• Ukraine launched a risky attack on Russia last year, seizing swathes of territory in Kursk.
• Ukraine was able to go on offense and seize the initiative, but the impact hasn't been felt at home.
• Warfare experts said the move was likely worthwhile, but it remains to be seen if that holds true.

Ukraine's ambitious advance into Russia's Kursk region last summer was a tremendous risk.

Whether the gamble was ultimately worth it is something that military historians are likely to long debate. For Ukraine, there have been some signs it could double down with a new offensive.

There have been costs, but the Kursk assault offered the Ukrainians a chance to break from the slow, brutal, and grinding defensive situation at home and go on offense, as well as divert Russian resources. And there is still the possibility this helps Kyiv in potential peace talks.

"It's hard to say until everything plays out, but I would still say it was a good move," Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of Ukraine's actions in Kursk in recent months.

Ukraine's Kursk operation was a chance to change the status quo

Ukraine's Kursk operation was a surprise to war watchers, Ukraine's international partners, the Russian soldiers defending the country's borders, and even many of Kyiv's own troops.

Ukraine said that it was trying to create a buffer zone, strain Russian combat resources, and secure land and prisoners for negotiations with Moscow.

Ukraine was also likely aiming to boost the morale of its tired forces, as well as signal strength to Western nations that may have been growing weary of providing support.

The advance also gave it a shot at seizing the initiative and taking the fight onto Russian soil. Seizing the initiative has long been understood to be key to winning wars.

Without it, like in chess, "you're constantly on the defensive, your adversary boxing you into a corner," George Barros, a warfare expert at the Institute for the Study of War, said.

There's a risk of sooner or later being left with "a series of bad decisions that you'd rather not make," he said. Letting your adversary hold the initiative in a war is "how you end up losing."

Ukraine also proved it had more cards to play in this war.

Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander for the UK's Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear forces, highlighted Ukraine's use of drones and effective Ukrainian employment of armored maneuver warfare.

But those maneuvers were costly.

Reported tank losses suggest fighting in Kursk "has chewed up a fairly large portion" of Ukrainian armor assets from Western partner nations, said Matthew Savill, a former intelligence analyst at the UK Ministry of Defence who is now a military-strategy expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

That limits Ukraine's flexibility and the ability to surge forces elsewhere.

There's no guarantee, though, Ukraine would have been able to effectively employ the tanks back on its own soil, where the intense fighting and dense drone coverage have limited their use. Michael Bohnert, a warfare expert at the RAND Corporation, said that taking the tanks to Kursk may have been the most optimal way to use them.

The Ukrainian army was trying to relieve pressure on the front

Russian President Vladimir Putin's initial response was slow, and he didn't turn to the military for a fix, instead relying on a mix of other security groups. As Russia eventually stepped up its efforts to dislodge the assaulting Ukrainian troops, thousands of North Korean troops arrived to fight for Russia.

Russia's delayed, and irregular, reaction meant Ukraine could seize more territory and prepare better defenses, but it also meant that hopes of drawing a significant number of Russian troops away from the Ukrainian front lines were not fully realized.

Russia did not have to dramatically soften its efforts in Ukraine in response to Kursk, and its army has been grinding forward, advancing throughout the fall.

And Ukraine had to pull troops from the front lines at home for Kursk, potentially complicating its own defense. It remains unclear whether it was better for Ukraine to move its forces into Kursk or defend the lines at home.

But there were some good effects for Ukraine on its own soil.

"Ukrainian moves "fundamentally disrupted the Russian combat plans," Barros said, "because the forces and the plans that presuppose their availability were then consumed and taken by the newly imposed requirement for defending Kursk and repelling the Ukrainians from Kursk."

The head of Ukraine's armed forces said in December he had "no choice" but to assault Kursk, arguing he needed to reduce pressure on the fronts in Ukraine and stop Russia from opening a new front in Ukraine's Sumy region.

He said that it reduced the intensity of Russia's attacks across Ukraine, except at Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, areas where the Russians are advancing.

It's been a tough fight for Ukraine to hold ground inside Russia

Much less information is coming out of Kursk than from the fighting inside Ukraine, but Russia's losses have soared since August, per UK intelligence citing the Ukrainian military. Ukraine says that Russia has lost over 38,000 troops and more than 1,000 pieces of equipment in Kursk.

Bohnert said Kursk had been "very costly from the Russian perspective." He said that the losses Russia appears to be accepting there are surprising.

But Russia has been increasingly demonstrating it's willing to tolerate high losses, grinding away at Ukraine with its larger army in a war of attrition.

Ukraine, at the peak of the incursion into Russia, held about 500 square miles of territory in Kursk. But Russia appears to have taken back around half of that, and it's not clear what Ukraine's latest actions there may achieve.

Warfare experts told BI that the Ukrainians may have given up at least some of that willingly, less chained to holding every inch of territory than in their own country. De Bretton-Gordon said Ukraine still holds significant territory, which could prove helpful for the country if the war's end depends on negotiations — something for which president-elect Donald Trump has pushed.

"Whoever holds Kursk probably come the new year is going to be in the box seat for any ceasefire negotiations," said de Bretton-Gordon, adding that he largely views Ukraine's decision to advance into Russia's Kurks to be a "positive."

Beyond serving as a bargaining chip, Kursk also helped to dispel the idea the war was hopelessly stalemated. It also showed that surprise and big gains were possible for Ukraine.

"If enough Western officials and politicians believe that it's hopelessly stalemated, it can't change, then their appetite to continue supporting Ukraine will be destroyed over time. That is the Russian strategy in its entirety," Barros said.

Though some Western nations eventually gave Kyiv new permissions to use their weapons to strike into Russia, supporting Ukrainian operations, Kursk did not result in a huge boost in aid from Ukraine's partners, and it's unclear if it had any significant effects on their long-term thinking.

The push into Russia was a shocking moment and a morale booster, but it hasn't yielded the results Kyiv had hoped for and might not.

Assessing Ukraine's gamble in Kursk

So was Ukraine's Kursk operation worth it? That question's still up for debate.

Based on Ukraine's knowledge at the time of the attack, and what has happened since, Cancian said he would say, "Yes, it was the right thing to do."

Barros said that without Kursk, "you would have the Russians leaning into this attritional style of warfare where they get to keep conducting attacks." And Ukraine would have been leaning into the way Russia wanted to fight.

Savill said that he was "wary of criticizing it from a thousand miles away when they're fighting the existential fight and I'm not."

"The choice to do it was bold," he said. "It did put the Russians on the back foot temporarily. It did show something about what well-resourced Ukrainian forces could do if they identified a weak point." But he also said the decision to hold on to so much of Kursk after that first big advance "might turn out to have been the mistake."

Barros said the question of Kursk being worth it is a "complex question," as "we're looking at a live patient." But ultimately, he said, "it's a good thing that the Ukrainians sought to contest the initiative and impose problems on the Russians."

• Ukraine said one of its pilots downed a record-breaking six cruise missiles in a single mission.
• The pilot said he downed two of them with his gun, something experts said took great skill and risk.
• Getting close enough to shoot down missiles requires skill to avoid getting hit with dangerous debris.

The Ukrainian F-16 pilot said to have shot down half a dozen Russian cruise missiles in a single mission showed remarkable skill, particularly during a risky gun battle, a former US Air Force pilot told Business Insider.

Ukraine's air force command said that an F-16 pilot took out six Russian cruise missiles during a single flight in December, calling it a first for the jet. It said that during the historic engagement, the pilot shot down two missiles with the F-16's M61A1 six-barrel 20 mm cannon.

Ret. Col. John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the US Air Force and a former F-16 pilot, told BI that the pilot's ability to gun down the Russian missiles without putting his own aircraft at risk required a lot of skill.

He said "the fact that he did that without fragging himself" says "a lot about his skill set."

Switching to guns raises risks

Ukraine's F-16s have been repeatedly seen flying with an air-defense loadout of two AIM-9 Sidewinders and two AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. The country's air force said the pilot had used up all of his missiles and was low on fuel after destroying four Russian missiles, but he then saw another Russian missile going toward Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.

He moved to intercept it, firing his gun at the missile that was traveling over 400 miles an hour, the air force said. There was more than one explosion, and the pilot realized that he had actually eliminated two Russian missiles.

The Ukrainian F-16 pilot, per a translation by RBC-Ukraine, said that there was a danger in doing that because "shooting down cruise missiles with a cannon is very risky because of the high speed of the target and the danger of detonation. But I did what the instructors in the US taught me, and I managed to hit it."

