PDB Situation Report | October 19, 2024: Will Sinwar’s Death End the Conflict in Gaza? & North Korean Troops Join Russia’s War
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Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Today, we begin with the big story, the death of Yahya Senwar, the Hamas leader who's believed to have orchestrated the brutal October 7th attacks. We'll speak with retired senior CIA operations officer and Middle East expert Doug London about what this means for the ongoing conflict.

Later in the program, we'll look into reports that North Korean troops are now fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. We'll speak with Carolina Hurd from the Institute for the Study of War to break it down. But first, our Situation Report Spotlight.

After eluding Israel forces for more than a year, reportedly hiding in the expansive tunnel network underneath Gaza while surrounding himself with Israeli hostages to deter an IDF attack on his location, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th attacks, was killed in southern Gaza. Now, in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, the IDF and the Israel security agency Shin Bet

Said Sinmar was discovered during a routine patrol by the IDF when soldiers stumbled upon three armed men. Reportedly, they exchanged fire and killed them. Israeli officials were quick to say that the discovery of Sinmar was coincidental and not based on intelligence, which, of course, is an interesting statement.

For more on the death of Yahya Sinwar, as well as the overall situation in the region, I'm very pleased to be joined by an old colleague, former senior CIA operations officer, an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. That's quite a distinguished spot, by the way. Doug London. He's also the author of a terrific book. Go out and get this if you haven't already. It's called The Recruiter, Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.

I'm proud to introduce you to my friend and former colleague, Doug London. Doug, thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's great to be with you, Mike, and with your audience. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And we'll have a contest later on where the viewers try to guess where you are currently, just based on the clues that you're giving them. Let's start with the obvious big news of the day, the termination of Yahya Sinmar. Talk to me about how impactful is this? What does it mean for Israel, for Hamas going forward?

I think it comes down most likely to the timing. You know, I think had Sinuad been killed a few weeks back, maybe a month or two back, I think it would have had more significance on Israeli politics in perhaps facilitating Netanyahu to think, OK, now I can accept a ceasefire because I can go to my country and I'd say we've gotten them all. We've gotten all the masterminds, all the leaders, you know, mission accomplished, what have you. And we can move forward with a ceasefire.

I think where we stand right now, Netanyahu has the wind at his back. I don't think he feels the need to make any sort of accommodation and seems much more inclined to pursue his military solution. Is this a situation where you think Sinwar is taken out and it's I mean, I've heard already in this in this short period of time since the news broke.

I've heard all sorts of opinions. I've heard some people say, well, this is it. They took out the head of the snake. Hamas is in disarray. As far as being an efficient, effective terrorist operation or proxy for Iran, they're done. And then I've heard other people say, look, they got a bottomless well of potential folks to take up the headroom. Where do you stand on that? I mean, really, how impactful do you think his departure is?

Like all leadership decapitation that we've seen, particularly in our own war of terror, there is always a bench. I think the results of the fighting is going to move Hamas regardless to a more asymmetrical plane as opposed to fighting like a uniform organized militia. That was bound to happen anyway. A lot of the senior leaders are gone, but Sinwa represented the military side.

There's also still a political side. Khalid Mishal is still out there. Ali Baraka is still out there, but they're not really military type. So those who sort of studied at Stiglitz's knee are still there. They're going to be younger. They're going to probably be more radical. They have less to lose. So I do not see them stopping their fight, but I see them transitioning by necessity to perhaps more of an insurgency or more of an asymmetrical approach.

Okay, that's actually very interesting. But do you think that there's a possibility here that as a result of this latest development, there is a ceasefire

And somehow Israel agrees to allow Hamas play a continuing governing role in Gaza. I see very little likelihood Israel would allow Hamas to play an official role, which has been one of the obstacles throughout the negotiations for Hamas wanting to still have a role. I think Israel does have much more flexibility now to go ahead and accept a ceasefire or maybe not push for all the more, you know,

decisive conditions they wanted for an end of Hamas because they can. But I don't really see anyone within Hamas on the military side. And that's those people still in Gaza willing to make that accommodation. I think Khalid Michelle, if he takes over the political duties, Ali Baraka might. But these are guys who are outside and they're more they're in the political side and they would have to still get the agreement of whoever is still running the show in Gaza itself.

From an operational perspective, what do you make of, if anything, what do you make of the statements that Israel came out with shortly after they confirmed his death, that this had nothing to do with an intelligence operation, that they just stumbled across these three individuals and one of them happened to be Sinmore?

Well, it might very well be true. I mean, if you want to be conspiratorial, you could suggest that Israel is trying to minimize any credit they have to give to the United States for having private intelligence, because we've seen the president, we've seen the second state very publicly confirm we are providing information on those who are mutually wanted. Because remember, Sinwa was also indicted by the FBI, a

along with Marwan Issa, Muhammad Deef, all those who were involved in plotting them. So the United States were after them as well. And the United States was very openly saying, yeah, we are providing intelligence because we have the authorities to go after these people ourselves. So if you want to be conspiratorial, you can think maybe the Israelis are graying it. I think it's just as likely they did stumble upon him sort of by accident.

