The D Brief: Invasion gains pace; Plane crash in Lithuania; New Pacific missile sites?; DepSecDef candidates; And a bit more.

Putin’s Ukraine invasion is gaining pace

Russia’s invasion forces are “advancing at a significantly quicker rate than they did in the entirety of 2023,” especially around Vuhledar and Velyka Novosilka in Donetsk Oblast, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War reported in their Sunday afternoon assessment. 

In perspective: Russian forces “gained at least 1,103 square kilometers” since September 1—compared to just 387 square kilometers in all of 2023, ISW writes. 

What might lie ahead: A probable Russian “advance into the southeasternmost part of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in support of Russia's longstanding objective to seize all of Donetsk Oblast,” ISW forecasts. 

Developing: Russia’s military may be trying to split Ukraine into at least three different parts, according to an alleged Russian document reviewed by Ukrainian intelligence. Those three parts, according to ISW, include:

• “one acknowledging the full Russian annexation of occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts and occupied Crimea”; 
• “another establishing a pro-Russian puppet state centered in Kyiv under Russian military occupation”; 
• “and a third part designating Ukraine's western regions as ‘disputed territories’ to be divided among Ukraine's westernmost neighboring countries.” 

New: Russia lured “hundreds” of men from Yemen to fight in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported Sunday. “When they arrived with the help of a Houthi-linked company, they were then forcibly inducted into the Russian army and sent to the front lines in Ukraine.” The men were reportedly promised jobs in “security” and “engineering,” with the first known transfers occurring this past July. 

That means Russia has now employed North Koreans, Yemenis, as well as “mercenaries from Nepal and India” for its invasion of Ukraine, FT writes. “Yemen is a pretty easy place to recruit. It is a very poor country,” one regional expert said. 

One of the Yemeni men reportedly “said he was promised a $10,000 bonus and $2,000 per month, plus eventual Russian citizenship, to work in Russia manufacturing drones.” More, here. 

More than 140 Russian drones and missiles targeted cities across Ukraine in the early morning hours Monday, President Volodymir Zelenskyy said on social media. “So far, we know of 19 casualties” in Kharkiv, he said. 

Ten different regions were targeted, Zelenskyy said. “Combat operations are still ongoing against aerial targets that remain in the air,” he added at about noon local time.

Developing: Officials in London and Paris are allegedly considering sending troops to Ukraine, Le Monde reports, citing contingency talks for how to deal with the incoming Trump administration in Washington. Former BBC journalist Mark Urban offered his interpretation for how those troops could find their way to Ukraine, writing on social media Monday morning, here. 

Also: A top military official at NATO warned Europe’s “businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly,” NATO Military Committee Chief Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer said Monday in Brussels. “While it may be the military who wins battles, it's the economies that win wars,” he said. “If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence,” Bauer said. 

Referring to China and Russia, “Business leaders in Europe and America need to realise that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation,” the admiral said. Reuters has more.

Additional reading: 

• “Russia reportedly captures a Briton fighting for Ukraine as Russian troops advance,” AP reported Monday; 
• “North Korea expands plant making missile used by Russia in Ukraine, researchers say,” Reuters reported Monday; 
• “Putin’s Assassination Targets Revealed in Declassified Memo,” Bloomberg reported Friday; 
• And “UK imposes biggest sanctions package on Russian ‘shadow fleet’,” Reuters reported Monday at a meeting of G7 diplomats in Italy. 

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1864, a group of at least eight Confederate terrorists tried to burn down New York City by starting fires at nearly two dozen hotels and other public sites. The plot ultimately failed. 

Unease in Vilnius

A Boeing 737-400 DHL cargo plane crashed upon landing in Lithuania, killing one Spanish crew member and injuring three others on board, authorities in Vilnius said Monday. The crash is particularly notable as it occurred three weeks after European authorities publicly alleged Russian operatives appear to have been behind at least two apparent bomb plots this summer targeting DHL cargo planes flying to the U.S. and Canada. 

