Plus: Meme of the day
IN TODAY’S EDITION
1️⃣ North Korea enters the Russo-Ukraine war |
2️⃣ Vietnam gets a new president (again) |
3️⃣ Meme of the day |
Hi Intriguer. It’s almost impossible to predict which posts go viral in the world of content creation. Just ask the overnight-TikTok-star Bella Poarche, or even Intrigue’s in-house social media team, who really nailed it with one of our Reels from earlier this year (four million impressions 😍).
The Reel featured footage of North Korean President Kim Jong-Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin riding side-by-side in an ‘Aurus’ (a Russian-made limousine), gleefully chuckling, and with the caption: “new season of Top Gear looks lit”.
Now, I’m sorry I had to ruin a good Reel by describing its content, but I thought it was worth bringing up because the moment actually signalled the beginning of a new chapter of the Russia-North Korea partnership. One which features in our top story today on North Korean troops reportedly joining Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Blinken heads back to the Middle East.
This is the US Secretary of State’s 11th trip to the region since the Hamas attacks on Israel last October. He’ll stop in Israel for talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu, then continue to other unspecified countries. Notwithstanding Yahya Sinwar’s death last week, both Israel and Hamas have vowed to fight on, dimming the White House’s hopes for a pre-election ceasefire deal. PS – don’t miss the next edition of Election Intrigue, our weekly briefing on what the US election means for the world (and vice versa).
BRICS summit kicks off.
Over 20 world leaders (including China’s Xi and India’s Modi) have now landed in Kazan, Russia for this week’s BRICS summit. In playing host, Putin hopes to show that Western efforts to isolate him have failed. BRICS countries account for 45% of the world's population and 35% of the world economy, though China makes up more than half that economic heft — and BRICS members are still struggling to bridge their own differences.
HSBC announces overhaul.
The London-based bank has announced it’s splitting into four divisions: Hong Kong, UK, corporate & institutional, and international wealth & premier banking. The overhaul is aimed at streamlining the business and cutting costs.
China holds (more) live fire drills.
China has held a live-fire exercise near Niushan, China’s closest island to Taiwan (105km/66mi). These drills come just a week after China organised a large-scale military exercise that encircled Taiwan.
Peru’s former president gets 20 years.
A court in Peru has slapped Alejandro Toledo (president from 2001 to 2006) with a 20+ year sentence for corruption and money laundering. The US extradited him to Peru five years ago on charges he took $35M in bribes from a Brazilian construction company, as part of the infamous ‘Car Wash’ scandal that’s rocked Latin America.
TOP STORY
North Korea enters the Russo-Ukraine war
What are friends for, if not to help in times of need? We imagine that’s roughly what Vladimir Putin said when he asked Kim Jong Un for a few thousand North Korean soldiers to help his three-day invasion of Ukraine, which is now heading into its third year.
Anyway, North Korea’s supreme leader seems to have said yes.
Here’s what we know.
There’s now plenty of evidence that North Korea has been supplying Russia with weapons for its invasion of Ukraine. But in June, Putin and Kim went a step further and signed a security pact that included a mutual defence clause.
There were then surprising reports earlier this month of a half dozen North Korean officers turning up dead in Russian-occupied Ukraine after a Ukrainian missile strike.
And then on Friday, South Korea’s main intelligence agency released satellite images of what they say are Russian naval transports carrying up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia earlier this month. The Ukrainian government then released footage of what appear to be North Korean soldiers receiving uniforms and equipment in Russia.
Why is North Korea doing this?
Well, that’s a question folks have been asking for all kinds of reasons for decades. But here are a few reasons why the hermit state is now helping Russia invade a neighbour:
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Regime security: This has been a driver for the Kim family for the three quarters of a century it’s been running North Korea. In this latest case, deepening ties with a power like Russia is a way for the paranoid Kim family to feel secure against perceived threats at home and abroad — plus, escalating the war in Ukraine could help divert international attention away from home.
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Sanctions: When you’re the ~4th most sanctioned country on the planet (after Russia, Iran, and Syria), there’s a lot of value in having a friend on the UN Security Council willing to wield its veto power in your favour.
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Options: The Kim family doesn’t have a lot of other options — North Korea is technically China’s only treaty ally, but that’s a lopsided relationship, with China effectively treating the North Koreans like a problematic client state. So by cosying up to the Russians, Kim likely also hopes for more ‘hand’ with China.
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Payment: There’s no word yet on any specific terms, but Kim already earns much-needed foreign currency by sending civilian workers abroad, plus he needs help with his heavily-sanctioned ballistic, nuclear, and satellite programs.
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Why not: Kim will feel insulated from any blowback due to his distance from Ukraine, not to mention his stranglehold on all facets of life back home. And given his state of almost complete isolation anyway, what difference will a few more sanctions make?
But will this change anything?
It’s still early days and we’re working from limited information (that’s geopolitics), but here’s another way to look at this: Putin is now losing an average of 1,000 soldiers in Ukraine each day. So this latest assist from North Korea arguably just expands Putin’s replenishment buffer by 12 days. That alone is not meaningful.
And that’s before you factor in the major linguistic, cultural, and operational barriers at play, plus the fact these troops have never seen active combat. Oh, and there are already reports of North Korean troops abandoning their positions in Russia.
So… the lasting impact of this move might actually be to nudge the needle the other way: there’s long been speculation democratic South Korea, a defence industry powerhouse, could further support Ukraine. And that speculation is now growing in light of rival North Korea actively seeking crucial real-world battle experience in Ukraine.