Venable said the risk of debris makes this kind of engagement more dangerous for the pilot. He said that pilots must get close to missiles to get a good shot.

He said that if the intercepting aircraft is behind the target and it explodes when hit, "you're going to be what we call fragged," meaning that the aircraft absorbs some of the explosive debris. Pilots have to come in at an angle. Venable said that there being two missiles meant the situation required greater skill.

Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society, likewise said that fighter pilots using guns must get "pretty close" to their target. That brings danger, with cruise missiles "packed with explosives."

"If you're firing at something and it's at close range and that thing goes off — you've got to be pretty aggressive and pretty brave to be doing that," he said.

It takes skill to fly this mission

Retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gordon "Skip" Davis, the former deputy assistant secretary-general for NATO's defense-investment division, told BI "shooting two cruise missiles with aircraft guns is quite impressive."

Venable said that pilots who are shooting at a missile but want to protect their aircraft must approach the missile like they are coming onto a highway from an off-ramp, "where you're at 90 degrees out, and then you start to actually align your car with the highway as that on-ramp turns onto the road."

"That's where you want to take the shot, not when you are right behind the aircraft." And doing that "takes skill," he said.

Ukraine has not commented on the aircraft's state but said the pilot landed at an airfield, indicating it was intact.

Ukraine's air force command said pilots learned to shoot missiles with aircraft cannons in US simulators but never tried it before in combat, the Kyiv Post reported.

Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, told BI the gun kill was "good flying."

He said that it's "easier now with modern radars in fighters than in World War II, but the fighter still needs to close with the cruise missile and fire very accurately."

The jets are likely to continue to fight as missile shields

Battling Russian aircraft would be the better test because they shoot back, but Venable said the reported achievement, which he said was "more than plausible," says a lot "about how far Ukraine's air force has come" and the Ukrainian air force's capabilities.

Kyiv's new F-16s provide added air defense as Russia batters Ukraine with barrages of missiles, hitting major cities and energy infrastructure and killing civilians. The jets support already-strained ground-based air defenses.

This mission carries risks, and Ukraine has already lost at least one of its F-16s and one of its trained pilots.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser on the International Security Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that Ukraine is facing threats Western pilots haven't.

"None have faced the numbers of simultaneous incoming missiles that the Ukrainians have," he said. "US and Western pilots have faced one or two incoming missiles at a time."

Ukraine has a limited F-16 fleet that arrived later than desired. Partner nations have pledged more than 85, far fewer than what the Ukrainians likely need. Many of the jets, older versions of what Western nations fly, still haven't been delivered.

Ukraine probably won't receive enough fighters to use them the way the West does, but it can use them to strengthen its air defenses.

Venable said Ukraine does not have enough aircraft, stealth platforms, and other assets to be able to really use its jets to press against Russia. He said partners had to be conscious of leaving enough jets in their own fleets.

Col. Yuriy Ihnat, the head of the Ukrainian air force command's public relations service, said Ukraine wants more powerful modifications and missiles for its F-16s to compete with Russia, but said the headline-making intercept showed the skill of Ukrainian pilots and how formidable Ukraine's air force could be with more powerful jets.

• A US think tank estimates Russia lost about 40 troops per square mile seized in Ukraine in 2024.
• Russia's losses in its invasion of Ukraine are thought to have soared toward the end of the year.
• A former Russian president's remarks suggest Russia added just enough troops to replace its losses.

A US think tank on Tuesday estimated that Russia lost about 40 troops per square mile seized in Ukraine in 2024.

The Institute for the Study of War, which has been tracking Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said it had seen geolocated evidence indicating that Russian forces advanced 4,168 square kilometers, or about 1,609 square miles, last year.

In calculating Russia's rate of losses, it used a recent estimate from the Ukrainian military's commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, that 427,000 Russian troops had been killed or injured in 2024.

The slowness of Russia's advance this year — its estimated territory seized is slightly less than the land area of Delaware — has been compared with the rapid gains Ukraine was able to make when it launched an offensive into the Russian region of Kursk in August. Russia, though, has since retaken much of that territory.

While Russia has made steady progress in recent months, taking numerous towns and villages in eastern Ukraine, it has achieved no major symbolic or strategic gains.

The ISW said Moscow made 56.5% of its territorial gains in 2024 from September to November.

Those gains have come at a high cost, with Russian losses thought to have soared in recent months.

The UK Ministry of Defence last month noted estimates from the Ukrainian military that November was a record for Russian losses in the war, with 45,680 casualties — a daily average of about 1,523.

George Barros, a Russia analyst at the ISW, told Business Insider that Russian losses were mounting as they "have been running a very high tempo of operations" since about October 2023.

"The Russians have been, I think, at the expense of high casualties and exhaustion, continuing with a very high tempo of operations, which haven't ceased," Barros said.

Russia's tactics in its invasion have included using its larger military to try to overwhelm Ukrainian positions, often using "meat wave" assaults.

That means Russia may not slow down or stop its efforts even in the face of big losses.

The ISW on Tuesday noted that Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now the deputy chairperson of the Russian Security Council, said in December that almost 440,000 recruits had signed military service contracts with Russia's defense ministry in 2024.

The ISW said this suggested Russia was "likely recruiting just enough military personnel to replace its recently high casualty rates one for one."

• Zelenskyy said 30% of the military equipment Ukraine used in 2024 was domestically made.
• Ukraine is manufacturing more and more of its own weapons to fight back against Russia.
• Western weapons companies have also opened facilities in the country to feed its war efforts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 30% of the military equipment Ukraine used in 2024 was domestically made, with Western nations' support not enough to push back against Russia's invasion.

Zelenskyy said in a speech on New Year's Eve that "30% of everything our guys had on the battlefield this year – all this was made in Ukraine."

He added that the minds and efforts of people who work in the country's defense industry "have made us stronger."

Ukraine's military industry has soared since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine is making more and more of its own weaponry, like naval drones, howitzers, and glide bombs. It also manufactures its own missiles and successfully tested its first homemade ballistic missile in August.

An increasing number of Western manufacturers are also setting up operations in Ukraine. These include AeroVironment, an American defense contractor headquartered in Virginia, German arms maker Rheinmetall, and BAE, a major British defense firm.

In his speech, Zelenskyy said that at one facility, he asked a young engineer, "How did you manage to achieve so much? How were these people able to do all of this?"

He said the man joked: "They're not just people, they're missiles."

Ukraine's allies have given the country billions of dollars worth of military support. But Ukraine is facing off against a far larger Russian military, and the war's grinding, brutal nature is seeing both sides expend vast amounts of equipment.

Ukraine has, at times, run critically low on key weaponry and ammunition.

It's currently running short on US-made long-range ATACMS missiles which can hit targets inside Russia, The New York Times reported last week.

Ukraine has repeatedly said that it needs more weaponry and defensive gear in order to protect itself, and warfare experts have accused the West of drip-feeding aid to Ukraine rather than giving it enough to make a major difference on the battlefield.

Soldiers fighting in Ukraine have said that the way military aid arrives can make long-term planning and strategizing a challenge.

President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House could also lead to Ukraine needing to rely more on its own supplies, with Trump previously criticizing the scale of US aid to Ukraine.

• Authorities say a driver deliberately plowed into a crowd of people in New Orleans early Wednesday.
• 15 people were killed, and at least 35 more were injured.
• The suspect is a 42-year-old named Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, the FBI now says.

The man accused of plowing into a crowd in the heart of New Orleans in an ISIS-inspired attack that killed 15 people acted alone, an FBI official said Thursday.

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect in the attack as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old US Army veteran, and have described it as a premeditated act of terrorism.

Officials say he killed 14 people and injured at least 35 more others after driving into the crowd with a rented truck early on New Year's Day and started shooting before being killed in a shootout with police.

At a press conference Thursday, Christopher Raia, an FBI counterterrorism official involved in the investigation, walked back earlier claims that other people may have assisted Jabbar with the attack.

He said officials have since reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage and other records, and believe Jabbar acted alone.

"We do not assess, at this point, that anyone else has been involved in this attack except for Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar," Raia said at the New Orleans press conference.

Raia also said investigators have not found any links between the New Orleans attack and a Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas outside a Trump hotel, while cautioning the investigations into each event were still in their early stages. Both trucks were rented through the vehicle-sharing app Turo, and officials say the perpetrator in the Las Vegas attack was an active-duty Army soldier.

"At this point, there's is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas," Raia said.

