense. Only the southern ones succeeded by capturing Melitopol, Kherson, and Mariupol. Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the highest ranking soldier, then deployed troops to eastern Ukraine in an attempt to encircle Ukraine’s best brigades, a faltering plan that forced Gerasimov to scale down the size and number of forces.

Russian gains in summer of 2022 were minimal with massive cost to its soldiers and equipment. By September 22, 2022, Ukraine liberated three vital rail hubs before trapping Russian forces in northern Kherson oblast and destroying two bridges supplying Russian occupation. The losses led Putin to appoint Colonel General Sergei Surovikin in charge. He withdrew troops from Kherson, abandoning equipment and ammunition that Ukraine could use, and refocused on the Donbas where Russia suffered more massive losses while Ukraine occupied the high ground. By November last year, Russia gained ground in isolated areas but failed to break Ukrainian resistance.

The West increased its supply of modern air defense systems, but Surovikin built layered defensive lines to prepare for Ukraine’s counteroffensive, anticipating Russian weakness. He assumed he could grind down Ukrainian forces, but Putin replaced him in January with Gerasimov. For the next six months, Russia faced costly and unsuccessful military engagements. One of them was capturing the city of Bakhmut, almost no gain to Russia. Under leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the effective Wagner mercenaries, rebelled, partly against Gerasimov. He stayed and the Wagner troops, Gerasimov’s most successful tactical asset, were exiled to Belarus. Surovikin, accused of helping the rebellion, was assigned to a backwater post for disgraced generals.

Gerasimov abandoned Surovikin’s defense-in-depth strategy: instead of defending Russian gains with well-placed defensive lines, he moved reserves intended to plug potential breeches to the front lines. Another Gerasimov mistake was putting the vast majority of his landmines in the first line of defense, making his success only temporary. Gerasimov consistently overestimated Russian military capabilities and underestimated those of Ukraine.

This week, Ukrainian missiles hit a shipyard in Russia-annexed Crimea, also destroying a fuel tank and injuring 24 people. Two Russian navy ships were engulfed in flames, and a large Russian landing ship and a submarine were damaged beyond repair. The facility not only builds ships and submarines for the Black Sea Fleet but also repairs them. Some of this week’s explosions and other events, including Russia’s shortage of diesel fuel, is here. 

Unable to make transactions in U.S. dollars, Russia has severely limited its trade. Billions of its oil sale profits are trapped in Indian banks, and other commodities such as gold and wheat require the U.S. dollars. An attempt to switch to the Chinese yuan and Indian rupee has backfired because of India’s restrictions preventing the transfer of rupees to Russian rubles, as much as $39 billion, because of Russia’s unstable financial situation. Russia’s only current option is to spend the billions in India or invest it there, but India is selling very little to Russia.  

Despite Russia’s embargo on grain ships leaving Ukraine, “ghost ships” have taken their place, transporting grain from occupied eastern Ukraine via the sanctioned Port of Sevastopol in Crimea, using the Kerch Strait with ship-to-ship transfers. Several of these were shown on ship monitoring services, but that went dark for at least one ship on June 16. A tracker found a ship matching the missing one being loaded outside a grain terminal, but it disappeared a few days later, reappearing in Turkey and moving on to Iran. Investigations by several media groups found grain being exported in at least ten ships although Russia denied it with Syria as a destination.

Once again, the Kremlin’s party and candidates won a highly controlled election in Russia-occupied Ukraine by a large majority for the second time. The atmosphere was silent. In Russia, the Kremlin also won with several leading opposition figures sentenced to long-prison terms.

In a happy ending, Yampil the bear, rescued from a zoo in the Donetsky region after Russians killed about 200 animals, will find a home at Five Sisters Zoo in Scotland. The Asian black bear was found hiding in the wreckage, his caretakers long gone, a year ago. Emaciated from lack of food, he had been concussed from a shell exploding nearby and seemed close to death. Volunteers who discovered him named him Yampil after the village where he was found put him into a truck and drove him to safety. Veterinarian Romain Pizzi called him a gentle giant with a calm, cautious personality and “big sort of Mickey-Mouse ears.”