So just yesterday on a call with NATO’s new chief, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged (🇰🇷) to “take steps to revitalise security cooperation among South Korea, Ukraine, and NATO.”
And the implications of that are already clear to Moscow, which immediately despatched its ambassador in Seoul in an attempt to assure (🇰🇷🇷🇺) South Korea it has nothing to worry about.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
Sometimes humour can be the most effective way to articulate a truth, and one joke has been doing the rounds lately, playing off the old-fashioned quip: Never ask a man his salary, a woman her age, or a dictator why he needs help from Iran and North Korea to invade his much smaller neighbour.
The awkward answer, of course, is that Putin’s invasion is not going well. Over the last year, he’s only managed to seize another 0.1% net of Ukraine’s territory, while his casualties push past a half million (ten times what the Soviets faced during a decade in Afghanistan), and interest rates hit 19% in an escalating attempt to rein in inflation.
So while a few thousand North Korean troops won’t make much of a difference, Putin will hope they signal otherwise, particularly ahead of elections in the US (his intended audience).
Also worth noting:
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has told journalists that Russia’s cooperation with North Korea is “not directed against third countries”. We can confirm that Ukraine is indeed a third country.
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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…
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🇺🇿 Uzbekistan: Hoping to diversify its exports away from Russia, Uzbekistan’s embassy in Kuwait is reportedly in talks with the Middle East’s largest hypermarket chain, Lulu Group. The chain just kicked off its initial public offering yesterday (Monday) with keen investor interest.
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🇫🇷 France: French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has announced a deal to sell a controlling stake in one of its subsidiaries to a US private equity firm (CD&R) for €16B. The initial talks had prompted a local backlash, leading Paris to warn CD&R there’ll be penalties if it tries to offshore local jobs or production.
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🇻🇳 Vietnam: As widely anticipated, Vietnam’s parliament has elected army general Luong Cuong as the new president, a mostly ceremonial role though often Vietnam’s face to the world. He’s the fourth person to fill the role in just 18 months, and there are hopes his arrival will bring some much-needed stability.
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🇧🇷 Brazil: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has cancelled his trip to Kazan (Russia) for this week’s BRICS summit, after an accident left him with a minor head injury. He’ll likely channel his 2020 vibes and dial into the summit via videoconference.
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🇰🇪 Kenya: The UN refugee agency has sounded the alarm after Kenya reportedly sent four registered refugees back to Turkey, in a possible breach of international law. The confirmed refugees had ties to Turkey’s banned Gulen movement, and were reportedly abducted by masked men in Nairobi on Friday.
EXTRA INTRIGUE
Here’s what the world has been googling lately
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🇮🇪 Irish folks googled ‘Lidia Thorpe’ after the Australian senator heckled King Charles during his visit Down Under.
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🇲🇦 Moroccans looked up ‘journaliste Ouadih Dada’ (Ouadih Dada journalist) after a local news network suspended the anchor and editor-in-chief, seemingly in response to his efforts to unionise.
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And 🇸🇬 Singaporeans feeling lucky searched for ‘Toto’ after the national jackpot jumped to US$7.6M following three draws without a winner.
MEME OF THE DAY
Courtesy of our very own meme lord, Jeremy
Ever wonder what a day in the life of a diplomat is like? As helpfully illustrated in our latest meme above, it’s often a heady mix of paranoia (what’s that van), pedantry (what’s that comma), and protocol (never use her first name).
And to survive all that, you really need a quality set of luggage and a decent subscription. That’s why we‘ve teamed up with a few of our favourite newsletters to give you a chance to win an Away suitcase bundle and a Monocle subscription. It’s free to enter here!
DAILY POLL
How do you think the world should respond to North Korean troops entering the Russo-Ukraine war? |
Yesterday’s poll: Who do you think is responsible for these US intelligence documents going public?
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🚨 A rogue US official (35%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🇺🇸 The US (an authorised leak) (46%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👁️ A US 'Five Eyes' ally (6%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇮🇷 Iran (3%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇮🇱 Israel (8%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (1%)
Your two cents:
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🚨 C.A.O: “There is so much discord in US politics right now that some disgruntled government employee might feel they have the right.”
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🇺🇸 R.N: “The Biden NSC team is clearly at a total loss… and ‘leaks’ are their best option to not ruffle too many feathers.”
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✍️ W.G: “An oversight by someone in charge of protecting information, who did not do his/her job properly.”
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✍️ C: “This NOFORN marking makes it exceptionally unlikely that Israel or another U.S. ally would be able to leak the documents. And if Iran was able to hack into the information system that is required to store this level of intelligence, then the U.S. would have a catastrophic issue on its hands and I highly doubt Iran would risk exposing this capability with these documents. That leaves either an authorised or unauthorised U.S. leak. But I find it hard to believe that the Biden administration would release Intelligence in this manner if deterrence was the goal. So, an unauthorised leak by either a young intelligence community (IC) member wanting to do ‘good’ or some rogue IC official that was not thinking critically is probably the best bet, and something that has happened in the recent past.”
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✍️ Editor’s corner
Thanks to an ‘in the know’ reader who shared some helpful context on the absolute alphabet soup of intelligence acronyms in yesterday’s lead. One quick bit we’ll share here:
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Our brief reference to ‘FVEY’ could’ve been misinterpreted as suggesting Five Eyes partners have a blanket exemption to the NOFORN marking. Rather, our intention was just to flag that these particular leaked US docs were marked ‘FVEY’.