“Senior White House figures privately told Israel that the U.S. would support its decision to ramp up military pressure against Hezbollah — even as the Biden administration publicly urged the Israeli government in recent weeks to curtail its strikes, according to American and Israeli officials.
Presidential adviser Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, told top Israeli officials in recent weeks that the U.S. agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad strategy to shift Israel’s military focus to the north against Hezbollah in order to convince the group to engage in diplomatic talks to end the conflict, the officials told POLITICO.
Not everyone in the administration was on board with Israel’s shift, despite support inside the White House, the officials said. The decision to focus on Hezbollah sparked division within the U.S. government, drawing opposition from people inside the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community who believed Israel’s move against the Iran-backed militia could drag American forces into yet another Middle East conflict.”
“Russia has received shipments of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran, US officials confirmed on Tuesday, warning that these weapons could be used against Ukrainian cities within weeks.
The delivery marks the latest transfer of foreign weapons to Russia as it continues to rely on other pariah states like Iran and North Korea for military support to fuel its ongoing war efforts in Ukraine.”
“North Korea’s provision of weapons has strengthened Russia’s hand in Ukraine by allowing it to keep its arsenals stocked at home, Germany’s top military official said during a visit to South Korea on Monday.
Chief of Defence General Carsten Breuer said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have reached out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for weapons if they were not useful.
“It’s about increasing the production of weapons for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, it’s also strengthening Russia by making it possible for them to keep their stocks like they are,” Breuer told reporters in the South Korean capital Seoul.
Ukraine and the United States, among other countries and independent analysts, say that Kim is helping Russia in the war against Ukraine by supplying rockets and missiles in return for economic and other military assistance from Moscow.
North Korea has shipped at least 16,500 containers of munitions and related materiel to Russia since September last year, and Russia had launched more than 65 of those missiles at targets in Ukraine, Robert Koepcke, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, said in a speech last week.
Moscow and Pyongyang have denied direct arms transfers, which would violate United Nations embargoes.”
“Iran recently transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to use in the war against Ukraine, according to two sources familiar with the intelligence, completing a delivery that US and Western officials had warned was in the works for almost a year.
It is not clear when exactly the missiles were delivered, but their transfer comes as Russia has intensified its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and as Ukraine braces for large-scale Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure this winter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Friday that Ukraine urgently needed more air defense systems.”