The United Kingdom is set to classify Russia’s Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organization, a move that will open the door to prosecution of its members and supporters.

The decision – which puts the the organization into the same category as the likes of al Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram – comes with the group weakened and the UK government facing questions on why it took so long to proscribe it.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and the group’s field commander Dmitriy Utkin died last month in what Western officials believe was a deliberate plane crash, two months after Prigozhin staged a short-lived rebellion against the Kremlin, the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power in more than two decades.

Most security experts doubt Wagner will survive in its current form without Prigozhin, but that has not stopped the UK to move against the group.

In a statement on Wednesday, the UK Home Office said the designation will make it “illegal to be a member or support Wagner Group” and punishable by up to 14 years in jail. The listing will also ban promoting the group, arranging or addressing its meetings and showing its logo in public.

“They are terrorists, plain and simple – and this proscription order makes that clear in UK law. Wagner has been involved in looting, torture, and barbarous murders. Its operations in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa are a threat to global security,” UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in the statement. The order still needs to be passed in parliament.

The inclusion on the the terror list will also allow the government to seize Wagner’s property, which could pave a way for Ukrainians seeking to sue Wagner for compensation through the British court system.

In November, a UK law firm launched a lawsuit against Wagner on behalf of Ukrainian refugees living in Britain, seeking compensation for the damage from Russian aggression.

‘Not enough’ to sanction Wagner

The UK government sanctioned Wagner last year, describing it at the time as “Russian mercenaries reportedly tasked with assassinating President Zelensky.”

But it has been under pressure for months to designate the group a terrorist organization. A parliamentary report concluded in June that the government had “underplayed and underestimated” Wagner’s activities for nearly 10 years and was “remarkably complacent” about the role of mercenary groups.

The report specifically said that it was not enough to sanction Wagner and that the government needed to proscribe it as a terror group.

Many of Ukraine’s Western allies have imposed sanctions on Wagner and its top officials. But these sanctions appear to have had only limited impact on the mercenary group’s operations in Ukraine and across several countries in Africa.

The US Treasury Department designated Wagner a “transnational criminal organization” in January.

The Biden administration was considering designating the group as a foreign terrorist organization but has not done that so far. A bipartisan group of members of Congress has called for the designation.

In February, the European Union followed by adding Wagner to its global human rights sanctions regime.

Lithuania and Estonia have classified the group as a terrorist organization. In May, the French parliament passed a resolution calling on the EU to add Wagner to the EU list of terrorist groups.

The UK government is hoping that the inclusion of Wagner on the lists will put extra pressure on the group at a time when its future is already very uncertain.

For years, the Kremlin denied the existence of Wagner. But Wagner managed to secure several symbolic victories for Russia in its assault on Ukraine, especially in the bitter fighting around the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The group became more visible and Putin himself recently acknowledged it was funded by the Russian state.

Wagner’s power started to diminish in late spring and over the summer, as Kremlin tried to limit Prigozhin’s growing influence. When Prigozhin ordered his men to march on Moscow in late June, his fate appeared to be sealed. The group was officially exiled to Belarus after the short-lived mutiny ended and Prigozhin more or less disappeared from the public eye.

The Kremlin will now need to decide what to do next with the group – whether to legalize it and make it part of the Russian armed forces, or let it continue on in some other form. It is unclear whether the terrorist designation will have any impact on that decision.

Team USA has crashed out of the FIBA Basketball World Cup with a shock 113-111 loss in the semifinals against Germany.

The US was considered an overwhelming favorite to win the World Cup and took a strong team to the Philippines. However, following a disappointing performance, the US was the victim of a huge upset.

As expected, the semifinal match-up got off to a tight start. Neither team was able to take control throughout the opening two quarters with the US taking a slight 60-59 lead into halftime.

However, the third quarter saw the tide change and Germany seized its opportunity, catching the US sleeping following the break.

Germany outscored the US 35-24 in the third quarter and took a crucial 10-point lead into the final 10 minutes of the semifinal clash.

Led by Anthony Edwards and Austin Reaves, Team USA rallied in the fourth and a final quarter comeback looked to be on, but it proved to be too little, too late.