The truck slammed through Bourbon Street

New Orleans was still reeling Thursday after the driver, later identified as Jabbar, drove a rented Ford pickup truck through the crowd on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Several improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were also found near the scene of the attack. An ISIS flag was found in the vehicle's trunk, according to Raia.

Raia said that authorities initially believed other people may have been involved in the attack because of witnesses who said they saw people setting down coolers containing the IEDs.

But surveillance footage showed that Jabbar set down coolers containing two IEDs himself, Raia said. According to Raia, footage showed other people later "checking out" the coolers, but they did not seem to have any role in the attack. Reports of additional IEDs could not be substantiated, Raia said.

Officials had also earlier said that a fire in a New Orleans house, which was rented from Airbnb, may have been where the IEDs were assembled. But authorities said at Thursday's press conference that they now believe the fire is likely unrelated to the attack.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said "information changes" as the investigation continues.

"No one dumps a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and solves it in five seconds," he said at the press conference Thursday.

Jabbar's criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and viewed by Business Insider, shows two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005. The first was for theft, while the other was for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.

Support for ISIS posted on Facebook

At Thursday's press conference, Raia said Jabbar rented the Ford truck in Houston on December 30 and headed to New Orleans on December 31.

He said Jabbar made a series of Facebook posts during his journey expressing support for ISIS and posting a last will and testament.

Raia also said that investigators believe Jabbar joined ISIS before this past summer.

In a statement to Business Insider, the car-sharing app Turo said Jabbar used its service to rent the truck.

"We are heartbroken to learn that one of our host's vehicles was involved in this awful incident," the statement reads. "We are actively partnering with the FBI. We are not currently aware of anything in this guest's background that would have identified him as a trust and safety threat to us at the time of the reservation."

Starting Wednesday evening, Texas authorities performed a search of a location in Houston believed to be linked to Jabbar, the FBI said.

At Thursday's press conference, officials said they had obtained two laptops and three phones connected to Jabbar, which they have been examining.

The agency said it's made no arrests but had deployed specialized personnel, including a SWAT team, crisis negotiators, and a bomb squad, to the Houston location.

The search finished early Thursday, with the agency saying that it could not release more information, but that "there is no threat to residents in that area."

Superintendent Anne E. Kirkpatrick of the New Orleans Police Department said during an earlier press conference that a man drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street "at a very fast pace." Kirkpatrick said the man drove into the crowd intentionally.

She also said the driver shot two police officers, who she said were in stable condition.

Kirkpatrick said it appeared that most of those injured were locals rather than tourists.

Eyewitness accounts

NOLA Ready, the city's emergency preparedness campaign, had initially said there was "a mass casualty incident involving a vehicle that drove into a large crowd on Canal and Bourbon Street."

Kevin Garcia, a 22-year-old who was present at the time, told CNN, "All I seen was a truck slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk."

He said that "a body came flying at me," and that he heard gunshots.

One witness told CBS that a driver plowed into the crowd on Bourbon Street at high speed and that the driver got out and started firing a weapon, with the police firing back.

Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana said on X on Wednesday that a "horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning."

"Please join Sharon and I in praying for all the victims and first responders on scene," he wrote, referring to his wife. "I urge all near the scene to avoid the area."

Bourbon Street, in the city's French Quarter, is a famous party destination.

Some streets in and around the French Quarter were due to be closed for New Year's celebrations, with Canal Street expected to stay open unless traffic got too bad, the local outlet Fox 8 WVUE-TV reported.

As a result of the attack, the Sugar Bowl football game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame was postponed from Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon.

Local officials tried to assure the public that the city was now safe, with additional law enforcement deployed everywhere.

"The city of New Orleans is not only ready for game day today but also to host large-scale events," New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Thursday.

• There are so many drones in Ukraine that operators sometimes accidentally pick up other feeds.
• Those moments can provide incoming attack warnings and intelligence.
• It is an emerging element within the constantly evolving drone war.

There are so many drones in the sky in Ukraine that drone operators are occasionally stumbling onto drone feeds and picking up unexpected intel. Neither side can be sure though when they are going to luck into this or when the enemy will suddenly get insight into their own activities.

Drones are being used more in Russia's war against Ukraine than in any other conflict in history, including cheap first-person-view drones. They are being used to attack troops and vehicles, complicating battlefield maneuvers, and they're so prolific that ground troops often struggle to sort out which ones are their drones and which belong to the enemy.

Ukrainian drone operators told Business Insider that extensive drone warfare has resulted in unintentional feed switching.

When this occurs, operators on one side of the battlefield can see the feed of the other side's drone — typically airborne devices that can target soldiers and gather intelligence to direct fires. A drone operator in Ukraine said being able to see Russian drone feeds is "useful because you see where the enemy drone that wants to destroy you is flying."

That gives the unit a chance to take defensive action.

Samuel Bendett, a drone expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, described it as the wartime version of a common civilian occurrence. When you drive in your car and have your radio at a certain frequency, your radio can flip between different stations that use the same frequency. That is what is happening right now in Ukraine, Bendett said.

Fight for the spectrum

Jackie, a US veteran fighting in Ukraine, said: "Right now, there are two fights when we're fighting with drones. There's one that you can see on video. And there's one that's completely invisible." That invisible fight is the fight in the electromagnetic spectrum or "fight for the spectrum."

The electromagnetic spectrum can get "full" and get "crowded," he explained. When there are enough drones in an area, you'll have "a lot of the feeds between those drones transferring, basically switching between operators without intent."

When that situation happens, it means "the drone guy would just suddenly see some other drones feed," Jackie said. So when enough drones are in the sky, everyone is "constantly switching feeds between some other drone that they're not flying."

Bendett said it was possible to do this deliberately if you know the frequency your adversary is operating on, but most of the time, he said, it's accidental.

He said this sort of thing happens "because technologies for both sides are similar, and there's only so many operating frequencies you can hop on to actually pilot your drones."

Advantages and disadvantages

As neither side has dominated the electromagnetic spectrum through electronic warfare, both sides are experiencing all the advantages and disadvantages of these developments. Sometimes Ukraine is collecting intel, and sometimes it's Russia.

The feed can help operators helplessly realize an attack is incoming, and "it also can be very informative for drone crews, experienced ones to kind of determine the tactic of the adversary, how far the drone flies, how fast it flies, what's the drone route, what the drone is looking for, and so on and so forth," Bendett said.

But it's a hard thing to plan for given the chaotic nature of these occurrences.

Jackie shared that Ukraine has attempted to "play games with the signals," but Gregory Falso, an autonomous systems and cybersecurity expert at Cornell University, said that "it's probably not predictable when you'd be able to get these capabilities." It's more about seizing the advantage when the opportunity arises.

Switching signals

Falco said it would be difficult to tell if the enemy has access to a feed because "you don't have absolute certainty of where your band is at a given time and where you're projecting."

There are questions about whether this could be taken further, though, going from accidental insight to deliberately pirated drones. Right now, that's more theory than practice.

Whether any Ukrainian or Russian operators could actually get control of the other side's drone, rather than just being able to see through its eyes, probably depends on the drone, Falco said.

He explained that the spectral bands used to see drone feeds are likely very different from the ones that control it. And the bands used to receive signals — that let the operator see what the drone can see — are typically less protected than the ones that send the signals, which is how operators tell drones what to do.

He said the feed switching is "bound to happen" with so many drones in the sky and with different types of electronic warfare in play.

Solutions, Falco said, could involve something like added encryptions for drone feeds. But given the fast-moving, chaotic, and desperate nature of a lot of the fighting and the fact that drone operators can go through multiple drones a day and Ukraine, it may not be worth it. And if that's the case, this kind of thing will keep happening.

He said it was the type of thing civilians would frequently see if there was less regulation. "If we didn't have rules," and the likes of the United Nations body that allocates the radio spectrum didn't exist, "and companies didn't bother playing by the rules, then this would be a normal occurrence," Falco said.

Then, it would just be "a total shit show of hearing and seeing everything that you're not supposed to see."

Ukraine, often short on other weaponry as it faces off against Russia's larger military, has been relying on drones, including to replace ammunition amid its shortages. And even the cheap drones have let Ukraine destroy Russian equipment worth millions.

Ukraine's drones are critical assets in the war and are said to account for at least 80% of Russia's frontline losses. Drones are super vital. They're one of our more clever casualty-producing weapons," Jackie said.

• Ukraine said it destroyed a Russian helicopter with a seaborne drone for the first time.
• Footage appeared to show a missile launched from the sea and a helicopter falling from the sky.
• Ukraine's sea drones have proved a pivotal technology, helping it combat Russia's vast navy.