Yeah, that's very interesting. Again, we live in a time, right, where everybody's got a theory and because they've got a phone, everybody's got a bit of a loudspeaker. So there's been already a variety of ideas out there. And, you know, as we always do, we encourage people to just take a deep breath, you know, and we'll get details as they play out. But I think with what's happened at this stage of the game, again,

Where do you see the Iranian regime? When we're talking about what Hamas is going to do, I don't know how you disconnect that from what the Iranian regime wants Hamas to do. Or maybe I'm wrong here. I'm happy to be wrong at times. I'm not really happy about it. But...

How much of a role, how much leverage, how much influence, decision-making do you attribute to the Iranian regime and the IRGC as opposed to Hamas and their own personnel and leadership? Iran plays a significant facilitating role with Hamas in terms of providing materials, training, guidance,

and counterintelligence and such. But Hamas has always been a fairly bit more autonomous, more independent than, for example, Hezbollah, which is really attached at the hip to the IRGC and Iranian intelligence. I think we've seen lots of public suggestions that the Iranians had some hint that Hamas was planning something big, were reluctant to get totally involved, were sort of noncommittal. And Hamas, likewise, was being a little bit, you know,

limited in terms of what they were telling the Iranians, expecting they might have to go it themselves. So I believe the Iranians exert significant influence, but I think when it comes to Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen, they don't have full control, or as full control as they do over the likes of

And I would think they even have more influence when it comes to the Iraqi Shia paramilitary groups there that they fund, train, and guide a lot more intimately than they do Hamas. And don't forget as well, and I know a lot of folks in your audience realize, the Iranians are Shia. I mean, that's what they are, that's what the government is. And they're a Shia revolutionary regime. Hamas is Sunni. And in fact, it's an outshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

which is a political, we can call it a radical group. We've seen it in Egypt behind a lot of those riots, behind the killing of Anwar Sadat and such like that. So they are not totally tied together, not religiously as they are, but they're good bedfellows, right? And they have mutual interests. For the benefit of our viewers, Doug, talk a little bit about

How much time? It's been a lot of time. How much time have you been working and focused and dealing with the Middle East? Since the early 1980s, when we came in together, that was my home and my first options of fire. And I stayed largely tethered to that region for the next four decades.

And, you know, I've worked these targets, you know, targeted the Hezbollah folks that were ultimately eliminated by the Israelis and those who preceded them. I, you know, cooperated and partnered with a lot of the governments out there, including the Israelis and all the Arab governments. So, you know, I know the folks out there and I understand where they're coming from. And it's a different.

mindset than we might take here in the United States. And we've got to be cautious when we think about what's going on, not to apply our logic, because, you know, the cycle of violence is fueled by a whole lot of baggage and a whole lot of blood feuds and memories and scars that don't just go back decades. They go back centuries and beyond. And finding the most practical way out is going to be tough. And likewise with the Iranians,

They're sort of in their own way between a rock and a hard place that they're a revolutionary regime. They've got to stay revolutionary and these revolutionary groups and these terrorist groups, they have to maintain their posture as resistance groups for credibility. So while it might seem logical for them to take something out, it might be difficult for them from a face-saving or political way to do so. Yeah. This is a simplistic question probably, but that's my favorite kind.

All that time, all that experience dealing with this region, has it made you...

more cynical? Has it made you somewhat optimistic that there is a solution for some, what do you want to call it, midterm, long-term peace or stability? Or has it made you into a cynic in that regard? You know, I think the great thing about our profession, or I don't know if it's great or sometimes exhausting, you've got to be totally passionate and absolutely clinical all at the same time.

So while you have your passion and your likes and dislikes and whatever, you can't be effective as a spy, as an intel officer, unless you're being detached enough from what you feel and your sentiments to kind of understand from an empathetic point of view, from the eyes of those who are living there, how do they see it?

What are they going to be influenced by and what they're going to do? So, you know, I'm always hopeful. I think a good spy is always hopeful because we're always grinding, always trying to find that nugget, that additional nugget of information that's going to change our path, that's going to give us a new option, right? But at the same time, you've got to be resistant to being drawn into it and being too hopeful and being too optimistic. And yet,

protect yourself from too much cynicism because you got to find some, you know, golden means as Aristotle say to spread that middle. Yeah, I give you credit. I think my time in beat the optimism out of me. And so I, I find that I find I tend to be a combination of pragmatism and cynicism. Uh,

which is not necessarily a happy place, I don't think at times, because I admire your ability to maintain some level of positivity and optimism in this region. I want to talk, when we come back, we've got some terrific sponsors. We're going to need to

to take a break here in a second. But when we come back, I want to talk about a couple of things. I want to talk about the pager and handheld radio operation that they engaged in. And I also want to talk about Doug's great book, The Recruiter, Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence. But Doug, if you'll stay right there, we'll be right back.

