Analysis: Vladimir Putin is using North Korea as a pawn in a real-life global chess game to rebuild the Russian empire. Here’s what you need to know.

The Twilight War.  That was what Winston Churchill called the first few months of World War Two.

Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army attacked Poland in a pre-dawn blitzkrieg on September 1, 1939. Two days later, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war but British troops didn’t step onto the battleground for several months.

Hitler and Josef Stalin had agreed to carve up Poland in a non-aggression pact and the two despots did just that. A month after Germany invaded Poland from the West, Russia attacked her from the East.

The Twilight War — or the Phony War as it became known – served as a prelude to actual conflict. The allies dropped propaganda leaflets over Germany to expose Hitler’s true intentions. The NAZI’s also sank the SS Athenia, a passenger ship bound from Glasgow to Montreal which they claimed was an error.

For seven months, the Germans and the West glared at each other across the front lines. On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister and the Phony War ended. “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial,” Churchill later wrote. That same morning, Hitler ordered his blitzkrieg into Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. Between 40 and 50 million people died around the world in the ensuing war – the bloodiest in human history.

Seventy-eight years later and another despot with tyrannical tendencies is eyeing the rebuilding of his empire.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t hide his intention of rebuilding the destroyed Soviet Empire. He views the defeat of the Soviet Union as the single biggest tragedy to befall Russia in modern times. “The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said in 2005.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2013, the world has been waging proxy wars courtesy of Putin’s imperialist strategy. Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s genocidal support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the long U.S. war in Afghanistan have all been part of Putin’s plan to restore the Russian empire.

Russia was also an establishing force for ISIS and Putin’s hands are bloodied with a reign of terror that has gripped the West for over a decade killing innocent children at pop concerts and civilian commuters from London to Madrid.

Since Putin came to power, he’s amassed a personal fortune of $200 Billion stolen from his countrymen and Ukrainians. He’s enabled a criminal state ruled by a kleptocracy who’ve raped and pillaged Russia’s wealth. Putin’s henchmen have been allowed to “arrest, kidnap, torture and kill to take people’s properties away with impunity,” says human rights activist Bill Browder.

Putin and his merry band of thieves have laundered billions of dollars obtained through drug-trafficking, nuclear arms sales, human trafficking, large-scale criminal theft, hacking and cryptocurrency. Since 2014, U.S. sanctions have begun to threaten the oligarchs’ wealth hidden away in off-shore companies.

Last year, Russia turned from proxy wars in Syria and Afghanistan into directly engaging the U.S., albeit invisibly.

Putin’s unprecedented attack on the U.S. democracy included a multi-year financial and operational infestation of major U.S. conservative institutions like the National Rifle Association, the Republican Party and the co-opting of several leading Silicon Valley companies and billionaires.

The Kremlin employed thousands of operatives in U.S. financial, military and technology infrastructure. Data analysts, hackers and propagandists in Russia and the U.S. manipulated the minds of an electorate, stealing private information on Americans and using it against them by peddling fake news and targeted hate content to amplify deep-seated anger, prejudice and fear.

Putin targeted the downtrodden among us: immigrants, transgendered people and victims of injustice. Our research shows a track record of financial and political support dating back to 2009 for social conservative groups like the NRA, anti-gay group World Congress of Families and the exploitation of racial tensions in the U.S. from Black Lives Matter to immigration issues.

Putin has not shied away from attacking U.S. forces. Four U.S. navy carriers in the Pacific mysteriously crashed in the Pacific in what seems likely to be the hack of their steering and GPS systems. 17 U.S. servicemen were killed. The Kremlin is also suspected of launching sonic attacks which severely injured U.S. diplomats in Cuba.

Russia conspired to elect a U.S. president using known Kremlin operatives like Paul Manafort and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.  Flynn and others in the administration also copied and stole confidential documents from a secure room at the White House.

Why Trump? Possibly because he is monetarily compromised by Russia but also because he knew Trump could be goaded into a military response in North Korea. In December, Trump adviser Erik Prince met with Putin’s envoy in the Seychelles. They discussed ways of isolating Iran in exchange for the dropping of sanctions.

There is no greater signal Putin is itching for a real war with the West than his military and financial support for North Korea.

We were first to report about suspicious military cargo being shipped from Vladivostok in Russia to North Korea. Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear missiles are powered by Soviet-era rockets. Russia has also been dodging U.S. sanctions on North Korea, providing about $1 billion in illegal trade from its Russian neighbors, along with scientific help.