New video footage shows what Ukriane said it a world-first: one of its seaborne drones destroying a flying target.

The clip purports to show a Ukrainian Magura V5 sea drone destroying a Russian Mi-8 helicopter.

It was shared by Ukraine's defence-intelligence agency, commonly known as the GUR.

The footage, which appears to show thermal imagery taken from the drone, shows a helicopter in the sky and a bright object heading towards the helicopter.

The helicopter then appears to fall, and an object is seen crashing into the water. The video shows the same incident from multiple angles.

It finishes with the English text: "Happy new 2025 year."

You can watch the footage here:

The GUR said that soldiers took the shot on Tuesday, destroying the helicopter with a drone-launched missile.

It said it was the first-ever example of such a strike.

The exchange took place in the Black Sea, near Cape Tarkhankut in Crimea, the Ukrainian region that Russia annexed in 2014.

The sea drone used R-73 "SeeDragon" missiles, the GUR said. Those are short-range air-to-air missiles that have infrared homing technology.

The GUR said another, similar Russian helicopter was hit too but managed to make it back to an airfield. It's not clear if it was hit by drones, or other weaponry.

The operation was credited to Ukraine's Group 13, which operates the sea drones and has claimed responsibility for other daring strikes.

Helicopters — which fly slower than most planes — have been targeted by different types of drones before.

Ukraine appeared to take down another Mi-8 with an aerial drone earlier this year.

The Magura V5 is a multi-use uncrewed surface vessel that's made by Ukraine.

Drones have been used in Russia's invasion of Ukraine more than in any other conflict in history.

That includes large, military-grade, and small, civilian-style drones in the air, as well as naval drones.

Its naval drones have targeted, damaged, and destroyed some Russian ships, helping Ukraine in its lopsided fight against Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine had sunk, destroyed, or damaged at least 24 Russian vessels in the Black Sea as of June, according to the US, and Russia moved many of its remaining vessels further away from Ukraine.

Ukraine's drones have allowed it to largely neutralize Russia's navy, without Ukraine having any warships of its own.

The drones have also laid mines to target Russian ships and attacked Russian oil platforms.

Ukraine typically loads its naval drones with explosives and drives them directly into targets to detonate on impact. Ukraine has also added missiles to some, like some of its Magura V5s.

The drones have also had firefights with Russian helicopters, aircraft, and patrol boats.

Ukraine makes its own sea drones, which, alongside the Magura V5, include the powerful Sea Baby drone.

• Tens of thousands of passengers are reportedly canceling flights with Jeju Air, South Korean media said.
• That's after one of its jets crashed on Sunday.
• 179 people — almost everyone on board — died in the crash, officials said. The cause is being investigated.

Passengers with the South Korean airline Jeju Air are canceling tickets after one of its aircraft crashed, killing 179 people.

The airline said that 68,000 flight reservations had been canceled as of 1 p.m. on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Most of the cancellations happened after Flight 7C2216 crashed on Sunday.

Some 33,000 of the cancellations were for domestic flights, and 34,000 for international flights, the report said. Jeju is South Korea's biggest low-cost airline.

The Boeing 737-800 crashed while trying to land at South Korea's Muan International Airport at 9:03 a.m. 179 of the 181 people on board were killed, local authorities said.

Footage showed the plane slide on the runway before it came off, hit a barrier, and burst into flames.

The CEO of the airline, Kim E-bae, issued a public apology: "Above all, we express our deepest condolences and apologies to the families of the passengers who lost their lives in this accident.

"At present, the cause of the accident is difficult to determine, and we must await the official investigation results from the relevant government agencies. Regardless of the cause, as CEO, I feel profound responsibility for this incident," he said, according to The Guardian's translation.

On Monday, most of the homepage of the airline's website had been cleared. A black banner on its English-language version said: "We deeply apologize to all those affected by the incident. We will make every effort to resolve the situation. We sincerely regret the distress caused."

Mass cancelations have happened before after major accidents. This includes customers canceling bookings with Malaysia Airlines after two deadly incidents in 2014.

Investigations into the South Korean crash are underway and no cause has been concluded yet.

A bird strike is one possible factor, with an official in South Korea's transport ministry reportedly saying the airport's control tower issued a bird strike warning before the crash.

But experts are skeptical that it would likely be the only reason, as planes are designed with fail safes and with bird strikes in mind.

Video footage showed the plane landing without its landing gear deployed.

Why that was the case is not yet clear.

• The US military has warned that lifesaving "golden hour" care may not exist in future wars.
• The experiences of Ukrainian soldiers reflect those warnings.
• Getting treatment can take hours, if not days, leading to lasting injuries, amputations, and deaths.

American generals predicted years ago that the intensity of future wars could upend lifesaving evacuations and medical care for injured troops.

That prediction is now a reality in Ukraine, where soldiers often can't get proper medical care within the "golden hour" — the critical first 60 minutes after severe injuries when treatment can increase chances of survival.

"Until there's a real concrete answer for drones, it's going to continue to be pretty hectic when it comes to that type of care," a combat medic with a foreign volunteer unit in Ukraine told Business Insider.

The medic, who uses the call sign Tango, has front-line experience with Chosen Company, including an ill-fated fight in the village of Pervomaiske where his team was devastated by Russian indirect fire in July 2023. Despite his own injuries, he helped provide first aid to a handful of wounded men, but they had to wait hours for more extensive care. Two men didn't survive.

In Ukraine, swarms of drones and constant artillery strikes complicate timely evacuations, contributing to the war's soaring death toll and the severity of survivors' injuries.

Asked in 2019 by Congress whether the US military would be able to evacuate wounded troops during the golden hour in future conflicts, Gen. Mark Milley, then the Army's chief of staff and later the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a grim response.

"Probably not," he said.

"We'll try," he added, "but I'm not guaranteeing."

Other military leaders have expressed similar concerns. "You may have previously heard a discussion of the 'golden hour,'" Maj. Gen. Anthony McQueen, now the Army's deputy surgeon general but formerly the head of its Medical Research and Development Command, said last year. "We're moving more to a 'golden window of opportunity.'"

On any given day in Ukraine, wounded soldiers may be stuck near the front lines for hours or days and can be evacuated only during a break in the fighting or in the dim light of dawn and dusk.

"Here in Ukraine," a US Army veteran fighting in Ukraine who goes by the call sign Jackie told BI, "we have a golden three days."

A struggle to evacuate

A Ukrainian combat medic who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the work she does told BI the struggle to quickly evacuate was "a big problem" that had only worsened with drones becoming more prolific. "Two years ago," she said, "it was a totally different war from what is going on now."

An estimated 1 million people have been killed or injured in the Ukraine war, with casualties stemming heavily from drones and artillery.

Cheap drones swarming the skies over Ukraine's battlefields can severely delay medical evacuations. The drones serve as aerial eyes for artillery, bombers that can drop grenades, and precision-strike munitions.

The Ukrainian medic said Russian troops target vehicles known to be carrying out evacuations, a war crime about which other Ukrainian troops have repeatedly raised concerns in this war. Russia did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment on the allegations.

They aim for the combat medics, she said, because "if you kill a medic, it means that you killed thousands of soldiers," or all the people they might have saved otherwise.

"If you look special or different, you are going to attract a drone," Tango said. "That goes especially for evac, and they specifically target medical vehicles or anybody with a backpack. You never wear a medic patch on the front line. That's a guaranteed drone strike."

Drones are only one of the war's many causes of bodily harm and death. A 2023 medical study found that 70% of Ukrainian war injuries were caused by shelling or rocket fire.

The Ukrainian medic said first responders sometimes reach injured soldiers quickly but can't evacuate if nearby roads are controlled by Russians or exposed to drones.

That can mean waiting hours or even days.

Extended delays in crucial care could lead to complications, such as amputations, or even fatalities that faster clinical care might have avoided. Leaving a tourniquet on too long, for example, can cause lasting nerve damage.

Jackie said a friend of his was wounded by shrapnel but couldn't leave his trench near the eastern city of Bakhmut for four days. His wounded leg became infected and ultimately had to be cut off.

Jackie thought the injury would have been an "easy fix" if the friend had received care in the golden hour. "We don't have a field medic up there pushing antibiotics through IVs, right under direct fire in a trench," he said.

Separately, a Ukrainian drone operator said that when he and his fellow soldiers were attacked by drones, one of his friends had to wait 12 hours before he could get proper medical treatment. One of the friend's legs later had to be amputated.