Yampil the village was liberated from Russian occupation in late September 2022 in a Ukrainian counteroffensive capturing key cities in the region. The bear was first taken to a Polish zoo and then to a Belgian wildlife rehabilitation center which had previously sent brown bears to the Five Sisters Zoo. Pizzi was concerned about Yampil’s mental health but found him resilient. The zoo will finish the bear’s enclosure in early 2024 where he may live for another 20 years. (Above, left: Yampil in his temporary Belgian home.)  

Five Sisters Zoo is raising £200,000 for Yampil’s new habitat. Ten percent of each donation goes to his temporary home at Natuur Hulp Centrum. Opened in 2005 between Edinburgh and Glasglow, Five Sisters Zoo has over 180 different species from around the world.

Another Derailing for Norfolk Southern, Repercussions from the One in East Palestine

On March 4, Norfolk Southern caused the fourth train derailment in Ohio within five months, this one 40 miles west of Columbus and eight miles east of Springfield. The company claims that the 28 cars going off the rails didn’t have any hazardous contents. The train was 212 cars in length. Norfolk’s CEO, Alan Shaw, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday.

Thirty days ago, another Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine (OH) on the Pennsylvania border; the disaster continues to adversely affect the area. A makeshift dam to hold wastewater collapsed last Friday after heavy rains, and residents also worry about the incineration of contaminated soil. The contaminated water could seep into homes, businesses, parks, water ducts, aquifer for drinking water, etc. Flooding was going into a popular local restaurant.  

After secret shipments of toxic soil and water was discovered in late February, federal authorities ordered a temporary halt. Some of the contaminated materials were returned to East Palestine, but they are being shipped out now. By last week, about 1.8 million gallons of hazardous liquid wastewater were sent as far as Michigan and Texas for disposal. A chart of contaminants in each derailed railcar is here.

A nearby facilities incinerating contaminated soil has a history of EPA violations. Of the 1,700 tons of solid waste removed from the site, 660 tons went to Heritage Thermal Services in East Liverpool (OH), 15 miles from East Palestine. In 2015, the EPA reported the Heritage site repeatedly exposed the community to chemicals causing cancer and miscarriages while the facility continued to operate. The EPA hasn’t tested the soil for possible toxic contaminants which do not easily incinerate. 

Norfolk’s employees have denounced the company for concerns about its cost-cutting policies and poisoning its workers by deploying them to clean up February vinyl chloride spill. Without personal protective equipment, many of them “continue to experience migraines and nausea, days after the derailment.”

Workers were also told to skip inspections, according to some employees. In leaked audio, a manager for another large railway company, Union Pacific, told an employee to stop marking cars for repair such as broken bearings because it delays other cargo. The cause of the East Palestine derailment was a wheel-bearing failure. The employee also said that she and other workers received no formal training in the inspection and repair of railcars and indicated that it is common practice among major railroad carriers. [Below right: Aftermath of East Palestine derailment.]

Other problems are the lack of regulations. Michael Sainato reported:

“Train-brake rules were rolled back under the Trump administration and have not been restored; hazardous material regulations were watered down at the behest of the railroad industry; and railroad workers have been decrying the safety impacts incited by years of staffing cuts, poor working conditions and neglect by railroad corporations in favor of Wall Street investors.”

The current average two derailments for every one million miles traveled is a seventeen-percent increase from 1.71 derailments in 2013. Of the 818 derailments reported in 2022, 447 train cars carrying hazardous materials were eighter damaged or derailed.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (Blet) national president Eddie Hall stated:

“The railroads have opposed any government regulation on train length; they have sought waivers to eliminate having trained inspectors monitor railcars; and they have pushed back on the train crew staffing rule. The railroads and their trade association the Association of American Railroads (AAR) employ armies of lobbyists on Capitol Hill who are there not to promote safety regulations but to slow the implementation of federal safety regulations—or attempt to eliminate them altogether.”

Retired locomotive engineer Jeff Kurtz said that a huge factor in increased disasters is the increased length of trains. The 150 cars on the East Palestine derailment is over twice the average length of trains operated by major railroads from 2008 to 2017. The Federal Railroad Administration has no current limit on train length.

