The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | January 2nd, 2024: Kim Jong Un's Nuclear Threats & Deadly Airstrikes Intensify In Ukraine

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:     We'll discuss North Korea, where Kim Jong Un is ringing in the New Year by issuing a fresh round of nuclear threats and vowing to never reunify with South Korea. A look at the latest developments in Ukraine, where winter air strikes are escalating between Moscow and Kyiv amid a stalemate on the front lines of the conflict. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.     Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olivia Rodriguez, the unraveled tour, live across North America, with special guests. Get tickets Thursday, May 7th, at Olivia Rodrigo.com. It's Tuesday, January 2nd. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Now, on a logistical note, there is some construction underway here at the PDB, So if you hear any loud noises during this bulletin, it's just the remaining bits and pieces of

of 2023 being torn down and the scaffolding for 2024 going up. Okay, let's get briefed. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is kicking off the New Year with threats of nuclear annihilation and vows to never seek peace with South Korea. Apparently, Kim hasn't heard of the saying New Year, New Me. We'll discuss the implications of North Korea's increasingly belligerent. behavior. Also, we'll discuss the latest developments in Ukraine, where a Russian missile bombardment killed five people and injured nearly 130 on Tuesday. If you are hoping that 2024 would be less chaotic and complicated than the past year, well, that's not happening. Let's start with our afternoon spotlight. We begin in North Korea, where dictator Kim Jong-un is ringing in the new year

by issuing a fresh round of nuclear threats and vowing to never reunify with South Korea. Speaking to military leaders during a year-end meeting on Sunday, Kim said it's time for North Korea to, quote, clarify their relationship with their southern neighbor. He argued the North can no longer engage with South Korea or the U.S., calling them, quote, two hostile countries and two belligerents at war. Now, Kim reportedly said, I believe that it's a mistake that we must no longer make to deal with the people who declare us as the

main enemy and seek only opportunities for our regime collapse and unification by absorption, by collaborating for reconciliation and unification, end quote. Instead, Kim is directing his military to mobilize in response to what he called confrontation moves by the U.S. and South Korea. Just last week, Kim ordered the North Korean military, munitions industry, and nuclear weapons sectors to accelerate war preparations. He lashed out at South Korea, calling them a, quote, malformation and colonial subordinate state that is, quote,

tainted by Yankee culture, according to a report by CNN. So it does look like Kim's Christmas gift from his bro Vladimir Putin may have been a trite Marxist sayings of the day calendar. Kim further warned Sunday that if the U.S. or South Korea engaged in any military confrontation with the North, the regime will not hesitate to use their nuclear weapons. He added that in this event, North Korea would, quote, deal a deadly blow to thoroughly annihilate the U.S. and South Korea. Now, while unification has always been unlikely, it's worth revisiting the history that brought us to this point. The countries have been split

ever since the unofficial end of the Korean War in 1953, and while the two are still technically at war, both sides have always left the possibility of reunification on the table. Over the decades, North and South Korea have agreed, in principle, to various protocols that outline steps for reunification, only to have those joint agreements fall apart. Progress was made in 2000 when both countries signed a joint declaration pledging peaceful reunification with the coexistence of two distinct systems. Now, this pledge was reaffirmed in 2007, but again, hostilities continued. Many observers hoped that peace was finally possible in 2018 when Kim Jong-un and former South Korean President Moon Jae-in met face-to-face at the historic Inter-Korean Summit, and there they signed the Pan-Mumjjom

declaration, which declared a new era of peace. This deal, despite hiccups, did endure until November 2023, when it collapsed after North Korea launched their first spy satellite into orbit aboard an ICBM, and that was in violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions. So since November, the situation has rapidly deteriorated, as we've discussed here on the PDB. We've seen renewed military activity along the DMZ, and and two provocative ICBM launches by the Kim regime, including a missile that could hit anywhere in the continental U.S. rhetoric between the two nations continues to intensify, with South Korea, warning the North on December 13th that they have, quote, only two choices, peace or destruction.

South Korean military leaders have also been meeting with their U.S. counterparts, engaging in joint training exercises and drawing up response plans for potential provocations or attacks from the North. It appears any hope of de-escalation or renewed diplomacy in the New Year, well, it doesn't look like that's in the cards. Kim also promised on Sunday to launch three new military spy satellites into orbit in 2024, continue ICBM test launches, and to deepen the North's ties with China and Russia. All right, coming up after the break, we'll discuss the latest developments in Ukraine, where winter airstrikes are escalating between Moscow and Kiev, amid a stalemate on the front lines of the conflict.

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and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-heathe-lorraine, deviled eggs and fresh-cut fruits to go. Celebrate Mom with Whole Foods Market. Welcome back to the afternoon bulletin. Well, unfortunately, but certainly not unsurprisingly, Putin's war in Ukraine seems to have picked up exactly where it left off in 2023. This morning, there was a dramatic escalation in Russian attacks as Ukraine's two largest cities, Kiev and Kharkiv, were subjected to an onslaught of Russian missiles and drones. This marking the most aggressive of campaign of strikes since the conflict began almost two years ago, these attacks utilized Russian hypersonic missiles and Iranian-made Shahid suicide drones. Officials in Kiev reported that

the attacks lasted over an hour and a half and led to at least two fatalities and 48 injuries. A number of the casualties occurred at a nine-story residential building, which was partly demolished. Additionally, vital city infrastructure, including a thermal plant and a water supply system were hit during the attacks. Turning to Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city located near the Russian border, the situation was similar. A large-scale missile attack resulted in at least one death and 41 injuries as confirmed by local authorities. The timing of these attacks is not surprising. They were launched hours after Russian President Putin vowed retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on the Russian border city of Belgarod on Saturday. In that sense,

city, at least 24 individuals, including three children, were killed and 108 others injured. Putin, in his public comments on Monday, condemned the attack on Belgarod as an attack of terror, unequivocally stating that it would not go unpunished and he promised increased strikes. In turn, a Ukrainian official disclosed that the attack on Belgarod was a response to a Russian missile barrage the previous day. This assault, one of the largest air attacks of the nearly two-year-old war, resulted in at least 39 deaths and around 160 injuries. It targeted not only military and industrial facilities, but also hospitals and schools. Now, this tit-for-tat exchange of airstrikes, whether via missiles or drones, is likely the routine

that will see over the winter months as the ground war remains mired in a World War-1-style stalemate of minimal gains on either side. Putin's goal will be to demoralize the Ukrainian population and hope for a collapse in support from the West, while the Ukrainian military will look to degrade Russian supply lines, command and control capabilities, and naval assets. At the 30,000 foot level, this is a war of attrition between Putin's resolve and the ability of Ukraine to maintain manpower levels, Western support, and internal political unity. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Tuesday to January. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirstTV.com. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed,

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