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Good friend, former colleague and author of a great book, The Recruiter, Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence. Doug London. Doug, thanks for sticking with us, man. I really appreciate it. I've read some interesting things that you've written, in particular following the pager and handheld radio operation that took place.

with Hezbollah not that long ago. And I wanted to get your take on it. I wanted to get your take on sort of the complexity of it all, the abilities of Mossad and Israeli intelligence in general, and also the utility of it. I mean, you know, I almost got the sense, you know, from one in particular, one thing that you'd written that you thought, okay, well, maybe, you know, why the timing now when there is

there's still Intel to be collected. There's still value in not pushing the button and advising Cazabala just how deep that penetration was. So I know that's a wide playing field. There's a lot of questions there. I'm just going to hand it over to you and say, go. Yeah. Thanks for that. No, first off, it's an amazing success story and the ability of an Intel service to identify the weaknesses in a supply chain, right?

Hezbollah has to get a lot of its technology, a lot of its material items outside the country and it's sanctioned. It's a terrorist organization as well as a political party. So it has to do things in that gray market. So for the Israelis to succeed, they first have to identify

how uh you know his bala is operating their own supply chains just in general and they're going to do it through their diaspora lebanese business community around the world is famous for being involved in all various sorts of import export business and of course among those are going to be

operative. So that is a good place for any service to start. I know we've started there as well. And the Israelis had to narrow down who the main points were in that supply chain. But then they had to figure out what Hezbollah was looking for precisely. And then they had to find a means to introduce those items to

through a cover, right? Through having some backstop, and by backstop I mean some mechanism where some person playing a representative, representing a company, whatever, had something behind him at least sufficient enough to withstand scrutiny. But his baller, which has a great CI service, they really do,

I can only go so far because they can't talk to other governments, they can't go on Interpol, right? So they have to do their due diligence a little bit as well on the gray side. That's where the Israeli success was key in doing that. And whether they actually fabricated these devices themselves, because they're all knockoffs, right, of these pagers and walkie talkies, or bought legitimately made ones or legitimately knockoffs, if you would, and modify them, I don't think that's clear.

My commentary, which maybe now we have a little bit more 20-20 hindsight, was that you go through all this work, you have that tremendous success of getting the supply chain, you've got basically walking, talking GPS locators. You can map out everyone in Hezbollah who has a pager, everywhere they go, and then what other pagers they're

co-located with. You start creating who's who. You add the walkie-talkies, which is going to give you audio. You're going to capture those conversations. You could have probably even put more devices in the pages to make them into cell phones, if you would, and they could be transmitted. So my thought was that if they went through all this in a premeditated way, just to blow them up, unless they were going to immediately follow a self-offensive, may not have been as worthwhile. And

I think we would have held on until, by grim death, until every last one was found because every device is still working and giving you intel.

I think the Israelis planned it in depth, as I think we've seen it unfold, that it was all interconnected. This wasn't haphazard. They planned the devices to explode. They wanted to throw the operation into chaos. They had a lot of tracking data to go on. They had already patterns of life of the people they were going to hit thereafter. They already had their military offensive up north to follow through on. So I think now, as we kind of see it weeks later,

Okay, I still might have advocated doing a little bit different because I like Intel, but at least it makes a bit more sense of how they approached it that way.

I think it's, I mean, there's still a lot of speculation over to why the timing. But I agree with you. I mean, it's like having a well-placed source, right? It's a sort of the difference between the intel operations and a law enforcement operation where you're, you know, law enforcement operations, sometimes your sources are one and done. You know, you don't mind burning them. It's a very specific one-off task.

But in the Intel world, you tend to look at, hopefully, we're looking at the long-term value of any asset or any source or any operation. So it is fascinating. This is one of those questions I think that people probably hate. That's why I'm going to throw it out at you.

looking, let's give it past the election, let's give it past the inauguration, let's go, say, six months from now. Do we have a ceasefire in Gaza? And to what degree does that influence then what happens up north with Hezbollah? I guess this kind of ties into the earlier question about your optimism and how you view the region. But if you were a betting man and you had to put money on this region,

Do you think we get a ceasefire in the near future? Yeah, I'm not really optimistic. I think some of the statements coming out of the White House, Jake Sullivan has been. There's sort of this renewed optimism suggesting, well, now that Tinhua is dead, Netanyahu can claim victory. We can get our ceasefire. But I think we've crossed the Rubicon here where Netanyahu doesn't really see any constructive road to a ceasefire. Why does he need it?

I think having lived in known this area for a long, long time. I think they need another way out. I don't think they're going to destroy their threats. They're going to. Find themselves in a constant state of war for a very long time because they've eliminated any.

compromises any sort of peaceful brokering of coexistence. But Netanyahu feels, and he's correct, he has the upper hand right now to continue striking militarily, to continue degrading, and he will. He's degrading Hezbollah. He's degrading Hamas. He's not destroying them. And we still haven't seen the other shoe fall when it comes to the Iran-Israel dynamic. Israel still plans retaliation.