Germany held on resolutely, making key plays in the clutch, to book a spot in the FIBA Basketball World Cup final.

The loss represents another disappointing World Cup campaign for the US.

Despite taking a team full of NBA stars including Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton and Jalen Brunson, it marks the second consecutive World Cup where the US has failed to reach the championship game.

“Terrible. Plain and simple,” Brunson told reporters of his performance against Germany.

“We knew the task at hand, that was to go and win and we didn’t do that,” Reaves added following the defeat.

Wooooooow

— Toni Kroos (@ToniKroos) September 8, 2023

“The game has been globalized over the last 30 years or so. These games are difficult. This is not 1992 anymore,” US head coach Steve Kerr told reporters postgame. “Players are better all over the world. Teams are better. It’s not easy to win a World Cup or an Olympic Games.”

The Germany team boasted a host of NBA players with Dennis Schröder, Franz Wagner and Daniel Theis playing key roles throughout Germany’s World Cup run and the semifinal win.

Die Mannschaft will now face Serbia in the World Cup final with the US having to settle for a third-place playoff game against Canada. Both games will be played on Sunday with the third-place playoff acting as the curtain raiser for the final.

Hosts France won the opening game of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, beating fellow tournament favorites New Zealand 27-13 on Friday.

Damian Penaud’s second half try sparked a second half French scoring flurry in the hotly-contested clash in Paris, while Thomas Ramos added five penalties with his boot.

New Zealand winger Mark Telea scored twice, both times in the first few minutes of each half, but it wasn’t enough as Melvyn Jaminet’s late try sealed the win and gave France the perfect beginning to its World Cup campaign.

“We were expecting really hard opposition and it was a massive game. I’m proud to be French tonight,” France’s Gregory Alldritt said afterwards.

“It’s a great night for us … We are not champions now. We need go step by step.”

France next plays Uruguay in Lille while New Zealand attempts to claim its first points of the tournament as it takes on Namibia in Toulouse.

A late show

From hours before kick off, it was obvious there was a Rugby World Cup in town in Paris. And in particular, for those inside the Stade de France, the chance of watching two of rugby’s great teams do battle was an enticing one, leading to an electric atmosphere.

The atmosphere was only heightened in the moments before kickoff, with the All Blacks performing their traditional Haka, an enraptured Stade de France exploding in applause upon its conclusion.

However, it was New Zealand who got off to the perfect start within the opening two minutes, some attacking pressure resulting in Beuden Barrett’s beautiful cross-field kick being gathered by Telea on the wing to touch down and open the scoring with a try after just 93 seconds.

A penalty from Ramos got the hosts back within touching distance just minutes later and after some ferocious to-and-fro between two of rugby’s elite teams, France got itself ahead for the first time midway through the first half with another Ramos penalty.

Richie Mo’unga’s penalty handed New Zealand a slender lead once again before the players got a well-earned water break in the searing Paris heat.

Ramos got his hat trick of penalties midway through the half, blasting home from the halfway line as France once again regained the lead.

After a halftime break – with the players recuperating after a sapping first half – it was almost a mirror image of the first, with New Zealand scoring a try within just minutes as Telea once again touched down to cap off a sweeping move from one end of the pitch to the other.

In a moment of excellent rugby though, a quick break set Penaud free down the wing and it looked for all the world like he would score, only for New Zealand’s flyhalf Mo’unga to come out of nowhere and dislodge the ball with a try-saving intervention.

However, just minutes later, France did find the breakthrough after some sustained pressure, Penaud touching down as Les Bleus retook the lead.

With time ticking away and behind on the scoreboard, New Zealand pushed to assert some pressure but it proved too much as Will Jordan was penalized for an in-air collision with a French player resulting in a yellow card from referee Jaco Peyper and a 10-minute sin bin.

France made the man advantage count, Ramos scoring his fourth penalty of the game from close range to extend the lead to six points.

And try as it might to push for a route back into the game, Ramos’ fifth penalty of the game made it a two-score match and effectively wrapped up the result.

