‘The Holy Grail of American Elections’ – Ukraine at War Update for Nov. 5

Donald Trump spent the last day of his US presidential campaign before Election Day mostly in North Carolina, a state he appears to lead by one percent in an average of 16 recent polls. Still, his advisers told several media outlets over the weekend that the Tar Heel State continues to worry them. While flying to stops around the country over the past three days, Trump has made it a point to visit the southern state on all three days.

On Monday, his ambitious schedule included two stops in North Carolina, one in Michigan, and two in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris spent Monday at five campaign stops, all of them in Pennsylvania: in President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton; in the steel-making capital of Pittsburgh, whose union leaders have endorsed her; in the former coal-mining center of Allentown, the third-most populous city in the commonwealth; in Reading, the fourth-most populous, and finally in Philadelphia, the biggest urban center in the state, whose inner-city districts ultimately put Biden over the top in 2020.

Harris wrapped it up with a star-studded event in the City of Brotherly Love, featuring TV icon Oprah Winfrey, Puerto Rican-born performer Ricky Martin, and pop star and actress Lady Gaga.  

Pennsylvania, which is reportedly evenly split between the two candidates, is a keystone in any campaign’s architecture for a victory in a race as close as this. With 19 electoral votes, it holds the most clout of any swing state. (The other six toss-ups on which the world will be focused on Tuesday night are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.)

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ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

At Trump’s rally in Reading on Monday evening, he promised to “bring back factory jobs” to the state, speaking with a backdrop of supporters holding pink signs reading “Women for Trump.” The former president has faced an uphill battle among Pennsylvania’s union members, and trails by double-digits among women across the country, according to the most recent polls.

Biden’s 306-232 electoral vote victory in 2020 resulted from his flipping the three “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all of which voted for Trump in 2016.

In a BBC interview on Monday night, a former Illinois Republican congressman called Pennsylvania “the Holy Grail of American elections.”

Moscow’s ambassador to the UK won’t confirm North Korean troop presence in Russia but adds: “If there are, so what?”

On Monday, the US Department of Defense said it believes the number of North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region has risen by about 2,000 recently, bringing the total number there to 10,000, and possibly as high as 12,000. That figure was up from about 8,000 the Pentagon had estimated previously.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky put the figure at about the same in his nightly address, claiming that 11,000 North Korean troops had reached Russia’s border with Ukraine, according to Kyiv’s intelligence agencies.

“There are already 11,000 [North Koreans] in the Kursk region,” Zelensky said in his evening address, adding that he was briefed by his intelligence team on the movements. “We see an increase in North Koreans and no increase in the reaction of our partners.” 

Zelensky's partners in Washington and London, at least, brought the issue to international attention on Monday.

“We think that the total number of DPRK forces in Russia... could be closer to around 11 to 12,000,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told a press conference, with “at least 10,000 right now in the Kursk Oblast,”

In a contentious BBC interview broadcast on Monday, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin would not admit to the presence of any North Korean troops in Russia, at one point asking his interlocutor, HARDtalk host Stephen Sackur, “Are you sure?”

Kelin then added, “And if there are, so what?” Without actually confirming their presence, Moscow’s ambassador in London defended at least the idea of deploying Pyongyang’s troops by claiming that “thousands of Western mercenaries” were fighting Russian troops in Ukraine, while “thousands” of NATO soldiers were training Ukrainian troops in the operations of donated aircraft and weapons.

Kyiv said on Monday that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) registered their first exchange of fire with North Korean soldiers.

“The first military units of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] have already come under fire in Kursk,” Andriy Kovalenko, Ukraine’s Head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, wrote on Telegram.

German foreign minister announces winter assistance, but no response to North Korean escalation nor policy change on Taurus missiles

On Monday, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in Kyiv for her eighth visit during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, announcing a “winter aid” package worth about €200 million ($218 million), but offering no material reaction to the build-up of North Korean troops at the country’s border, nor change to Berlin’s longstanding refusal to send Ukraine its sought-after, long-range Taurus missiles.

Zelensky has been clamoring for both, lamenting on Monday that the growing thousands of Pyongyang’s soldiers in Russia’s bordering Kursk region deserves a more forceful reaction from the West, especially as regards an awaited green light to use NATO’s long-range weapons deep inside Russian territory.

“We see an increase in North Koreans and no increase in the reaction of our partners, unfortunately,” Zelensky said in his evening address.

His foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, called on Europe to realize that North Korean troops “are now waging an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state.”

“This proves once again that while the West is afraid and hesitates, Russia is acting and going for escalation,” he said.

For her part, in a joint press conference with Sybiga, Baerbock said only that Germany’s support for Ukraine remained “rock solid.”

 “Right here, right now. We stand firmly by your side as long as you need us,” Baerbock said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, however, has continued to refuse to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine and underscored in October that any NATO invitation to Kyiv to join NATO would be premature. Zelensky had insisted on both of these concessions in the Victory Plan that he had been shopping out to Western leaders for about two months as his administration’s roadmap to peace.

After Baerbock announced the non-lethal aid, Zelensky offered a message of thanks.

“We appreciate the significant military and financial assistance provided by the German government to Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “We are counting on Germany to further strengthen its defense support for Ukraine in the coming year, as this is critically important for our victory.”