Drones give rise to 'magic hour' evacuations

In the cult-classic sci-fi film "Reign of Fire," "magic hour" occurs at dusk and dawn; it's the time of day when the dragons, deadly airborne dangers, are vulnerable. Tango said medics operating in Ukraine could find a similar respite at those times.

"That's when they're switching out their surveillance drones from normal analog video to either thermal or night vision," he said. "You have that limited window to move people."

Tango said, "You can't move during the daytime, or you'll get wrecked by drones." And the night has its own drone terrors.

Fighting typically slows at dawn and dusk as soldiers rest and swap equipment, though the Russians sometimes use artillery to suppress the Ukrainians during this period. A soldier hit outside this time typically must wait hours for an evacuation.

Once they can be moved, injured soldiers are typically taken back to a casualty collection point, like an underground bunker or concealed position, to be stabilized until it is safe for a truck or armored vehicle to take them to a field hospital.

What it means for the West

Drones have been used more in the war in Ukraine than in any other conflict in history, limiting battlefield movement. And the proliferation of sophisticated air defenses has prevented either side — Ukraine or Russia — from achieving air supremacy or even superiority. That makes it too risky for helicopters to rapidly pick up the wounded, as was standard in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recalling his Iraq deployment a decade ago, Tango said, "I knew even if I got really messed up, there is a pretty good chance I'm going to survive." He said that he "could get wrecked and probably be at a hospital within an hour or two."

In Ukraine, he said, "it's a gamble every time you step off on a mission."

The US could face similar obstacles in the event of a large-scale conflict against an adversary like China or Russia.

US Army Col. Matthew Fandre, then the senior medical officer for the Mission Command Training Program, wrote in 2020 that in a future large-scale war involving the US, the "golden hour will become a goal, not an expectation."

"This is not a paradigm shift; instead, it would be a return to the patterns and expectations of World War II operations and Cold War planning, exacerbated by current technology and lethality," Fandre wrote.

He said that without air superiority, aerial evacuations could become limited, leaving ground evacuations as the primary method. But ground evacuations would most likely also have limits, he wrote, which could "dramatically increase died-of-wounds rates."

George Barros, a conflict analyst at the US-based Institute for the Study of War, told BI that America and its allies needed a "tremendous amount of learning" to help "prepare to deter and, if necessary, defeat modern state peer adversaries like China and Russia." But there are also lessons from US experiences for Ukraine.

The US special-operations community has experience in prolonged battlefield combat care, something medics like Tango are increasingly studying and applying in Ukraine. Expanding that to the military on a large scale could be challenging, though. Troops are also considering drone deliveries of supplies into contested battlespaces, but that capability is still in the early stages.

Until then, many soldiers will continue to fight the clock after injuries, hoping for breaks in the fighting that make lifesaving treatments more accessible.

• A Jeju Air plane crashed in South Korea, killing 179 of 181 on board.
• Investigators are considering the role of a bird strike in the crash.
• Bird strikes have not caused many plane losses, and experts say it may not be the only factor.

Bird strike is being considered as a possible cause of the plane crash in South Korea, which killed almost everyone on board.

Although colliding with birds has always been a risk of flying, it has brought down comparatively few modern aircraft.

Some experts said of the Sunday crash that a bird strike was unlikely to be the sole cause.

"A bird strike should be a survivable event," said Sonya Brown, an aerospace-design lecturer at the University of New South Wales, in an interview with The Guardian.

She said that planes are designed to cope with bird strikes. Engine-builders have long tested their designs by launching bird carcasses into running engines to ensure they keep working, as reported by this CNBC article from 2017.

A June report by the US Federal Aviation Administration said wildlife strikes on civilian and military aircraft have killed 491 people and destroyed some 350 aircraft globally between 1988 and 2023.

It said that in the US, 49 civil aircraft were lost because of birds in the period between 1990 and 2023.

Civil aircraft include both airliners and general aviation planes. The latter are more susceptible to damage because many are smaller, have less robust airframes, and single engines.

While that may sound a lot, it represents a tiny fraction of total losses over that period of more than 30 years.

There were more than 27,000 aircraft fatalities between 1988 and 2021, according to the Aviation Safety Network, putting bird strikes as a factor in fewer than 1.8% of deaths. Most of the deaths involve general aviation planes.

Bird strikes on passenger jetliners very rarely bring down an aircraft. The last time it happened in the US was the 2009 crash-landing of the "Miracle on the Hudson", where everyone survived.

Most of the time, bird strikes will cause damage to airlines, but pilots are safely able to land the plane. American Airlines, for example, suffered a bird strike over New York in December and circled back to the airport for an emergency landing, with no reported injuries.

The Jeju crash reason is still unknown

Investigators have yet to give a reason for the loss of the Jeju Air flight, a Boeing 737-800.

An official in South Korea's transport ministry official said the airport's control tower issued a bird strike warning before the crash, Reuters reported.

The fire chief at Muan International Airport, where the plane crashed, said in a televised briefing that an investigation will consider whether birds stuck the plane.

South Korea's acting president ordered an emergency inspection of the country's airline operations. And the government said it will audit all 101 of the country's 737-800s with US investigators.

But a bird strike is being considered as a cause, or a possible factor. And other issues have been reported, too.

Video footage showed that the plane landed without its landing gear deployed.

Keith Tonkin, the managing director of Aviation Projects, an aviation consulting company in Australia, previously told BI: "It appears that the aircraft wasn't configured for a normal landing — the landing gear wasn't down, and it looks like the wing flaps weren't extended either."

Commentators have also pointed to the design of the airport — the plane came to a hard stop when it hit a solid wall near the runway.

Jeff Guzzetti, a former accident investigator at the US's Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board, told The New York Times that plane crashes are typically the result of multiple factors at once.

This is known as the "Swiss Cheese Model" in aviation, a theory that says a string of multiple smaller errors often lead to an air accident.

"The aviation industry is built on redundancy, and there are very few single-point failures in airplane design or airplane operations," he said. "Typically, it's a combination of factors."

• Europe is worried that Russia could attack countries beyond Ukraine.
• At the same time, Trump has suggested the US would be less involved in helping its NATO allies.
• Without US support, Europe lacks a key capability needed in a conflict with Russia, experts told BI.

If President-elect Donald Trump cuts US military cooperation with Europe, its NATO allies there would lose a key capability needed to resist Russian aggression.

Europe relies heavily on the US for the use of aircraft and weaponry to target air defense systems, known as suppression of enemy air defenses, or SEAD.

If a military can't execute this critical mission, its aircraft are hindered and vulnerable, unable to strike or protect, leaving its ground forces much more exposed and less effective.

"One of the most crucial things that Europe is lacking is SEAD," Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society, told BI. He described SEAD as "a crucial role," but one Europe has let "wither the vine."

Reliance on the US

There are few dedicated SEAD platforms on the continent. Germany and Italy's Tornado aircraft carry the AGM-88 HARM munition for targeting radars and are equipped with the needed Emitter Location System, but those are set to be retired next year.

Other NATO partners operate F-16s, which can have a SEAD role, but only US Air Force Fighting Falcons are equipped with the HARM Targeting System for better SEAD.

US allies in Europe are increasingly looking to replace older aircraft with F-35s, but only a few are also acquiring AGM-88 missiles.

(These missiles are highly capable for SEAD missions and were delivered to the Ukrainian air force for this purpose, but less so for the destruction of enemy air defenses, or DEAD, missions.)

"The F-35 was designed specifically to be able to operate against modern SAM systems in both the penetrating strike and SEAD/DEAD roles," Justin Bronk, an air power expert at the Royal United Services Institute, wrote early last year.

He highlighted the fifth-generation jet's advanced stealth, electronic warfare, and active and passive sensor suite for detecting enemy surface-to-air missile systems.

"Despite these very impressive capabilities, simply fielding the F-35 is not sufficient as an answer to European NATO's SEAD/ DEAD problem in itself," he said.

This situation has left Europe heavily dependent on the US, less than ideal amid questions about US reliability and as Russia's war in Ukraine has shown how important defeating enemy air-defense batteries is in modern conflict.

In Ukraine, neither side has been able to conduct successful SEAD operations, leaving both air forces hugely hampered and forcing ground units into grinding battles with heavy casualties.

Mattias Eken, a missile defense expert at the RAND Corporation, said an important lesson from the Ukraine war has been that "air forces must be able to find, suppress, and destroy" mobile surface-to-air missiles to achieve air superiority "against even moderately equipped state opponents."

Eken added that no other Western air force except the US has significant SEAD capabilities. All other NATO forces "have limited penetrating assets, munitions stocks, and experience in operating large, mixed strike packages."