Jaminet’s late try after some fortuitous bounces sent the home fans wild as they were finally able to celebrate a momentous victory and one which almost certainly assures it of a favorable draw in the next stage of the tournament.

New Zealand on the other hand will have to do it the hard way if it wants to win a fourth World Cup, with the defeat likely meaning it will finish second in Pool A behind France barring any shocks, and as a result playing the winner of Pool B which will be one of South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Tonga or Romania.

Hurricane Lee rapidly intensified at a historic pace into a Category 5 storm Thursday night, adding to a spate of extremely intense hurricanes this year and in recent decades which experts say is a symptom of the climate crisis.

This year alone, Category 5 storms have already appeared in all seven ocean basins where tropical cyclones form, including Hurricane Jova, which also rapidly strengthened into a Category 5 storm earlier this week.

Jim Kossin, a hurricane expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Brooklyn-based nonprofit First Street Foundation, agrees. He cautions the NOAA database had not fully counted storms prior to the satellite era, and while advances in technology have made it easier to measure hurricanes, it is still difficult to determine the real trend.

Still, he said at the breakneck pace at which the oceans are warming, high intensity tropical cyclones are likely occurring more often.

The primary way in which storms reach Category 4 or 5 strength is by undergoing a rapid intensification process — when a storm’s winds strengthen rapidly by at least 35 mph in 24 hours or less, said Reed.

It’s just one of the ways experts say the climate crisis is making hurricanes more dangerous, as warmer waters allow for storms to strengthen quicker and reach higher categories on the hurricane wind speed scale. More than 90% of warming around the globe over the past 50 years has taken place in the oceans, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The short of it is, as the sea surface temperatures warm, because of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, the likelihood that any event will undergo rapid intensification will increase,” Reed said.

Rapid intensification has been happening more and more as storms are approaching landfall, making them harder to prepare for. Hurricane Idalia rapidly intensified by 55 mph in 24 hours before landfall along Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 4 hurricane late last month.

And in the North Atlantic, where ocean temperatures have been off the charts, storms like Lee have had quite a feast.

Lee’s winds increased 85 mph in 24 hours, the third-fastest a storm has rapidly intensified on record in the Atlantic Ocean, according to NOAA research meteorologist John Kaplan.

“There is little doubt that the exceptionally warm ocean waters we’re seeing have a human fingerprint on them,” Kossin said. “Add to this the warming effects of the El Niño happening this year and we have a recipe for breaking a lot of temperature records.”

Kossin noted this is especially true in the eastern North Pacific, where warming from a growing El Niño is most concentrated. “Jova is sitting in the middle of this, and the warm water certainly fueled the rapid intensification,” he added.

One thing is for certain: As the world’s oceans continue to warm, experts say the frequency at which these top-of-scale storms can occur and intensify will only increase.

Novak Djokovic cruised through to the US Open final after a dominant 6-3 6-2 7-6 (7-4) win against American youngster Ben Shelton.

Shelton, playing in his first ever grand slam semifinal, came out all guns blazing but was unable to lay much of a glove on the ever-impressive Djokovic.

The world No. 2 was at his imperious best during the clash and controlled proceedings against Shelton from start to finish.

“These are the kinds of matches and occasions that I still thrive on and get me going and inspire me every day to try and work as hard as the young guys,” Djokovic said during his on-court interview after the win.

“The grand slams are the ones that motivate me the most to play my best tennis, perform my best tennis.”

The Serbian’s first break came in the sixth game of the match and after going up 4-2 in the first set, Djokovic never looked back – going on to win the first set 6-3.

This momentum carried into the next set where Djokovic raced on to claim the second set 6-2 to grab a stranglehold on the encounter inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Being two sets down against Djokovic is a place where no tennis player wants to be and, despite being behind, Shelton will be proud of his efforts in the final set.

The world No. 47 toiled away, making it difficult for Djokovic to advance to the final, and he was even able to break the serve of the 23-time grand slam winner twice during the final frame – forcing a tiebreak.

Djokovic eventually took the third set in the tiebreak and celebrated by imitating his opponent’s celebration – which involves miming holding a phone to his ear and then hanging it up – something that has become a trademark of Shelton’s victories during his US Open run.