They said, we've seen in the press, that they're not going to target the nuclear facilities. They're not going to target the oil, the energy facilities, as the United States has asked them not to. But where does that take us on the escalation ladder? If they strike, will Iran feel compelled to then escalate themselves and strike back? So I think, again, as I said earlier, a few weeks earlier, maybe a month or two, yeah, I think we'd be looking at a much better set of conditions.

for a ceasefire that would work for everybody. He's already said we won't stop shooting rockets until there's a ceasefire in Gaza. So they're kind of committed to that stance, right? Hamas has said we're not going to accept the ceasefire until Israel agrees to withdraw militarily. Netanyahu doesn't feel he has to, even though his own military is kind of saying, yeah, but what's our tomorrow solution? Are we going to be here forever? So

I think there's less political pressure, though, on Netanyahu now as there were a few weeks ago. There's no protest anymore. They've all gone. I mean, how are they going to protest the man who's killing all their enemies, even though it might be setting it up for sort of these longer term conversations?

consequences that are going to keep them fighting. People on both sides of the border, from what we see from some of the press coverage, say, we just want a sense of normalcy back. And that's coming from Israelis and Lebanese alike, and the Palestinians are who in Gaza. But the people who are making the decisions are generally being served well, at least

Israel and Netanyahu and whoever is leading the military fight in Gaza is being served by these circumstances. So in that regard, I'm not terribly optimistic. I don't rule it out. There's going to be a new president one way or another. That's going to impact the dynamics among all the players, all the players here, all the stakeholders. And, you know, for better or worse, it might it might give some of the players more reason to take a compromise while they can.

before they think, okay, this could maybe get worse if we don't take a deal while we can take one. Yeah. Well, on that cheery note, another question would be if, I mean, there are some people who are saying, look, Israel is in a unique position right now or in a unique moment when it comes to the Iranian regime. And that

And I'll be honest, I don't remember in my time ever seeing quite so much daylight between Israel and the US.

in a certain way, I think you could argue the Iranian regime. And it's always been, oh, they're looking for that. They want that daylight. They want to create friction and division between those two nations. But in a sense, it may not be turning out the best thing for them if Netanyahu has made that decision that, look, we're just in a moment here. This is a national security issue. We have to make the decision.

So there are some people who argue that, look, now's the time. If you're going to go after the Iranian regime, if you're going to go after their nuclear facilities, if you're going to really make an impact that could eventually, who knows? I mean, this is talk about being optimistic, the idea of the Iranian population rising up and saying enough is enough. But to take that moment in time to strike at the regime in a very hard manner, unlike what the White House has been pushing for, do you see any value utility in that?

Well, the question is, what's the strategic aim here? What do we hope to achieve? Do we hope to achieve conducting operations of a sort that we think will force the Iranian people to rise up against the regime and that they would be successful? That would be, if you would, the most interesting strategical. We could do a whole lot of damage, but will we undermine the regime?

My inclination is we won't. I think you're spot on. I think Netanyahu thinks it's never going to get better than this. I'm never going to have the best opportunity. Iran's at its weakest. The United States is constrained from putting pressure on me. It's a couple weeks out from election. What the hell are they going to do anyway? And I think on the Iranian side, again, you hit the nail on the head, they don't want daylight because they want the United States to exercise its influence because it's been American influence. I think that is kept...

Israel from going after the nuclear sites over, you know, missling them or whatever. But I think some of that's because it wouldn't end the program. I think we concluded from an intelligence point of view that the way it had been decentralized, buried, secured, we would damage it. We wouldn't stop it. And in fact, we might give them more reason to accelerate a weapons program.

And in Iran, we've been hearing for over 40 years, our careers, right? And before then, that any day now, those people are going to rise up any day now. They're not, because that's just, they're not

It's not in their nature to take on a regime that has really beaten the hell out of them and that's supported by the poor. Yeah, the progressives, the educated, the middle class, the people that we in the West might identify with, yeah, they were in the Green Movement. They'll be out there rioting. They're the ones that are getting arrested and killed. But the greater population of Iran, it's 90 million people, right, is the poor, and the poor is actually benefited through the IRGC.

And then, and not to take your audience too much in the weeds, the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they're not as homogeneous anymore either. They've got a lot of divisions of the old guard, the new guard. So I think there's a lot of young Turks, so to speak, there who are angling for blood, who are straddling this thing and want to go after it. And you've got a leader in Ali Khamenei who's 85, he's had prostate surgery, he

He's had a bowel and pet. I mean, this guy's had all sorts of problems. His succession plan was wild when Raisi, the former president, was killed in a helicopter accident. And he's trying to figure out a legacy plan that the IRGC will buy into and sustain after he's gone. So, you know, they're not really anxious to go forward, but I think they're going to because they're going to be pushed and dragged into and they're not going to worry about their population.

And I don't see us being able to get those people to really take it to the regime and be successful. No, that's fascinating, Doug. Look, in the time that we've got left, I wanted to pivot real quickly to talk about your book, The Recruiter, Buying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence. Tell me what drove you to write it. Why did you write it? And what do you want people to get out of it?

