Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin made an unannounced go to to Ukraine on Monday, and relayed the message “the US will proceed to face with Ukraine of their combat for freedom in opposition to Russia’s aggression, each now and into the longer term,” he wrote on social media. Austin can be flying again to the States later this week, the place he’ll host a digital assembly of the Ukraine Protection Contact Group.
Russia resumed drone assaults on Kyiv over the weekend, breaking a 52-day pause with their Iranian-made one-way drones early within the morning Saturday and once more on Sunday. The drones got here “in waves, from totally different instructions, on the identical time continuously altering the vectors of motion alongside the route,” a army official in Kyiv wrote on Telegram.
The Ukrainian army claims to have shot down 15 out of 20 of the Shaheds on Sunday, and 29 of 38 on Saturday. A number of infrastructure services have been hit outdoors of Kyiv, however there have been no recognized casualties, based on Reuters. “I thank all of the troopers of cell fireplace teams, the aviation of our air pressure, and the anti-aircraft missile troops,” President Volodymir Zelenskyy mentioned in his nightly handle Sunday. “As winter approaches, there can be extra Russian makes an attempt to make the strikes extra highly effective,” he warned.
Additionally visiting Ukraine on Monday: Fox Company CEO Lachlan Murdoch. He introduced alongside journalist Benjamin Corridor, who was significantly wounded whereas masking the primary weeks of the warfare again in March 2022. Murdoch met with one in all Zelenskyy’s high officers, Andriy Yermak, who briefed the CEO on “the state of affairs on the frontline, safety of Ukrainian skies, the state of the power sector, the implications of Russian aggression for civilians and infrastructure, Russian crimes in opposition to Ukrainian youngsters, and cooperation between Ukraine, the US and different worldwide companions,” based on Zelenskyy’s workplace.
ICYMI: Zelenskyy thanked Germany, Finland, and Lithuania for his or her current army support packages, which have been every introduced final week.
The White Home on Friday introduced an upcoming Protection Industrial Base Convention in the course of the first week of December. That two-day occasion is meant to carry collectively “U.S. and Ukrainian business and authorities representatives to discover alternatives for co-production and different industrial cooperation,” the White Home mentioned.
President Joe Biden linked the warfare in Ukraine with Israel’s warfare in opposition to Hamas in an op-ed revealed Saturday within the Washington Publish. “If we stroll away from the challenges of right now, the danger of battle may unfold, and the prices to handle them will solely rise. We is not going to let that occur,” Biden writes. “That conviction is on the root of my method to supporting the individuals of Ukraine as they proceed to defend their freedom in opposition to Putin’s brutal warfare,” he provides.
“Each Putin and Hamas are preventing to wipe a neighboring democracy off the map,” the president warned. “And each Putin and Hamas hope to break down broader regional stability and integration and reap the benefits of the following dysfunction. America can not, and won’t, let that occur. For our personal nationwide safety pursuits—and for the nice of the whole world.” Learn on, right here.
If you happen to’re a bit of unclear about Israel’s lengthy sport with its occupation of Gaza, you’re not alone. Former CENTCOM commander retired Military Gen. Joseph Votel advised us as a lot when he not too long ago spoke to him. However NPR’s Steve Inskeep spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late final week, and wrote over the weekend, “Israel’s lack of a method is the technique.”
Have you ever had issue discussing the Israeli-Hamas warfare with associates or household? It may be a difficult job when there’s such a big “psychological chasm” between either side, as Roger Cohen of the New York Occasions reported Monday from Jerusalem.
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Welcome to this Monday version of The D Transient, delivered to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. If you happen to’re not already subscribed, you may join right here. On this present day 80 years in the past, waves of U.S. Marines stormed ashore on Tarawa, launching a bloody three-day battle for the closely fortified atoll. The New York Occasions provides photographs from the battle, right here.
The U.S. will deploy new land-based missiles to the Pacific subsequent yr, the area’s high Military officer says. They embody Tomahawks and SM-6s, Military Forces Pacific’s Gen. Charles Flynn advised reporters on the Halifax Worldwide Safety Discussion board.
“We now have examined them and we have now a battery or two of them right now,” Flynn mentioned. “In [20]24. We intend to deploy that system in your area. I am not going to say the place and when. However I’ll simply say that we are going to deploy them.”
And so they is perhaps adopted by the Military’s Precision Strike Missile, which is ready to achieve preliminary working functionality this yr, Flynn mentioned. D1’s Patrick Tucker has extra, right here.
BTW: The deployment of land-based Tomahawks, whose variants can vary as much as 2,500 kilometers, was forbidden beneath the 1987 Intermediate-Vary Nuclear Forces Treaty till the U.S. withdrew in 2019, citing Russian non-compliance. The Marine Corps stood up its first Tomahawk battery in July at Camp Pendleton, California.
Growing: Chinese language warship hit divers with sonar pulses, Australia says. The Royal Australian Navy divers have been eradicating fishing nets from their frigate’s propellers on November 14 when a PLA-N destroyer, the Ningbo (DDG-139), approached and activated its sonar, the BBC experiences. Australian officers mentioned the frigate had “communicated its intention to conduct diving operations” through regular maritime channels and employed internationally acknowledged indicators.
Craig Hooper, writing for Forbes: “It’s common information that, for divers, energetic military-grade sonars are extraordinarily harmful, able to inducing listening to loss, inside bleeding, and demise.”
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. on Saturday: “Solely days after President Biden met with Chinese language Communist Celebration Basic Secretary Xi Jinping, Beijing is as soon as once more harassing U.S. allies and companions within the Indo-Pacific. Whereas the Biden Administration celebrates hole U.S.-China ‘working teams’ as significant progress and Xi Jinping receives a standing ovation from American CEOs, the US and our allies have to proceed the onerous work of bolstering deterrence within the Indo-Pacific.”
In the meantime, Japanese forces are training retaking islands. Reuters: “Japanese marines in amphibious assault automobiles stormed an island seaside on the fringe of the East China Sea on Sunday in a simulated assault to dislodge invaders from territory that Tokyo worries is weak to assault from China.”