As we write, North Korea is planning another nuclear test possibly targeting the vicinity of the U.S. territory of Guam and likely launched from a submarine. This is a direct attempt to engage the U.S. militarily. While Trump will have his followers believe the war will stay in the Korean Peninsula, Russia is just using North Korea as a tactic to distract the U.S. military and allow an opening for Russia’s expansion into Eastern Europe.

Russia embarked on a ten-year, $700 billion program to bolster its military in 2010. Her military budget has ballooned from $25 billion in 2006 to $90 billion in 2013. Last month, Russian forces joined Belarus in a military exercise on their Western front. Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Georgia all raised concerns the Zapad exercises were a cover for Russia’s preparation for war.

Moscow and Minsk claimed only 12,7000 troops were involved in the exercise but the real number was closer to 100,000 and could have been as high as 240,000. Ukrainian military officials say Russia only withdrew a fraction of her troops after the war-games leaving them war-ready.

The Kremlin also deployed new Iskander surface-to-surface ballistic missile, Kalibr cruise missiles, Bal coastal-defense missile and the S-400 Triumph air defense systems during the war-games. Russia is also pursuing a new class of air-independent submarines, stealth fighter planes, high-tech ground gear for her ground forces and recently tested a new missile capable of destroying satellites in space.

Elsewhere, Russia has conducted joint military exercises with China and Egypt, as well as in the Northern Fleet of the Barents Sea. In Helsinki, the Fins have been preparing an underground city in the event of war.

If North Korea draws the U.S. into war on the Korean Peninsula, Russia will seize the opportunity to invade Eastern Europe.

Any attack on a NATO member country will draw the U.S. into war there, forcing the U.S. into fighting a war on two fronts. Both on Russia’s border. “Despite Russia’s denials, we know they are seeking to redraw international borders by force, undermining the sovereign and free nations of Europe,” U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in Ukraine in August.

Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine are likely to be first targets of a Russian-NATO war. While NATO outguns Russian, NATO troops are not fully mobilized on the front. Until they are, Russia could overrun the Baltic states in as quickly as in 60 hours. With U.S. forces split between Eastern Europe and Korea, the U.S. military would be pressed to capacity.

There’s ample reason to believe China could be working in coordination with Russia. Recent war-games and China’s support for North Korea are chief among them. China bought 14% of Russia’s oil producer Rosneft. Russia stands to benefit financially from a war because global conflict drives up oil prices and oil is the one thing Russia has.

Beijing and Moscow have also opposed tougher sanctions against Pyongyang. This could be a tell-tale sign China will sit out any war waiting for Russia and the West to destroy each other. Worse, they could side with Russia and North Korea militarily, plunging us all into the worst war in history.

And if you think such war will stay confined to Europe and Asia, think again. Russia and the U.S. have each rigged each others’ power grids and infrastructure with malware able to cut off power supply to population centers. An aggravated and unpredictable North Korea could also strike the U.S. mainland with nuclear missiles. Russia and U.S. Nuclear warheads are a deterrent but history shows us they can be used when push comes to shove in global conflict.

The world stands at the precipice of war with unthinkable consequences. The result will be a world far different from the one we have now: ruled by kleptocrats, despots and enemies of truth and justice. That is not the world for which the U.S. and its allies has spent generations fighting. It’s not the world we should leave behind. We cannot be antagonized into war by North Korea and give Russia the opening it wants to rebuild its empire in Eastern Europe.

We should focus our intentions squarely on the tyrant who has led the world into this nightmare: Vladimir Putin.

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Exclusive: A newly launched Russian passenger ferry was detained for carrying suspected military cargo destined for North Korea. The new evidence Moscow is supplying Kim Jong-Un with missile technology to threaten the U.S.

On May 14, North Korea sent the first of three successive chilling messages to the U.S. It was the successful launch of an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) capable of hitting the U.S. territory of Guam. The launch surprised analysts because the IRBM had an estimated range of 4,500 KM (2,800 Miles).”This range is considerably longer than the estimated range of the Musudan missile (a previous type of North Korean missile), which showed a range of about 3,000 km in a test last year,” said David Wright in his blog allthingsnuclear.

Despite sanctions, Russian ferry service to North Korea begins on May 9.