The win also means that the Serbian now has a 30-1 record against players playing in their home slam after knocking out the home crowd favorite Shelton.

“I knew prior to the quarterfinals that I would play an American player and that is never easy. To control the nerves and be composed in the moments that matter,” Djokovic added.

“Today things were going really smoothly for me and then he broke back and it was anyone’s game at the end of the third set. This is the kind of atmosphere we all like to play in, so I am really, really pleased with this win today.”

At 20 years old, there will likely be plenty of opportunities for the big serving youngster to go big in future tournaments and, based on this year’s US Open, he has more than enough skill to do so.

For Djokvoic, he has now made it to a record-equaling 10th US Open final and he will be looking to win his fourth title at Flushing Meadows in Sunday’s final.

He also has the chance to make history and level Margaret Court’s record of 24 grand slam singles titles.

The 36-year-old will play the final on Arthur Ashe Stadium against the winner of the semifinal between Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev who play later on Friday.

Hurricane Lee maintained its Category 4 strength Friday evening as the powerful storm’s indirect – yet dangerous – impacts were expected to reach the waters of the East Coast as early as this weekend.

The hurricane, which briefly strengthened to a rare Category 5 storm in the Atlantic Ocean, is packing destructive maximum sustained winds of 150 mph and is about 500 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands.

“Some fluctuations in intensity are likely over the next few days, however Lee is expected to remain a powerful major hurricane through early next week,” the National Hurricane Center said.

It’s too soon to know whether this system will directly impact the US mainland, but the storm will create dangerous coastal conditions like rip currents and large waves along the East Coast as soon as Sunday regardless of its final track.

Lee, which was a Category 1 storm Thursday, intensified with exceptional speed in warm ocean waters, more than doubling its wind speeds to 165 mph in just a day.

The storm’s winds increased by 85 mph in a 24-hour period, which tied it with Hurricane Matthew for the third-fastest rapid intensification in the Atlantic, according to NOAA research meteorologist John Kaplan. The monstrous hurricane struck Haiti in 2016, killing hundreds in the Caribbean nation while also wreaking havoc on parts of the US Southeast.

Dangerous surf and rip currents will spread across the northern Caribbean on Friday

The center of Lee will pass to the north of the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend and into early next week. Tropical storm conditions, life-threatening surf and rip currents could occur on some of these islands over the weekend.

Lee now in rare company

Lee hit a rare strength that few storms have ever achieved. Only 2% of storms in the Atlantic reach Category 5 strength, according to NOAA’s hurricane database. Including Lee, only 40 Category 5 hurricanes have roamed the Atlantic since 1924.

Category 5 is the highest level on the hurricane wind speed scale and has no maximum point. Hurricanes hit this level when their sustained winds reach 157 mph or higher. A 165-mph storm like Lee is the same category as Hurricane Allen, the Atlantic’s strongest hurricane on record, which topped out at 190 mph in 1980.

Hurricanes need the perfect mixture of warm water, moist air and light upper-level winds to intensify enough to reach Category 5 strength. Lee had all of these, especially warm water amid the warmest summer on record.

Sea-surface temperatures across the portion of the Atlantic Ocean that Lee is tracking through are a staggering 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal after rising to “far above record levels” this summer, according to David Zierden, Florida’s state climatologist.

Reaching Category 5 strength has become more common over the last decade. Lee is the 8th Category 5 since 2016, meaning 20% of these exceptionally powerful hurricanes on record in NOAA’s hurricane database have come in the last seven years.

The Atlantic is not the only ocean to have spawned a monster storm in 2023. All seven ocean basins where tropical cyclones can form have had a storm reach Category 5 strength so far this year, including Hurricane Jova, which reached Category 5 status in the eastern Pacific earlier this week.

How close will Hurricane Lee get to the US?

Computer model trends for Lee have shown the hurricane taking a turn to the north early next week. But exactly when that turn occurs and how far west Lee will manage to track by then will play a huge role in how close it gets to the US.

Several steering factors at the surface and upper levels of the atmosphere will determine how close Lee will get to the East Coast.