“A surveillance video showed the plane descending normally as it approached the airport before sunrise, and then exploding into a huge ball of fire behind a building,” the Associated Press reports. The plane had departed Leipzig, Germany, for a 5:30 a.m. arrival Monday morning. Leipzig is also one of the locations where an incendiary device exploded over the summer, raising suspicion among European and U.S. authorities. 

Lithuania’s intelligence chief: “For now, we really cannot make any attributions or point fingers at anyone” because an investigation has just begun, Darius Jauniškis told reporters Monday. 

Also notable: “The pilots until the very last second did not tell the tower of any extraordinary event,” said Marius Baranauskas, the chief of Lithuania’s National Aviation Authority.

One witness told Reuters, “The right wing of the plane turned down before it crashed, as if it was trying to turn,” and “There was something shiny coming out of the right side of the plane, like sparks or a flame, before it hit the ground.” 

Pacific

Developing: American soldiers and Marines are planning to “set up temporary bases along Japan's southwestern Nansei island chain and the Philippines to deploy missile units in the event of a Taiwan contingency,” Kyodo News reported Sunday. 

The Marines would reportedly bring High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems with them, posing an additional challenge to possible Chinese forces in the region. The Army would task its Multi-Domain Task Force and their “long-range fire units,” Kyodo reports. Read more, here. 

From the region: “Philippine President Marcos says he’ll fight vice president’s plot to have him killed,” AP reported Monday from Manila; Reuters and CNN have similar coverage. 

Russian submarine tech could help China outpace the US: INDOPACOM chief. Moscow will likely provide technology to help China build better submarines,  Adm. Sam Paparo said, who leads U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Saturday at the Halifax Security Forum. “That has the potential of closing American undersea dominance to the PRC.” 

Paparo said the growing partnership between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran is making each of them more dangerous. The “PRC has rebuilt, helped to rebuild Russia's war machine, with 90 percent of its semiconductors and 70% of the machine tools that have rebuilt that war machine,” he said. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker has more, here. 

Trump 2.0

Two financiers are in the running to be DepSecDef, the Wall Street Journal reports: Stephen Feinberg, “a publicity-averse private-equity investor” who led the president’s intelligence advisory board in the first Trump administration; and Trae Stephens, an “outspoken venture capitalist” who is a partner at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund venture-capital firm. Stephens “co-founded Anduril Industries, one of the most visible companies in a growing collection of highly valued defense-tech startups,” the WSJ writes, adding: “The selection of either investor could come as welcome news for the hundreds of new defense startups that have entered the military market in recent years.” Read on, here.

Neither man appears to have military or Defense Department experience. Stephens graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and says he worked for an undisclosed intelligence agency early in his career.

Wired has a new (paywalled) profile of Stephens, here.

At least one GOP senator is voicing concerns over Trump’s prospective spy chief. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said “we’ll have lots of questions” about Tulsi Gabbard’s 2017 visit to Syria, where she met President Bashar Assad and called for the end of U.S. support for Syrian opposition to Assad’s rule. The Washington Examiner has a bit more, here.

ICYMI: ‘Extraordinarily dangerous’: Intelligence community insiders warn against Trump’s DNI pick.

Mideast

Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israel on Sunday. CBS News: “Israeli officials said there were some injuries caused by the Hezbollah rocket fire, but many of the weapons were intercepted by Israel's advanced missile defense systems.”

The barrage followed days of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah sites that killed dozens of people in and around Beirut, according to Lebanese health officials.

Also: “Iran is preparing to 'respond' to Israel, says adviser to Supreme Leader,” from Reuters on Sunday.

Update: Attacks on U.S. forces in the region, quantified. Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cdr. Patricia Kreuzberger said Friday there have been 206 attacks against U.S. forces: 79 in Iraq, 125 in Syria, and two in Jordan during the period between Oct. 18, 2023, and Nov. 21, 2024. 

FWIW: For several months now, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute has alleged the U.S. military has not been fully transparent about each alleged attack, especially in the weeks leading up to the November election.