Yeah, I wrote the book at the end of, you know, my long journey that we all took. And I guess I had my own sort of issues I wanted to work out. But mostly it was, you know, my career was sort of equally folded over not, you know, the Cold War and post 9-11, about 17 plus years on either side. And the agency was extremely good at find, fix and finish throughout the war on terror. But it had started to lose a bit of its

Posture as an elite spy service. We were losing a bit of our edge when it came to the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians and the North Koreans. And we were, in some ways, I fear, becoming an extension, another arm of the military. Really good at what we were doing, but maybe losing focus on the intelligence threat.

That's really what drove me to write the book, to try to say, here's what spying's really like, to give the reader as best as the CIA would allow me, because this was reviewed and cleared after whatever number of redactions. This is what life is really like for a spy. This is what it's like for an agent. This is how the business goes. Everything from the work on the streets to trying to raise a family while living undercover and pretending to be something you're not, that your kids don't even know what's going on, but they're buying into it.

There's a reason we do that. We make those sacrifices because we do some really impactful work. I were worried we were losing our edge to do stuff. I think we as a country have been forced to kind of get back into that. We talk strategic competition, right? Great power competition.

Kind of like more of a model of the Cold War, where the difference was not killing people, but getting the secret so that we could prevent the Russians, the Chinese, and our other existential threats from posing a life-ending threat to us here. And I think we've seen some of that luster come back a bit.

Since we've been dealing with Russia over Ukraine, dealing with President Xi and China and his ambitions, these days we declassify a lot of intel. But if we're declassifying intel, that means we're getting some secrets again. And we're getting secrets, obviously, through all the many capabilities we have.

but also by people, spies who are in the Kremlin and in Beijing and elsewhere who are telling us what's going on, giving us context what's going on. So that's what drove me to write the book. I'd like to think the agency has come around to make some of those changes. And I'd like to think readers will get a real understanding of, you know, while you might certainly look more like the part of the spy and James Bourne and stuff like that, you know, our work is being out of the spotlight.

And living a life where we develop some super intimate relations and not intimate from physical, but from a really deep, profound, soulful way with people to get them to partner with us, take those risks and tell secrets that make differences to Americans that they don't realize are going on. But this is what's going on when they go to sleep at night.

It's excellent. The book, again, is called The Recruiter, Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence. I encourage the tens of millions of rabid PDB situation report viewers

to go out i don't know if people go out to bookstores anymore but wherever you get your books from get a copy of this book uh you won't regret it doug uh doug london former senior cia operations officer author georgetown university professor man about town listen thank you very much for for joining us and i hope when we call again you'll come back again my great pleasure mike super to see you and i'm always at your disposal take care man i'll talk to you soon hopefully

Well, all right. Come here. What a great guy and a tremendous experience. Coming up after the break, new reports indicate North Korean troops, get this, could be joining forces on the front lines in Ukraine. North Korean troops being sent by Putin's buddy Kim Jong-un fighting side by side with Russian forces. We'll explore the impact on the conflict and Kiev's response with Carolina Hurt from the Institute for the Study of War. Stay with us.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. This week, we're getting more insight into North Korea's direct role in the war in Ukraine, with reports suggesting that Pyongyang may be sending troops to fight alongside Russian forces. Now, although the exact numbers are unclear, one Western diplomatic source claims that up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers could be heading to the front lines.

In an address to Ukraine's parliament, President Zelensky warned lawmakers of an, quote, increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea. He emphasized that this is no longer just about weapons transfers. It's about North Korea sending its soldiers to join the invading military forces.

Well, naturally, the Kremlin is denying these reports. Really? That's a surprise. Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, dismissed the claims, calling them a, quote, informational canard. Oh, well, look who's been listening to word of the day. Well done, Dmitry. For more on this, let me bring in the Russia deputy team lead and analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, Karolina Hurt. Karolina, thanks very much for joining us today on The Situation Report. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Of course. Let's start with this. What do you make of this reporting that indicates that up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers could well already be in Russia receiving some training, only to be then deployed to the front lines in Ukraine? Do you think the intel there is credible? I think that it's important to situate this in a little bit of historical context because we actually started seeing

the precursors of this back in the fall of 2023. We started seeing more intensified discussions between the North Koreans and the Russians, including a visit by Kim to Russia. And then, of course, Putin visited North Korea.

this year. And we've seen kind of this intensification of rhetoric and diplomacy between the two sides. Of course, then the ammunition came. There's the reports of the ballistic missiles that are actually actively being used in Ukraine. And now the basically relevation that there are troops training in Russia.

I do think that it is credible because the North Koreans have been very, very eager to learn from Russia militarily. We've seen exchanges between high-level military university officials and sort of knowledge transfer type of exchanges. And all of that to say that I would not be surprised if troops start arriving at least in the front line in the border area of the Kursk Oblast incursion.