An area of high pressure over the Atlantic, known as the Bermuda High, will have a major influence in how quickly Lee turns. The Bermuda High is expected to remain very strong into the weekend, which will keep Lee on its current west-northwestward track and slow it down a bit.

As the high pressure weakens next week it will allow Lee to start moving northward.

Once that turn to the north occurs, the position of the jet stream – strong upper-level winds that can change the direction of a hurricane’s path – will influence how closely Lee is steered to the US.

Scenario: Out to Sea

Lee could make a quick turn to the north early next week if high pressure weakens significantly.

If the jet stream sets up along the East Coast, it will act as a barrier that prevents Lee from approaching the coast. This scenario would keep Lee farther away from the US coast but could bring the storm closer to Bermuda.

Scenario: Close to East Coast

Lee could make a slower turn to the north because the high pressure remains robust, and the jet stream sets up farther inland over the Eastern US. This scenario would leave portions of the East Coast, mainly north of the Carolinas, vulnerable to a much closer approach from Lee.

All these factors have yet to come into focus, and the hurricane is still at least seven days from being a threat to the East Coast. Any potential US impact will become more clear as the Lee moves west in the coming days.

As Europe continues to be squeezed by overtourism and short-term rentals mushroom to accommodate visitors, cities across the continent are noting more and more that residents are being squeezed out.

Now, one of Europe’s biggest tourist destinations is taking action. The city of Florence has announced plans to ban new short-term rentals such as Airbnbs.

The new legislation, which will be voted on next Wednesday and is expected to be active by November, will ban any further properties in the historic center of the city being registered as short-term rentals.

“We are witnessing a progressive growth in the influx of tourists which has become even more pronounced since the pandemic,” he added.

Figures from the city council show that 75% of Florence’s short-term rentals are concentrated in just 5% of the municipal territory – the city’s centro storico, the birthplace of the Renaissance and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The legislation aims to tackle that 5%.

If approved, the legislation will ban the registration of any new short-term rentals in the city center. Additionally, in a bid to incentivize residential contracts, any owners who convert Airbnbs into a long-term residential let will have their property taxes on the building zeroed out for three years.

The law will not be retroactive – so anyone with an existing short-term rental contract will be able to retain it. Around 4,000 new registrations have been made since the move was announced, according to local media. Some were already operating illegally; others are putting in requests for plans to Airbnb their properties in the future.

Nardella said that the authorities were taking action to protect Florence’s global heritage.

“We are putting a simple ban in the UNESCO area to meet our responsibilities of protecting the cultural and material identity of the centro storico, and to dampen the effect of rent increases across the entire city – which are directly linked to the boom of short-term tourist rentals.”

Calling for urgent national legislation from the government, Nardella said that the Florence authorities had “rolled up our sleeves because for too long we’ve been asking for regulation that never happens.”

He added: “We cannot watch our centro storico changing and we cannot cope with all the problems of citizens unable to find an apartment to rent.

“Faced with inertia from the government and parliament, it’s our duty to act to put the brakes on this social emergency.”

Not everyone is delighted. Lorenzo Masi, a councilor with the populist Five Star political movement, has queried “what will happen to those who aren’t renting [property] in an entrepreneurial way, but are for example renting a room in the home they live in – in many cases to offset costs.”

“We would need plans that include these kind of situations, in which the most disadvantaged groups are not compared with those who are working purely on a business level,” he said in a statement.

Follow the money

For some, the proposals don’t go far enough. “What the mayor has done is great, but without inspections, it’s not enough,” said Veronica Grechi, owner of Velona’s Jungle B&B on the edge of Florence’s city center. Grechi describes the way that much of the short-term rental sector is managed as “non-professional and wild west,” with many property owners operating rentals without declaring them to the authorities.

Grechi – who says that when recently looking for cleaning staff, companies offered to work with her on the condition that she paid them 80% cash in hand, declaring only 20% to the tax man – says that if authorities conducted checks on properties and followed the money, the number of Airbnbs would naturally drop.