American SEAD might and a lack of European capability

Retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gordon "Skip" Davis, who served as NATO's deputy assistant secretary-general for its defense-investment division, said "the vast majority of the SEAD aircraft, in the event of aggression, would be provided by the US."

Davis told BI that the US has the stealth aircraft, including penetrating bombers, needed to locate and destroy Russian air defenses, and US aircraft have intelligence capabilities "that NATO would have great difficulty in replacing."

He warned that without better SEAD capabilities or US support, NATO "would be hard-pressed to be effective in a large Russian aggression."

Warfare experts at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in April 2023 that "NATO is now wholly dependent on the United States for SEAD capabilities."

A key example was the large-scale NATO air campaign over Libya in 2011, where the US provided almost all of the alliance's SEAD capabilities despite having planned to only play a supporting role in that situation.

Looking ahead, Europe may not be able to count on the US. Trump has been a strong critic of NATO and, in his first term, threatened to withdraw from the military alliance if other nations didn't spend more on their defense.

European countries have dramatically increased their defense spending since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, and some now spend more on defense than the US as a percentage of GDP. (Warfare experts say that's a response to Russian aggression, not Trump's pressure.)

But Europe is acutely aware of Trump's threats, and military experts warn that the continent's increased expenditure is not enough to support Ukraine and prepare for Russia's threats alone. It still needs the US.

Thinking about the Russian threat

Russia has repeatedly threatened to attack elsewhere in Europe, and many countries have warned that it could happen in the next few years, especially if Moscow emerges victorious in Ukraine.

It's unclear if the US would or even could withdraw its support, especially for allies who already spend a lot on defense.

US forces are now so integrated in Europe that, if something happens soon, "they're automatically involved" unless the US makes a major policy shift to return forces to the US, Gordon said.

Europe is nevertheless taking actions to address its deficiencies, like a pan-European defense company now developing a new SPEAR-EW missile.

"I think the penny has dropped," said Robinson, but he added that not enough was happening. "It's taking time, I think, for European capitals and maybe multinational organizations to get the momentum going."

Michael Bohnert, a warfare expert at the RAND Corporation, said that it could take years to reconstitute a supply chain for necessary missiles. That means "there really aren't any good options" to cover a deficit in the short term if the US pulls back, he told BI.

Robinson said Europe has an advanced industrial base, but "the difficulty is it's all fragmented."

Some cooperation has taken place, including four European nations agreeing to operate their jets as a single fleet.

Jan Kallberg, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and a fellow at the Army Cyber Institute at West Point, said "acquisition, cooperation, and collaboration are essential."

He said countries should buy assets together and "operate jointly as a multinational force," especially given how large Europe is and how much land may need to be defended.

Fixing Europe's SEAD deficits will take time, during which it will be more vulnerable to attacks. But Russia has demonstrated an inability to effectively use its own assets — a flaw that could ultimately aid Europe.

"Europe will lack enough SEAD capabilities for the next 10 to 15 years," said Kallberg, but "the Russian air force and air defenses can't get their intelligence, command, and control to act together, and lack resources for broad modernization."

"If there is a war," he said, "it is not Europe's abilities that save the day. It is the Russian inability."

• North Korean forces are being sent forward in "human waves" against Ukraine, the White House said.
• A spokesperson said the tactic has resulted in heavy casualties, with more than 1,000 killed or wounded in the past week.
• The North Korean troops are treated as expendable and sent on "hopeless" assaults, they said.

North Korean forces are suffering heavy casualties as they carry out "human wave" attacks against Ukrainian troops, a White House spokesperson has said.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US now assesses North Korean soldiers are carrying out "massed, dismounted assaults" against Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region.

"And these human wave tactics that we're seeing haven't really been all that effective," Kirby said. "We assess that they've resulted in heavy casualties for these North Korean forces."

"Our estimate is that, to date, they have suffered more than 1,000 killed or wounded in this particular fighting in just the past week of them fighting on the front lines."

Kirby said it was "clear" that Russian and North Korean military leaders saw the troops as "expendable" and were "ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses."

He added that the soldiers "appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile."

North Korean troops first arrived in Russia in October. Ukraine said in November that it had for the first time attacked North Korean forces in Kursk, where Ukraine advanced into in August as part of its fightback against Russia's invasion.

Pyongyang's losses have since mounted, according to South Korean and Western intelligence.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that preliminary estimates suggested that over 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Kursk.

North Korea's military is one of the biggest in the world, but it has little battle experience. South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) reportedly said that some of Pyongyang's troops are ill-prepared for drone attacks and the terrain in Kursk.

Ukrainian officials and soldiers have said some North Korean troops have been killed by drones that they did not realize were dangerous, while Ukrainian intelligence said others accidentally killed eight Russian soldiers in Kursk in a "friendly fire" incident caused by a language barrier.

Warfare experts told Business Insider that North Korean troops appeared to be suffering high casualties as they were not given much training but that the troops could learn to adapt to the battlefield.

The NIS warned that North Korea nevertheless appeared to be preparing to put more troops in Russia, The New York Times reported.

Kirby also said on Friday that the US has reports "of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they're captured."

The alleged treatment of North Korean soldiers is not dissimilar to how Moscow has treated some of its own forces — Russian troops have also frequently attempted to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with "meat wave" attacks.

Moving forward, Kirby said the US would remain "absolutely committed" to bolstering Ukrainian air defenses, citing Russia's Christmas attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

"No doubt this was all about weaponizing winter and weaponizing energy, making it harder for the Ukrainian people to get the heat that they need simply to subsist," Kirby said.

He added that the US would soon have another security assistance package for Ukraine, including air defense systems and gear "to help them in fighting in and around Kursk to beat back these North Korean waves, as well as continue their defensive operations against the Russians in the east."

It comes at a crucial moment for Kyiv as it gears up for the return of Donald Trump to the White House.

• Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed because of shots fired from Russian territory.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin previously apologized to Azerbaijan for the fatal crash.
• Putin did not take responsibility, however.

Azerbaijan's president said that shooting from Russian territory caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that killed 38 people.

His comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the incident without taking responsibility.

Ilham Aliyev said on Azerbaijani television Sunday that he didn't believe the incident was intentional but that the aircraft was hit "from the outside."

He said, per Sky News, that the fuselage was "riddled with holes," indicating that the theory the plane hit a flock of birds before crashing was incorrect.

Aliyev added that "some circles in Russia" supported this theory, while Russian officials also suggested a gas cylinder exploded on board the plane.

"In other words, this clearly showed that the Russian side wanted to cover up the issue, which, of course, is unbecoming of anyone," he said.

Aliyev went on to criticize Russia for not responding to the crash immediately, "except for some absurd theories."

According to Azerbaijani reports, the downing of the plane was connected to Russia's interception of Ukrainian drones near its border.

On Saturday, the Kremlin said Putin apologized for the crash during a phone call with Aliyev. Putin stopped short of claiming responsibility.

The Kremlin's press office said that Putin had "offered his apologies that the tragic incident had occurred in Russia's airspace and once again conveyed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the plane crash victims and wished those injured the quickest recovery," per Russia's Tass news agency.

38 people died and 29 survived the Azerbaijan Airlines crash on Wednesday

Azerbaijan Airlines flight Flight 8243 crash-landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. Kazakh authorities said 38 people died, including the pilots, while 29 others survived.

The aircraft was traveling to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, from Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, before it diverted to Kazakhstan.

Putin said that Ukrainian drones and Russian air defenses were operating around Grozny as the plane attempted to land, Tass reported.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US had "seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems."

When questioned by media whether the US had seen intelligence that pointed to the involvement of an air defense system, Kirby said the short answer was "yes" but said he would "leave it at that."

Experts and reports have also pointed to Russia likely being behind the crash. Alleged evidence includes the erratic route the plane took as well as photo and video evidence of the aircraft that shows holes in its fuselage and tail while it was still in the air.

Rashan Nabiyev, Azerbaijan's minister of digital development and transportation, told the country's media that "preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact," the AP reported.

"The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe," he added.

The Kremlin had initially refused to comment on the allegations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday: "Currently an investigation is in progress. Any air incident should be investigated by specialized aviation authorities."

"It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the panel of inquiry presents its conclusions," he added.

• The US said it has "early indications" that suggest Russian air defenses downed a passenger plane.
• An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed while trying to land after diverting to Kazakhstan, killing 38.
• Experts pointed to damage to the plane before it landed, suggesting it had been hit by a missile.