I think that that is most likely where Putin is going to be deploying North Korean troops if he is deploying them. And this is an important part of the puzzle because Putin does not want to call a general mobilization. He does not want to risk the social upheaval of mobilizing Russian society. And he appears more willing to absorb and integrate

foreign troops in order to free up manpower instead of using actual Russian mobilization. So all of that to say, I think it's important to remember kind of how we got here, when this started, and it is a continuation of the path that North Korea and Russia have been on since at least fall of 2023, and is very conducive to Putin's larger

fourth generation calculus in a lot of ways. Of course, we can't confirm the numbers, but I think patterns and indicators are very much matching in this case.

Yeah, it's fascinating because there have been other recent tidbits and little pieces of reporting that have come out. They've talked about six North Korean officers who reportedly were killed in a missile strike that they identified. They're talking about now maybe upwards of almost two dozen North Korean soldiers defecting. They were reportedly about four miles from the Ukraine border. They were in the Kursk region.

and took the opportunity to defect.

which tells me that those particular soldiers had some level of common sense. You've got the idea that Kim Jong-un definitely would like to see his troops get some real world battlefield experience. And you've got, as you pointed out, you've got the manpower issues that Putin's facing. So you put all that together and it lends credibility to this reporting that you've got a larger number of troops either

either in Russia getting training or about to be sent, whatever it may be. But I mean, I suppose in reality, you then have to ask, well, how impactful can that be? How much of a game changer is that if Kim Jong-un is willing to do this bizarre gift exchange with his bro Putin? I think that's a fair question. And as with pretty much everything we've seen in this war,

there is no one golden bullet solution, either for the Ukrainians or for the Russians, to completely turn the tide of the war. So if Putin is committing North Korean soldiers to the front line, that doesn't mean that they meet all of their operational objectives immediately. But my assessment would be that if Putin is going to commit North Korean soldiers anywhere, it would be to repel the ongoing incursion Kursk Oblasts,

And that would basically free up if they repel that incursion. And then also if they're using however many North Korean troops it is to free to repel that incursion, they freed up potentially tens of thousands of Russian troops to go back to Ukraine and continue pursuing the offensive operations that they have in Ukraine.

So it's a little bit more of these trade-offs and these balances within Putin's force structure than really counting on a contingent of North Korean soldiers to quote unquote win the war for Russia. That's never going to be the case. That also wasn't the case with the ammunition or the missiles. It's part of a larger arsenal that fits into the larger strategic calculus.

Yeah, again, I think Putin, look, he doesn't stay afloat. He doesn't survive. He certainly doesn't win in Ukraine without the support that he's been getting from North Korea and obviously Iran and China as well. They have kept his war machine moving forward. And there's been very credible reporting over the past couple of years about the degree to which North Korea has been providing munitions. But I think this...

idea of thousands of North Korean troops, it's a bit of a shock to a lot of people who have just kind of been watching from a distance with what's happening. I don't think they imagined that that would be the next step that would take place. But it is, again, it is logical when, as you pointed out, you consider the danger that Putin faces from enacting another conscription, for example. And the last thing he can afford to do is to upset the population. Again,

Again, I've always been amazed, Carolina, at the ability of the Russian population to suffer. And I think that the West has oftentimes misunderstood that or not appreciated it enough. So, but anyway, let's, before I disappear down that rabbit hole,

Winter is fast approaching. There's a brilliant statement on my part. Winter is fast approaching. You don't get comments like this from every other podcast. So with that being the case, what do you envision? Where do you think this conflict goes over the course of the next few months? Yeah. So as you very succinctly pointed out, winter is coming in the words of Game of Thrones, right? But that actually does have battlefield impacts, right?

not winter in and out of itself, but actually the fall and the fall rainy and muddy season, which in Ukraine is called Rasputitsya. And the muddy season is important because it really inhibits mechanized maneuver. And this expectation and the understanding of this fast approaching muddy season is actually already impacting what we're seeing on the battlefield because it appears as though the Russian command

is currently trying to prioritize mechanized advances in lots of different areas of the front in order to basically push forward and make tactical gains, as many tactical gains as possible, before the onset of this more challenging weather. We've seen this in the Kursk Oblast area. We've seen this throughout northern and eastern Ukraine. This is very much a dynamic that is impacting the Russian operational calculus right now.

So we've seen kind of an uptick in these mechanized assaults around specifically Pokrovsk. That's the big direction, though that has slowed down a little bit. But Pokrovsk and then the area south of Pokrovsk, referred to as the Hurakova direction, we're seeing a higher pace of attacks in this area as it appears the Russian command is really trying to push

through, push tactical gains through before it becomes muddy and difficult for vehicles to move and transport infantry and basically support mechanized advance. Also, I guess the benefit of having observed this war for a few years now, this is kind of the dynamic we've seen that right before the muddy season hits, both in the fall and the spring, we see kind of this uptick in this push to get through

to be able to really leverage mechanized advances while they still can. And that's very much defining Kharkiv Oblast, the Kursk effort, and the Donbas right now. Yeah, it's a bit of a war story as old as time, right? I mean, it's the weather impact on fighting, and it's always been an issue for, well, going back