“Everyone does it [rent short-term] at the moment because it’s easy – it costs nothing. If you make people do it professionally, the numbers [of Airbnbs] would go down immediately, because it wouldn’t be worth them doing it.”

Growing opposition to Airbnb

Florence is the latest destination to attempt to stem the rising tide of Airbnbs.

New York City has introduced what Airbnb has deemed a “de facto ban” on short-term rentals. Properties can only be registered for rentals of under 30 days if the host is living in the property at the same time as the guests, of which there can be no more than two.

Portugal has also laid out new housing laws this summer which cast uncertainty over short-term rentals.

In Amsterdam, owners can rent out properties for a maximum 30 days per calendar year, for a maximum of four guests at a time.

In Berlin, entire properties can be rented short-term for a maximum 90 days per year.

Russia’s failures on the battlefield in Ukraine could turn into a win for North Korea.

That’s the view of analysts who say a possible meeting between Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin could lead to Pyongyang getting its hands on the sort of weapons two decades’ worth of United Nations’ sanctions have barred it from accessing.

On Monday, the US National Security Council claimed arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea were “actively advancing,” after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang in July in an attempt to convince it to sell artillery ammunition to Moscow.

The US also believes there could be a Putin-Kim meeting in the near future.

Should it materialize, such a meeting would come after more than a year and a half of war in Ukraine has left the Russian military battered, depleted and in need of supplies.

It would also come after 17 years of UN sanctions aimed at hampering North Korea’s ability to build a fully functioning nuclear weapons and ballistic missile force.

“This [meeting] is a very significant development if it goes forward,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “Russia has the military technology that Kim wants for his illegal satellite launch and nuclear weapons delivery programs.”

Despite the UN sanctions, Kim has been developing his ballistic missile program at breakneck pace for the past two years. In that period he has tested dozens of missiles, including intercontinental ballistic ones (ICBMs) that in theory could deliver a nuclear warhead over the US mainland.

But doubts remain over the extent of the country’s capabilities.

“American analysts and experts from other countries still debate the nuclear payload that North Korea’s ICBMs could carry, and it is still unclear whether the ICBMs have the capability to survive reentry,” said a June 2022 report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Were Kim to get his hands on technology from Russia, a world leader in nuclear missile forces for decades, it would be a great boost for his programs and a great concern for leaders in the West, analysts said.

Doo Jin-ho, research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Russia could provide various things on North Korea’s wish list: reentry technology, improved launch capabilities for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, satellite reconnaissance capabilities, and even help with launching satellites.

North Korea has attempted two satellite launches this year; both ended in failure.

Any Pyongyang-Moscow deal could possibly include commodities that Russia has in abundance but North Korea lacks due to the long years of sanctions, said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

“North Korea needs cash, it needs food, it needs energy,” Schuster said.

Writing this week in The Conversation, Daniel Salisbury, visiting research fellow at King’s College London, said that if Russia began buying North Korean arms – thereby flouting UN sanctions Moscow itself helped pass – other countries that had once imported military hardware from Pyongyang, like Iran, might follow suit.

Russia’s “purchases will undermine the North Korea sanctions regime and help to generate revenue for the Kim regime. It could also spur a broader renaissance for North Korea’s arms export enterprise,” Salisbury wrote.

Old friends

Any pact with Moscow would help Kim in another way, said Schuster, a former US Navy captain.

“This alliance makes him look less isolated, provides a psychological boost for him and his inner circle,” Schuster said of the North Korean leader.

Though military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang has a history going back to Stalin’s support of Kim’s grandfather at the start of the Korean War in 1950, it has waned in more recent years, especially when Russia, with veto power in the UN Security Council, supported the implementation of sanctions on North Korea.

Still, that long history means there are many similarities in their weapons stocks that could be useful to Russia.

“North Korea makes good what I call heavy industrial weapons,” Schuster said. “Its artillery and ammunition is very good. It’s very similar to Russian designs.”

Doo agreed, saying “North Korea’s 152mm artillery ammunition and 122mm multiple rocket launcher ammunition can be used on Russian weapons immediately.”