So it’s notable that as Pyongyang began the latest battery tests of missiles, a Russian ferry service was launched from the Russian port city of Vladivostok to the North Korean port of Rajin. The ferry service is billed as a cargo and passenger venture and is operated by a Russian-owned company based in North Korea. Analysts consider the ferry service unusual considering the heightened tension surrounding the Pyongyang regime, not to mention the limited potential for trade from a heavily sanctioned country like North Korea.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says there’s nothing unusual about launching North Korea’s only international ferry service under the cloud of growing international concern about Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Reuters she “didn’t see a connection” between the new ferry service and political issues. The ferry’s Russian operator, Investstroytrest, said it was purely a commercial venture that was developed with no subsidies or involvement from Moscow.

The Man Gyong Bong is believed to have set sail on her maiden voyage from Rajin to Vladivostok on May 9 to join the World War 2 victory memorial events in the city. It undertook the return 12 hour journey the next day, May 10. The ship can carry up to 1,500 tonnes of cargo in its three dry holds and boasts 50 cabins, slot machines, a shop, a sauna and a karaoke room for “merrymaking”.

Russian ferry detained by customs officials for suspicious cargo destined for North Korean military.

Rajin is just 12 hours drive away from the May 14 IRBM launch site of Kusong. It’s at least conceivable cargo arriving on May 10 or 11 could have been used in the May 14 launch. It is notable, the more voyages the Man Gyong Bong took, the greater the leaps in North Korea’s nuclear missile program.

Barely a month after the ferry began service, on July 4, North Korea launched the second of its unexpected missile launches. This time its first successful Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a strike range well into the U.S. mainland. The launch pleased Kim Jong-Un so much he was quoted as saying ” [Those] American bastards would be not very happy with this gift sent on the July 4 anniversary,” according to Korea’s state-run news agency, KCNA.

The Man Gyong Bong continued to shuttle cargo between Russia and North Korea on at least nine round-trips unfettered until July 14. On that Friday, Russian customs officials detained the ship for 16 hours for carrying cargo that could aid North Korea’s military.

“There is a possibility of violation of the rules of the Eurasian Union and violation of Russian legislation in terms of customs procedures regarding the export of goods that contribute to the development of the capabilities of the North Korean armed forces,” said Michael Khmel, the Deputy Director of the ferry operator, Investroytrest.

The ferry was allowed to continue on its journey the next day, July 15, but it’s unclear if the suspicious cargo was allowed to remain on board. A travel agent in Vladivostok says she regularly books passengers on the voyage. “Our company sends tourists on this route every week, typically groups of three to five people. More often than not, these are scientists or those who organize visits for children to North Korea,” she said.

13 days after the ferry was allowed to continue on its journey, North Korea surprised the world again. This time with a new longer range Inter-continental missile (Hwasong-14) launched at 11:11 Pm local time, on July 28. It flew 47 minutes and appeared to be capable of reaching almost all of the United States.

North Korea makes missile advances with Russian-made engines.

This launch caught analysts by surprise – particularly what looked like Soviet-made RD-250 rocket engines which powered the missiles. “It appears that they sourced that engine from a foreign entity and they have successfully incorporated that engine into their missiles,” says Michael Elleman, a former consultant at the Pentagon.

The New York Times published a story citing the source of North Korea’s newly received RD-250 engines as being of Ukrainian origin but this was strenuously denied by Kiev who pointed the finger at the Kremlin. “We believe that this anti-Ukrainian campaign was triggered by Russian secret services to cover their participation in the North Korean nuclear and missile programs”, said Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. It’s worth noting, Russia denied North Korea launched the ICBMs, contradicting U.S., Japanese and North Korean claims.

Even if they were of Ukrainian origin, The Times says the rocket engines could have been stockpiled in Russia and were obtained via Russia. Considering suspicious military cargo caused a 16-hour delay in the ferry’s departure on July 14, less than two weeks before the launch of North Korea’s second ICBM which used the RD-250 engines, there’s now growing evidence that North Korea’s recent missile success may be Russian-made or obtained and perhaps delivered on an suspiciously timed ferry service.

If you liked this story, you may want to read “Wag The Dog” about Russia’s history of involvement with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

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Could Donald Trump drag the U.S. into war with North Korea to save his presidency? If Vladimir Putin has his way.