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Russia Deputy Team Leader and Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, Carolina Heard. Carolina, thanks again for being with us today on the Situation Report. Let's talk a bit about this push by President Zelensky to get approval or authority, however you want to refer to it, from the White House in the U.S. to

use long range munitions to attack Russian military targets inside Russia. Where do you think that effort's going? Is he going to be successful? So I think the last time I was on this podcast, this is actually exactly the thing that we were talking about. And the fact that the American policy has not changed since I was last on the podcast, I think is quite telling. We've seen this dynamic, unfortunately, time and time again, where the

the U.S., the West, but a lot of time, like the U.S. administration is kind of keeping Ukraine on a starvation diet in terms of changing policy in the way that Ukraine needs it to be changed. It seems as though this is a really, really firm line for the administration, despite Ukraine's pleas basically to have this capability and also the very wide range of research showing that this capability is very much needed for Ukraine's war effort.

Ukraine's ability to inflict asymmetric costs on Russia by using these long range systems to strike ammunition depots, air bases, stuff like that. It is incredibly important. We've seen how important it is, but it just seems to be something that the administration isn't budging on. And frankly, my answer to your question is that we haven't seen any change since I was last here talking to you about this a few months ago.

Yeah, well, it's the circle of life. We're going to have you on every couple of months. We're going to talk. I'm going to ask you the same question, and we're going to realize eventually that Washington, D.C. exists on inertia and not making decisions. If I could, give me your assessment of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian military's efforts

with the drone attacks and other efforts to target, again, minus the ability to use US munitions going inside Russia and attacking military targets, but their own efforts to date now in trying to target Russian energy infrastructure and other facilities. Yeah, so it goes back to this. So one of the components of Ukraine's theory of victory is this idea of generating asymmetric impacts.

Ukraine has an equipment and a manpower deficit in comparison to Russia. So it has to basically get creative in inflicting costs on Russia with its inferior manpower, equipment, etc. One of those ways is technological innovation and drone warfare and these long range, very creative drone strikes into Russia is one part of that equation.

And we've seen the costs of Russians losing, for example, fuel or lubricant depots that they need to supply their troops in frontline positions to keep their vehicles running. We've seen the cost of that. We've also seen the chaos that is inflicted when Ukraine strikes command nodes, for example, using drones back in the Russian sphere. So stuff like that is really important and it has almost immediate tactical to operational level impacts.

When we're talking about generating more strategic level impact, that's when those long range strikes come into play. Because unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with a drone, an aircraft type drone,

that you've rigged to go strike an airfield a thousand miles from Ukraine. That's obviously important for Ukraine to be able to do. That's an important capability. But it's one small part of a larger arsenal of capabilities that Ukraine does need to basically level this up from tactical to operational impacts to strategic level impacts. This is probably a difficult question to answer, and it's a bit of a soft science, I realize. But

What's your perspective, what's your assessment on the current mood of the population in Ukraine and the current mood or morale, whatever you want to refer to it as, of the population in Russia when it comes to this ongoing conflict? So from what we can tell,

in both the Ukrainian and Russian cases, but for very different reasons. The mood has not necessarily changed. Ukrainian sociological surveys are very much still putting high levels of public trust in Zelensky. They haven't really changed over the course of this year.

I think that as however, so 18% of Ukrainian territory still remains under Russian occupation. That's a non-negotiable for the majority of Ukrainians. They understand that the lives of people suffering under occupation is a non-negotiable, not to mention the ideas of sovereignty, national identity, all of that. That isn't budging. And we've seen that consistently on the Ukrainian side. Of course, we're going into year...

three of this war, people are exhausted. But that exhaustion does not necessarily equate to complicity or despondence. I would not say that the majority of Ukrainians are kind of despondent or giving up.

at least from what I can tell from the surveys that I've been reading and that sort of thing. And also just from, you know, knowing Ukrainians and speaking to Ukrainians. The flip side of that is that Russian society remains largely apathetic. Putin has actually been quite skilled at siloing the impacts of the war in specific communities. So large portions of his constituency aren't really feeling the impacts of the war in a meaningful way. And

That's kind of why we're not seeing these mass efforts of resistance in Russia, because the majority of the population can remain apathetic. They can go about their daily lives. They can go to work, feed their families, that sort of thing. And we've seen very much almost the same consistency on the Russian side of

maybe not being pro or anti-war, but just as long as it's not impacting their day-to-day lives, it doesn't matter to them. I think that's probably the sentiment of the average person living in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Of course, there are certain communities that are bearing the brunt of the war much more disproportionately than others. But Putin has very much set up his governance structure in such a way that these communities don't really have the sway on the rest of Russian society in a way to make a meaningful difference. So in Ukraine, you see kind of commitment to the continuance of the cause, the continuance of the liberation of the Ukrainian people. On the Russian side, you're still seeing mass social apathy, I'd say.