A White House official said the US has seen "early indications" that the fatal crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane was caused by a Russian air defense system.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US has "seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems."

Kirby did not provide further details, but he said Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were investigating the incident and that the US had offered to assist if needed.

When pressed for more information on whether the US had seen intelligence that pointed to the involvement of an air defense system, Kirby said the short answer was "yes" but that he would "leave it at that."

The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane was en route to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, from Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, on Wednesday.

Flight 8243 then changed course over Russia and was trying to reach Kazakhstan's Aktau airport when it crash-landed.

Kazakh authorities said 38 people died, including the pilots, and 29 others survived.

The airline's president praised the pilots' "heroism" and said the crew's dedication to their duties and prioritization of human life had "immortalized their names in history."

Russian air defenses have been active around Grozny as Ukrainian drones have targeted the area as part of Ukraine's fightback against Russia's invasion.

Multiple experts and reports have pointed to Russia likely being behind the crash, citing the plane's erratic route as well as photo and video evidence of the aircraft that show holes in its fuselage and tail while it was still in the air.

Oliver Alexander, an OSINT analyst, said in a message to BI that "at this point, I don't think there is enough available evidence to conclusively say what exactly happened (type of missile etc)."

But he said "all the evidence I have seen points to the aircraft being hit by shrapnel from an air defense missile which severely damaged the elevator and rudder controls."

Sources with knowledge of Azerbaijan's investigation told The Wall Street Journal that Russia had redirected the aircraft from its airspace and jammed its GPS system.

Azerbaijani sources with knowledge of the country's inquiry also told The New York Times that Azerbaijani officials believed a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system had damaged the aircraft.

Rashan Nabiyev, Azerbaijan's minister of digital development and transportation, told the country's media that "preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact," the AP reported.

"The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe," he added.

Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday that a preliminary inquiry had blamed both "physical and technical external interference" but did not give any details.

Multiple airlines said after the crash that they would suspend flights to Russia and avoid Russian airspace. Most Western airlines have already been doing so since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Kremlin has refused to comment on reports that Russian weaponry caused the crash.

Speaking at a news briefing on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Currently an investigation is in progress. Any air incident should be investigated by specialized aviation authorities."

"It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the panel of inquiry presents its conclusions. Of course, we cannot do that. No one should do it," he added.

Russia's civil aviation authority pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the crash.

After a missile system shot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet in 2014, international investigators concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had likely given the system to separatists who used it.

All 298 people who were on board flight MH17 were killed.

• More than 100 elite North Korean troops were killed in their first battles in Russia, per South Korean intel.
• About 1,000 more were wounded in the fighting, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said.
• The troops are ill-prepared for drone attacks and the local terrain, the agency added.

More than 100 of North Korea's best "Storm" troops have been killed and 1,000 more injured fighting alongside Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, South Korean intelligence said.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service told lawmakers on Thursday that the troops' losses came in their first battles for Russia, The New York Times reported.

Lee Seong-kweun, a South Korean lawmaker, also told reporters that a general-ranking officer could be among the dead, the report said.

North Korean troops arrived in Russia in October. Ukraine said the following month that it attacked North Korean forces for the first time.

Since then, North Korean troop losses have mounted. On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that based on preliminary estimates, over 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region.

North Korean troops are primarily fighting in that region, where Ukraine launched an offensive in August.

North Korea's Storm Corps are among the most well-trained in Pyongyang's military, as well as the most indoctrinated, the Times reported.

Despite that elite status, they were still not ready for the fight in Ukraine, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said.

The agency told lawmakers that they were poorly prepared for drone attacks and the local terrain.

It's not the first time reports have suggested North Korea's forces are ill-prepared for the war.

The BBC reported that the Storm troops get more advanced training than other soldiers, but they're still underfed and some appear malnourished.

Ukrainian officials and soldiers have also said that North Korean troops have been killed by drones that they did not realize were dangerous.

Ukrainian intelligence previously reported that North Korean troops accidentally killed eight Russian soldiers in Kursk, describing it as a "friendly fire" incident caused by a language barrier.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service told lawmakers that North Korean troops were sent to Russia so quickly that Moscow could not properly integrate them into the military. They only learned a few military phrases in Russian, such as "open fire," "artillery," and "in position," before being sent to battle.

But warfare experts warn that the troops' potential impact should not be dismissed, especially given that Russia's tactics have been to use poorly trained soldiers to overwhelm Ukraine.

For its part, Ukraine is reportedly trying to get North Korean troops to surrender, making videos and dropping leaflets on troops in a bid to get them to desert. It has also warned that Russia will treat North Korean troops like disposable cannon fodder, as it appears to have done with many of its own troops.

However, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said that North Korea appeared to be preparing to put more troops in Russia, the Times reported.

Zelenskyy also predicted that North Korean soldiers would be sent to the front lines in Ukraine at some point.

• American Airlines briefly grounded all its US flights over a technical issue on Tuesday morning.
• The airline told BI that a "vendor technology issue" had affected its flights.
• Certain cancellations and delays trigger compensation under new federal rules.

American Airlines grounded all of its flights across the US for about an hour on Tuesday, saying it was experiencing technical issues.

Later Tuesday morning, American flights were back in the air. It was unclear whether the delays would reverberate through its network and cause additional issues on a big travel day ahead of Christmas.

Data from aviation analytics company Cirium and shared with Business Insider showed that only around 37% of American's flights are running on time as of 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Still, less than 1% have been canceled.

"Based on previous such incidents, it appears American has been able to maintain its schedule, albeit with delays," Cirium said in a statement.

Cancelations could grow, Cirium said, if crews "time out" — or run out of time they're allowed to fly by regulations.

Under new Department of Transportation guidelines, some passengers could be entitled to compensation if their flights are delayed or canceled.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in an advisory statement early on Tuesday that the airline's flights across the US were grounded. An update about an hour later said the nationwide ground stop was canceled.

American Airlines told BI in a statement that a "vendor technology issue briefly affected flights." That issue has been resolved, and flights have resumed.

"We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning," American said. "It's all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible."

The airline said the technology issue affected the systems needed to release flights, and the ground stop lasted about an hour.

Bloomberg described online posts as saying the issue prevented the airline from calculating weight and balance requirements for its flights.

More than 2,400 flight delays on Christmas Eve

The Cirium data shows that 63% of American's 3,900 global scheduled flights were delayed after Tuesday's ground stop. Planes were getting back in the air by mid-morning Eastern Time, with only 19 total cancellations.

Most of American's flights are running within two hours of their originally scheduled departure time, per Cirium, though some are reaching three hours or more.

FlightAware data shows American's hubs in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dallas/Fort Worth are the most affected airports, with about 400 and 500 flight delays, respectively, as of 2:00 p.m. ET.

A weather advisory in effect in the Dallas area was further disrupting flights.

Federal rules about customer compensation

Users on X said they were made to get off their planes on Tuesday morning.

New Department of Transportation rules say customers are entitled to automatic refunds for flights that are canceled or "significantly changed," including domestic flights that arrive at least three hours later than scheduled. To receive a refund, a customer must not accept a changed booking.

Most airlines, including American, offer meal vouchers to travelers who wait three or more hours because of a delayed or canceled flight that was within the airline's control. American's technical issues would fall under that category.

Many provide hotels for an overnight delay or cancellation, as well as transportation to and from the airport. It's unclear whether American's Tuesday disruptions will spill over into Wednesday.

The disruption comes on Christmas Eve, one of the biggest travel days of the year.

The Transportation Security Administration said it expected to screen almost 40 million people through airports over the holidays, an increase of more than 6% from last year.

• A strike by Starbucks baristas is expanding, their union said.
• The strike is due to expand to more than 300 locations on Tuesday, it said.
• The strike began over what the union previously told BI were issues over pay and unresolved cases related to labor disputes.

A strike by Starbucks workers will expand to more than 300 locations on Tuesday, a union that represents the company's baristas said.

Starbucks Workers United said on Monday that walkouts by workers would reach new locations like Atlanta and Buffalo, as well as other locations that had not been announced, The Washington Post reported.

That means some stores in the US's largest coffee chain will be affected on Christmas Eve.

Starbucks workers began striking on Friday over what the union previously told BI were issues over pay and unresolved cases related to labor disputes.

The union said on social media that the company proposed no new wage increases for union baristas and had backtracked on a path it had agreed to with workers regarding collective bargaining and pay organizing.

"The company says they have world-class benefits and pay, but for many workers, that's not the reality," it said. "Starbucks workers often struggle to get hours to qualify for benefits, and annual raises don't match the rate of inflation."