But North Korean ammo would not be a game-changer for Russia, said Joseph Dempsey, research associate for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“These [arms] could help replenish depleted stocks and prolong the conflict but are not going to change its direction,” he said.

Others questioned how quickly any North Korean ammo could get into the hands of Russian troops on the frontlines in Ukraine.

Shipments from North Korea to Russian fighting forces would need to cross the Trans-Siberian Railway, more than 5,700 miles from Vladivostok in the east to Moscow in the west.

Much of the equipment on the rail line is from the late Cold War era, and seriously stressed, said Trent Telenko, a former quality control auditor for the US’ Defense Contract Management Agency who has studied Russian logistics.

“Overstressing Cold War era transportation is a seriously stupid idea on a lot of levels. And that is exactly what the Russians are doing,” Telenko said.

Spanish climate activists sprayed red paint across a superyacht owned by billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie in Barcelona on Friday, the second time the yacht has been the target of protests in the past two months.

Two activists from the climate groups Scientist Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion accessed Marina Port Vell, a dock for superyachts, at 7 a.m. local time on Friday, according to a spokesperson for the organization.

They sprayed biodegradable red paint onto the superyacht before unfurling a banner reading: “Billionaires should not exist.”

“At the end of another exceptional summer in terms of record temperatures and extreme weather events, the richest 1% of people on the planet continue to pollute more than the poorest 50%. Mega-yachts are one of the most obvious examples of a lifestyle that is unsustainable for the planet,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Marina Port Vell said that the boat had not been damaged in Friday’s action.

Laurie’s yacht was also targeted in Ibiza in July. Activists from the environmental group Futuro Vegetal sprayed the yacht with red and black paint and held up a banner reading: “You Consume Others Suffer.”

The luxuries enjoyed by the world’s wealthiest people – from superyachts to private jets – are increasingly the focus of climate protests because of their heavy climate impact.

Extinction Rebellion has pledged to target the super wealthy, saying they want to make it clear that “the rich and their leisure activities that waste essential resources are a luxury that we cannot afford.”

America’s wealthiest people are some of the world’s biggest polluters, according to a recent report, which found that America’s richest 10% are responsible for almost half of the country’s planet-heating pollution.

The Barcelona protest comes the same week as scientists revealed this summer was the planet’s hottest on record by a significant margin.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service which produced the data, said the world should expect these records to be broken again and again.

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming – we will continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases,” she said in a statement.

Moscow’s forces have started covering some of their attack aircraft with car tires, in what experts say could be a makeshift attempt to protect them from Ukrainian drone strikes that have had increased recent success in targeting Russian military airports.

Satellite imagery from Maxar of Engels Airbase, deep inside Russia, shows two Tu-95 strategic bombers with car tires on top of the airframes.

The move may have limited effect, according to Francisco Serra-Martins of drone manufacturer One Way Aerospace whose drones have been used by Ukrainian forces.

“While it seems pretty goofy, they seem to be trying to do the best they can to up-armor the planes that are otherwise sitting ducks. Whether it works depends on what the warhead is on the missile/drone,” said Steffan Watkins, an open-source research consultant who tracks aircraft and ships.

Watkins added that the tires could be used to stop fragmentation of an explosion above the plane from piercing the aircraft.

Ukraine has become increasingly bold in targeting strategic assets inside Russia through aerial attacks in recent weeks, even as it suffers assaults on its own cities, setting up a new phase of the conflict defined by Kyiv’s apparent efforts to wear down domestic Russian support for the war.

Last week six Russian regions including Moscow came under attack, in the biggest drone assault on its territory since it launched its invasion of Ukraine. In the city of Pskov, near the Estonian border, several transport planes were reportedly damaged when drones targeted an airport.

Earlier in August, Ukraine said it had carried out drone strikes on bases that house supersonic bombers deep in Russian territory – in what appeared to be an effort to make a dent in Russia’s air power, which has been a major obstacle for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

Russian forces have previously resorted to unusual DIY solutions to protect equipment from Ukrainian attacks, including covering the often vulnerable turrets of their tanks with metal cages in a bid to reduce the impact of modern anti-tank weapons that attack with armor penetrating rounds from above.