With that, if that's the case, if the Russian population in general terms, realizing it's a sweeping statement, is agnostic or apathetic, and if Putin is continuing to stay afloat, thanks to the largesse of Xi Jinping in China and Kim Jong-un and the Iranian regime, what

what leads him to look for an off-ramp? I guess I'm looking for some logical endgame here on either side, right? Because the thought of this going on for another two or three or four years, I think is enormously depressing to most of the international community, not to mention costly in terms of lives and resources. But what

what would be the motivation, given what we're talking about, for Putin to say, let's put a bow on it and wrap this up? So that sort of rhetoric or thinking

We have not seen that from Putin yet. He has never once in the years leading up to the war or during the prosecution of the war signaled a change in his intent for Ukraine. His intent remains the complete conquest of Ukraine.

That has never changed. Of course, that hasn't gone the way that he's wanted it to on the day-to-day or year-to-year basis, but that objective remains the same. And we see that rhetorical and ideological continuity in Putin's rhetoric himself, and then also the rhetoric of his enablers, his regime. The way that Russian forces are fighting is

in Ukraine proves that this is their basically theory of victory, right? The objective is the conquest of Ukraine. They believe that if they can basically keep, for lack of a better word, nibbling away at the front line, making these very small tactical gains, capturing rural settlements at a time, they can outlast the support for the Western support for Ukraine, maybe even outlast Ukraine

Ukraine's support for the territories that Russia occupies and win that way. There is no off-ramp for Russia. Russia's goal remains the same. Putin's goal remains the same. It is really a matter of whether the West continues to provide Ukraine with the actual material support it needs or if it basically shoehorns Ukraine into making negotiations. But Putin is not looking for an off-ramp. He's looking for...

the conquest of Ukraine. And that has never changed. Never in his public addresses, in his private pre-war writings. It's all been very consistent. It's fascinating. I mean, we have the luxury of being able to sit far away and say that's fascinating. But

When you look at that and you think about what Putin's motivation is, and clearly he believes, it seems, that if he can just keep his population, you know, apathetic or agnostic, and he can maintain the support from his small cadre of, you know, like-minded regimes, members of the evil league of evil, then he can outlast the West.

Because in part, the calculation would seem to be that the West is only willing to go so far, right, to keep Ukraine in the game, but, you know, not do what it takes to perhaps win. Now, that leads me to this last question, which is, do you see...

a situation where Ukraine could win. Because it seems like there's been a drumbeat here recently. I think it kind of came in the wake of the Kursk incursion, where they took some Russian territory. But there were a number of pundits and regional observers talking about, we just need to get over the line here, give Ukraine enough to win.

Where do you stand on it? Do you think that's a realistic view? Or is Ukraine looking at just getting to a point where they can get a negotiated settlement that's bearable? I think that Ukraine absolutely can win. And there are a few factors on which that is contingent. One of them, unfortunately, is Western support. Ukraine is doing a lot to build up its domestic defense industrial base, do the forced generation activities.

maneuvers basically that it needs to do to build out its domestic force, there are certain things that it is still relying on the West. So Ukraine can win, but it can't win without the West in this current state, right? The other thing that I think actually will enable Ukraine to win is the actual very real fact that Russia is not a bottomless pit of manpower and equipment, as I think there's a very common pervasive mythos in the West suggesting that

you know, the myth of the Red Horde, the Red Army will never stop coming, or that Russia has a endless supply of tanks. That's actually not true. We've seen since October of last year, October 2023, Russia has lost the equivalent of five divisions worth of equipment

in attacks in the Pokrovsk area, right? As they were trying to take Avdivka, as they were trying to advance past that. Five divisions of equipment as verified by open source analysts. That equipment cannot just regenerate out of thin air. Their defense industrial base is firing on all cylinders, but that runs out at some point. So Ukraine can win. Ukraine can win if the West provides it with the support it needs to get over this hump, at which point

It basically is able to surmount the point of Russian, I guess, diminishing returns, if you want to think about it that way. The point at which Russia actually cannot continue to support itself with weapons, equipment, and manpower as well.

Also, Ukraine's ability to inflict very difficult strategic decisions on Russia also factors into that, is also part of the theory of victory, right? The attack into Kursk, Ukraine's ability to continue long-range strikes on Russian assets in the Russian rear, that's also part of what it will take for Ukraine to win. But yes, absolutely, Ukraine can win. Russia

cannot keep doing this forever. And as long as Ukraine maintains the support that it needs, I really truly believe that it can get over this hump into 2025, 2026. Yeah, well, and on that optimistic or somewhat optimistic note, I will say I hope that we're not having this conversation

yeah, three years down the road. So I hope that there is some opportunity for that to happen. But again, I tend to be a bit of a cynical individual. But when we call you back, I hope you'll come back. And I promise to not keep asking you when we're going to find that off ramp. Carolina Heard, Russian deputy team lead, analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. Listen,

Thank you again. You picked up the phone. You said, hey, I'm willing to come back. I hope you'll do that the next time we call. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having me. And I'll absolutely be back next time you call me. Outstanding. Take care. Thank you. All right. Well, listen, that's all the time we have for the PDB Situation Report. If you have any questions for me that you'd like me to address on the air, well, you know, reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. The mailroom at the PDB's global corporate headquarters.

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