In the 1997 satire, Wag The Dog, Dustin Hoffman played a political spin doctor who manufactured a made-for-TV war to rescue the flagging political fortunes of an incumbent president accused of fondling a young girl scout. The fictional scheme worked to increase the public’s support of the film’s president and turned around his political fortunes.

Fast forward 20 years and Wag’s satirical device is finding its way into the real and bizarre presidency of Donald Trump. This time, the war is real and threatens the lives of millions of people caught in the crosshairs. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is cast as villain but you don’t have to look far to see the strings connecting Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The ‘pravda’ about North Korea’s nuclear missiles.

Michael Elleman, a former Pentagon consultant, had three words to describe video of North Korea’s July 28 inter-continental ballistic test. “It shocked me,” Elleman told the Washington Post. “It seemed to come out of nowhere”. Not only does the new missile put Pyongyang’s nuclear program further ahead than anyone expected, it gives the regime a missile capable of striking most of the U.S. and Canada.

Elleman noticed something else alarming about the new North Korean ICBM. The Hwasong-14’s liquid fuel engines are very similar to a 1960’s-era Soviet missile RD-250. How did the North Koreans make these advances so quickly? Elleman and other are concerned they may have done so with Russian help.

Moscow’s support for North Korea dates back decades to the Soviet Union, a strategic alliance enabled by a shared border and ideology. As recently as 2015, Moscow allowed several North Korean nuclear scientists to work at Russian nuclear sites and study at its scientific academies. It’s also known that former Soviet-era scientists have been employed by the Pyongyang regime. In their 2014 book, “North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival” Young Whan Kihl and Hong Nack Kim, are more definitive on Russia’s involvement:

“Some restricted arm and weapons material have reached North Korea from Russia. There is a danger that North Korea nationals working in the criminalized Russian Far East could become involved in smuggling nuclear material and technology. Russian companies have been among the suppliers of North Korea’s nuclear program”.

In 2017, Russia boosts trade and military ties to North Korea

This year, Russia has stepped up economic and military support for Pyongyang just as tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have escalated. In the first two months of this year, trade between Russia and North Korea jumped 73% vs the same period last year. The Kim regime has begun talks to acquire a long list of Russian-made arms and Russia has moved its forces to its border with North Korea.

By increasing trade to the beleaguered regime, Vladimir Putin increases leverage over the isolated regime, and by extension the United States. This makes Kim Jong Un beholden to Vladimir Putin in much the same way Syria’s Bashar-al Assad is. With Donald Trump in the White House, Vladimir Putin has the kind of war he likes to wage. One in which he can play both sides off against each other so he controls the outcome.

“When you consider all the different flashpoints the United States and Russia have, this is a perfect opportunity for the Russians to sort of stick it to the United States a little bit more,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, told CNBC.

Fanning the flames of war.

“President Trump is really going to stand up to Kim Jong Un,” General Jack Keane told Fox and Friends this week. “It’s very scary for all of us Americans, especially when you learn that they can reach America,” the Fox News anchor opined. “Next week, it might not be a test, it might be reality.”

To be factual, nothing ‘nuclear’ could happen to the U.S. next week as North Korea doesn’t have the capability yet but the Fox News alarm seems to be building a Wag The Dog narrative for Trump. If Trump confronts Kim, Putin can play peacemaker. Everyone can be “greater” together. Former Bush ethics lawyer, Richard W. Painter, agrees. “Kim Jong Un is asking for it and Trump needs a distraction,” Painter tweeted. “China should stop Kim or this could end badly.”

What would a Korean conflict actually achieve? It would not only embroil the U.S. military in another far away place, endanger the lives of millions of people and provide a distraction for Russia to advance its troops into the Baltic states and the South Caucasus. The end result would be a disaster for the U.S. and only serve the strategic interests of Russia but it could also save the Trump presidency.

Wag The Dog ends with footage of a real war rising from the ashes of a fabricated one. The implication of this plot line is chilling in our current circumstance. Now that Trump has been forced to sign a new Russia sanctions bill, he will try blame congress for any escalation.

With an angered Russia, and an emboldened and unstable Kim Jong Un, the best laid plans of a war designed to distract can set off the tinderbox that is the Korean peninsula.  This won’t be just because Pyongyang knows how to build a nuclear missile. It will be because Russia continues to play a destabilising role in the world. When it comes to North Korea, keep your eye on the ‘khobst’.

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