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Ukraine Is at War with Russia … and North Korea and Iran
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Last week was clearly a week for making history. That observation isn’t primarily sparked by Donald Trump’s presidential election victory—he’s now the only commander-in-chief besides Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive terms at the helm of the world’s leading democracy—but to a much less reported event half a world away, whose consequences Trump will have to deal with when he takes office in January.
As the Pentagon has now confirmed, the North Korean regime has deployed up to 12,000 troops to fight alongside its Russian ally nearly three years after Moscow launched its brutal aggression against Ukraine. As Americans ventured to the polls on Tuesday to carve a piece of history, the North Koreans did the same in Russia’s Kursk salient, where they clashed with Ukrainian forces, marking the first time that an outside party has fired a shot in this war. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out, the very presence of North Korean forces marks a serious escalation that will generate a “new chapter of global instability.”
Time will tell whether the North Koreans will make a significant difference to the actual progress of the war. A story that did the rounds in recent days centered upon a captured Russian soldier caught on video claiming that his unit was accidentally fired on by the very same North Koreans supposed to be fighting alongside them, suggesting that Pyongyang has dispatched cannon fodder rather than crack troops. “We tried to explain to them where to aim, but I think they shot two of our own,” the soldier explained. “I decided it was better to surrender in this situation than to be killed by our own bullet.” That probably shouldn’t be surprising; while North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has called his 1 million-man army “the strongest” in the world, none of the Hermit Kingdom’s soldiers have any meaningful combat experience.
The other aspect here is geopolitical—the coming together of two tyrannical regimes to crush the independence of a post-Communist democracy allied with the European Union and the United States. By choosing North Korea as his partner in war, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has signaled that no state is off-limits when it comes to seeking allies. For as bad and repressive as Russia is internally, North Korea is even worse; as I’ve written before, the “Democratic People’s Republic” is not so much an independent country as it is a concentration camp with a seat at the United Nations.
With his relations with Western nations at a nadir, Putin has become increasingly reliant on countries like China, Iran and North Korea for diplomatic and military support, as well as those states that are either existing or aspiring members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc of states, who present themselves as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated international institutions that emerged after World War II. Iran has supplied Russia with missiles and Shahed drones that have been used to devastating effect against Ukrainian cities and towns. In the case of North Korea, Putin and Kim signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty” when the Russian leader visited Pyongyang in June that pledges both countries to come to the defense of the other in the event of an attack. For Moscow, the North Korean troops for the time being offer a practical alternative to recruiting yet more Russians to fight in a war that has already taken the lives of more than 700,000 of them, along with thousands of tanks and armored vehicles. For the North Koreans, assisting Russia will bring in much-needed cash into Kim’s coffers, as well as Russian know-how in the development of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
What this means is that Ukraine isn’t just fighting Russia but also North Korea and Iran. The implications of this for Ukraine, as its civilians and armed forces face yet another freezing winter with dwindling supplies, are the gravest of all. But in the longer term, Ukraine’s ostensible allies will also bear the costs of this alignment of autocracies.
In the Middle East, the effects of Russia’s belligerent foreign policy have been manifest for more than a decade, given its aggressive backing of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime during the civil war in that country. Israel has had to tiptoe around the Russian presence in Syria as it has attempted to deal with Iran’s use of both Syria and Lebanon as a staging ground for its proxies’ attacks upon the Jewish state. Because of that, in the wake of the Ukraine invasion three years ago, Israel considered and then essentially rejected the proposal that it should actively back the democratic government in Kyiv with weapons and training. That prudence was understandable, but it has not curtailed the Russians, whose attitude to the Jewish state is increasingly returning to the demonizing approach witnessed during the Cold War as it cultivates terrorist groups from Hamas in Gaza to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
For Putin, the war triggered by the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 has been a blessing. In terms of world attention, his war in Ukraine has been eclipsed by the fighting in the Middle East, with the grim result that the authentic genocide that Russia is waging against its southern neighbor has been largely ignored as patently false claims of Israeli genocide in Gaza have mushroomed. As we enter the lame duck phase of President Joe Biden’s administration, a fundamental reassessment is therefore necessary—specifically, understanding how the wars in Ukraine and on multiple fronts in the Middle East interact with each other, and at what points Western, Israeli and Ukrainian interests intersect and where they might diverge.
Ultimately, both Ukraine and Israel are fighting against the same set of enemies. At stake is not just their security—one might even say their very survival—but the values and policies embodied by both the NATO alliance and U.S. foreign policy. How America and its allies respond now will determine our stance towards this so-called “Axis of Resistance” for a generation.
The post Ukraine Is at War with Russia … and North Korea and Iran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.