It asked people: "While we're on strike, support workers by NOT buying from Starbucks."

More than 60 locations have temporarily shuttered because of the strikes, the Post reported.

Philly Workers United, a food service workers union, said on X on Monday that five union Starbucks locations across Philadelphia had closed the day before.

Baristas have also gone on strike in locations including Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Columbus, Denver, and Pittsburgh, as BI previously reported.

The union has also shared footage of workers striking in Texas, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon.

The union said on X that the strike would "escalate each day through Christmas Eve... unless Starbucks honors our commitment to work towards a foundational framework."

The Washington Post reported that baristas are expected to return to their jobs on Christmas or the following day.

It is not clear if strikes will later resume.

A Starbucks spokesperson told BI earlier this week that the company "offers a competitive average pay of over $18 per hour, and best-in-class benefits."

They said the company also offered competitive benefits, including "health care, free college tuition, paid family leave, and company stock grants."

The spokesperson said that "no other retailer offers this kind of comprehensive pay and benefits package."

"Workers United proposals call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage of hourly partners by 64%, and by 77% over the life of a three-year contract. This is not sustainable," they added.

The company also said in a public statement that union delegates "prematurely ended" the bargaining session this week and that it was "disappointing they didn't return to the table given the progress we've made to date."

The company wrote, "We are ready to continue negotiations to reach agreements. We need the union to return to the table."

Shay Mannik, a striking barista in Denver who has worked at Starbucks for two years, told Business Insider, "We've been in contract negotiations with Starbucks for several months now, and things have been going smoothly up until this point — when they have now refused to offer us a viable economic package."

"They just have not been offering us anywhere close to a living wage."

Starbucks has 11,161 self-operated stores and 7,263 licensed stores in North America, BI previously reported, making stores with striking workers a small percentage.

But the union said it was still the largest ever strike against Starbucks.

The union said last week that an "overwhelming" 98% of union partners had voted in favor of the strike authorization.

In a recent post on X, the union wrote: "Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol makes ~$50,000 an HOUR and commutes to work via private jet."

"All while baristas nationwide are struggling to pay their rent and get the hours they need to qualify for benefits," it added.

Brian Niccol became CEO of the company in September and has spoken about wanting to improve conditions for the company's baristas.

He recently announced a new parental leave policy for employees in the US, which is due to increase paid leave for parents from March. It applies to store employees averaging at least 20 hours of work a week.

• Cholocate brand Cadbury has lost its royal warrant, which signified its use by the royal family.
• Cadbury was awarded its warrant by Queen Victoria in 1854 and held it for 170 years.
• The brand has been owned by US company Mondelez since 2010.

Cadbury, a storied chocolate maker, has lost its royal warrant from the British monarchy for the first time in 170 years.

The warrant, which symbolizes that a company supplies goods or services to the royal family, was initially awarded by Queen Victoria in 1854.

But Cadbury was absent from the list that was updated by The Royal Warrant Holders Association this month.

The company had held its warrant uninterrupted for 170 years, according to The Telegraph.

The chocolate maker has a long history and huge popularity in the UK. According to trade publication The Grocer, its Dairy Milk was the most popular chocolate brand in the UK in 2024.

MailOnline reported that companies that didn't have their warrants renewed were notified by letters, but that, per protocol, the letters didn't give a reason.

Cadbury was bought by US conglomerate Kraft in 2010, with Kraft's food division later becoming Mondelez.

The Royal Warrant Holders Association said on its website that businesses can apply for a warrant if they have regularly supplied goods and services to the Royal Household for at least five of the last seven years and meet other criteria, such as sustainability.

It said companies can lose their warrant if their products or services are no longer made, orders have fallen, the company has gone bankrupt, or if "there is a significant change in the control or ownership of the Royal Warrant-holding company."

The association added a warrant is typically granted for up to five years, and that the company is reviewed a year before its warrant is set to expire.

Mondelez and the Royal Warrant Holders Association didn't respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

But a Mondelez spokesperson told the BBC: "Whilst we are disappointed to be one of hundreds of other businesses and brands in the UK to not have a new warrant awarded, we are proud to have previously held one, and we fully respect the decision."

Brands with a royal warrant often feature the royal coat of arms on their packaging. The coat of arms shows a lion representing England and a unicorn representing Scotland holding a shield featuring symbols of other parts of the UK.

At the bottom of the shield is a description of which royal family member granted it.

Hundreds of brands risked losing their royal warrants after Queen Elizabeth II's death in September 2022.

At the time, if they wanted to keep their warrant, they had to prove that the royal family still used their products.

Food brands that still have a royal warrant as of the latest update include Nestlé UK and Heinz Foods UK, as well as chocolatiers Bendicks and Prestat.

Cadbury was founded in Birmingham, England, in 1824 and makes products that are sold around the world, including Dairy Milk, Creme Eggs, and Mini Eggs.

Some changes have taken place since the company was bought by Mondelez, including the first changes to its Dairy Milk recipe in a century.

• Trump said the US should take control of Greenland, reigniting an old position of his.
• This came shortly after he also suggested the US could take over the Panama Canal.
• In 2019, Trump said the US should buy Greenland, an idea swiftly rejected by the island and Denmark.

President-elect Donald Trump has resurfaced an old position of his, that the US should take over Greenland, just hours after also threatening to take over the Panama Canal.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that "for purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."

He made the comments in a post announcing the PayPal cofounder Ken Howery as his choice for US Ambassador to Denmark.

Greenland, the world's largest island, is an autonomous dependent territory of Denmark, which is a US ally and NATO member.

Trump's pronouncement came just hours after he threatened to take control of the Panama Canal, the man-made waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that "the fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the US."

He added, "This complete 'rip-off' of our Country will immediately stop."

In a separate post, Trump wrote: "If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question."

"To the Officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly!" he added.

The US transferred control of the canal to the Panama Canal Authority in 1999 under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

Panama charges fees for each vessel going through the canal, making it an important economic driver for the country.

Greenland, too, has strategic value. In addition to its own natural resources, it has proximity to the Arctic, where countries such as Russia are vying to gain resources and control.

Trump expressed an interest in the US buying Greenland in 2019, during his first term in office. Greenland's government quickly rejected the idea, saying that it wasn't for sale.

• Ukraine said it stopped a Russian spy group gathering information on its F-16 fighter jets.
• The group wanted to find out details on the airfields F-16s may be using, it said.
• Ukraine said the group's leader was detained and other members indicted.

Ukraine said it disrupted a Russian spy ring that was collecting information on the F-16 fighter jets it was given by its Western allies.

The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, said on Tuesday that it had neutralized a network of Russian spies that was gathering information about military targets, including its F-16s.

According to the SBU, the group was tasked with trying to discover the locations of military airfields where F-16 fighter jets might be kept, as well as the locations of Ukraine's air-defense systems and companies that make electronic warfare systems to counter Russian drones.

It said the group was working across five regions in Ukraine and was deployed by Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU.

It is not clear how much information, if any, the group was able to gather.

The SBU said its operation exposed 12 Russian agents and their informants.

Some of them were deserters who had left Ukraine's military and were recruited by Russia while hiding from punishment, it said, adding that they used their contacts, like Ukrainian soldiers in front-line areas, to try to gather intelligence.

Ukraine's Prosecutor's Office said one deceitfully recruited three soldiers he knew by pretending to work for Ukrainian intelligence, Pravda reported.

The SBU said agents who received the information would then go to the area of potential targets to gather extra intelligence.

According to Radio Free Europe, the group's organizer was detained and prominent members were indicted on charges related to state treason and the unauthorized disclosure of military information about the movement and location of Ukrainian forces.

Other members of the group could also face charges, the report said.

The SBU said suspects could face sentences ranging from eight years to life in prison, with their property confiscated.

The F-16s are the most powerful jets in Ukraine's arsenal, making them a major military and propaganda target for Russia.

Ukraine began receiving F-16s this summer, after repeated requests for the planes. Air warfare experts say the jets are a major boost to Ukraine's defenses, helping it protect cities and other targets from Russian drone and missile attacks.

Russia began targeting Ukrainian bases where F-16s could be kept before the first ones arrived, but there have been no reports of it successfully hitting bases when the jets have been present.

Despite their perceived importance, experts say Ukraine is not receiving enough F-16s to make a major difference, and it can't use them to launch raids or go on the attack unless it gets more.

The F-16s being given to Ukraine are also decades old — and are less powerful than Russia's best jets and the most advanced planes deployed by Ukraine's allies.