Ohio law enforcement named activist Erin Brockovich in a warning about “terrorism” coming to her townhall meeting in East Palestine on February 24 in East Palestine where she gave advice on seeking legal assistance. Residents have already filed a class action suit against Norfolk Southern. Although people were angry about the disaster at both that event and another one when Brockovich returned on March 2, there was no violence. Fox news’ headline said that “Brockovich Torches East Palestine” but no reference to “torching” in the article.

Media, especially from the right wing, accused the Biden administration of ignoring the people of East Palestine after the disaster, going so far as to claim that it was racist and political. The town of under 5,000 is over 93 percent white, and 72 percent of voters picked DDT in 2020. Yet Republicans are dragging their feet in providing assistance for East Palestinians. When freshman Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) asked for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)-style plan to help workers and businesses because of the derailment, other GOP senators said they would wait to take any action. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) asked how to “quantify a train derailment disaster over some other kind of thing.” She has requested aid for energy, broadband, Covid, and other state problems for West Virginia. Norfolk Southern has paid very little money to care for the disaster victims and cleanup.

Republicans’ plans to remove assistance for lower-income people, disastrous for the town and the surrounding county: one-third of them are on Medicaid and almost 15 percent of them including over 5,000 children receive food stamps. The median household income is almost 25 percent under that of Ohio and 40 percent lower than in the U.S. 

Possibly from fear of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s growing political stardom, Republicans have blamed him for the train derailments. Failing at that, they ridiculed his shoes, his wearing PPE (an OSHA requirement) while at the disaster site, even sleeping on the commercial plane on his way back to Washington after he left early in the morning to get to Ohio. 

A letter from 21 House Republicans expressed confusion about Buttigieg’s responsibilities, compared to those of the independent National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and other separate agencies when they demanded “all documents and communications” about the derailing. This article explains the roles of different agencies. The letter also suggested that the Democrat’s Inflation Reduction Act, which went into effect under six months before the rail disaster, should have prevented the disaster. Missing from the letter, however, were issues of the derailment, railway dangers, cleanup, and deregulation under a GOP administration.  

After DDT claimed he wasn’t responsible for “pulling back rail regulations” (he was), Buttigieg offered DDT an opportunity to help by supporting the reversal of deregulation on DDT’s “watch.” Buttigieg suggested specifics: “higher fines, tougher regulations on safety, Congress on tying our hands on breaking rules.” DDT doesn’t talk about train disasters anymore.

Republicans made political hay by criticizing President Joe Biden for not going to the site and Buttigieg for not going soon enough. Yet, neither DDT nor his transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, visited one derailing of the 5,103 train derailments during their four years. Or none of the 44,360 train accidents, some resulting in fatalities. Or none of the 58,920 transportation-related hazardous waste leaks/spills causing 26 deaths and dozens of additional injuries. DDT did visit East Palestine as part of his campaigning for 2024 and gave away his branded water bottles which haven’t been made for 13 years. He said about the disaster, “That could have been really bad. Good thing it didn’t happen.” DDT also smeared Fox network for its lack of coverage for his visit to East Palestine and “the incompetence of the Biden Administration.”

Biden frequently calls governors of Ohio, GOP Mike DeWine, and Pennsylvania, Democratic Josh Shapiro, including from Ukraine, and agency members have gone door-to-door in East Palestine to talk about resources for the residents. Initially DeWine complained about not getting any federal help but later admitted he was wrong. At a February 25 townhall, the town’s mayor complained that he hadn’t heard from the White House until the day before although officials began failed attempts to contact the mayor from February 6.

DeWine said that “no other community should have to go through this,” but chemical accidents occur in the U.S. every two days and may be increasing. The first seven weeks of 2023 saw over 30 incidents—about one every day and a half. About 200 million people are at regular risk. The nation has almost 12,000 facilities with “extremely hazardous chemicals with particularly high accident rates for petroleum, coal manufacturing, and chemical manufacturing facilities. Disasters increased after DDT moved into the White House. In the past five years, federal inspectors found 36 percent more hazmat (hazardous materials) violations compared to the previous five years.

The map shows incidents from January 1, 2022 through January 31, 2023; red icons are for 2022 with blue since January 1, 2023.

The upside of GOP umbrage about the East Palestine is that Republicans might recognize the importance of regulations. Or maybe not.