December 30th, 2024: Putin Apologizes for Deadly Plane Crash & ‘Human Wave’ Attacks in Russia

It's Monday, 30 December. Well, look at that. We're almost to the end of the year. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. We'll start the show with the ongoing investigations into that deadly Azerbaijan Airlines crash and an apparent apology from Russian President Vladimir Putin, which stopped just short of accepting responsibility. So one could say, not an apology.

Later in the show, the latest from the battlefields in Western Russia, where North Korean troops are reportedly being used in human wave attacks, leading to, of course, mounting casualties. Plus, the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan is escalating after Pakistani airstrikes spurred Taliban retaliation this weekend, leaving casualties on both sides.

And in today's Back of the Brief, some sad news. Former President Jimmy Carter is dead at the age of 100. We'll take a look back at the extraordinary life of America's 39th Commander-in-Chief. But first, today's PDB Spotlight.

Multiple investigations into last week's deadly Azerbaijan Airlines crash in Kazakhstan are still underway, but preliminary findings are now settling on Russian air defense systems as the most likely culprit, and when I say most likely, I mean, well, that was the culprit. As we reported on the PDB, the tragedy unfolded on Wednesday morning when Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432 crashed in a remote area near Almaty Kazakhstan.

Now, the passenger plane was on route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny. That's the capital of the Chechnya region in southern Russia. 38 people were killed and 29 survived. And those survivors are now beginning to give their accounts of what happened.

And as a crew member, speaking from his hospital room, told ABC News, he heard several thoughts as the aircraft flew over Grozny, Russia. Though he wasn't authorized to share details publicly, he recounted how he noticed blood shortly after hearing loud bangs outside the plane. The crewman said, quote, I don't know what touched me. I just looked and saw blood.

Another passenger recalled hearing two explosions about 20 to 30 minutes after takeoff, adding to the growing body of evidence that surfaced to air missiles from Russian air defenses likely caused the crash. Azerbaijan officials are now calling on Russia to take responsibility for the crash. Yeah, that's definitely going to happen. On Sunday, the nation's president Ilha Maliev openly accused Russia of shooting down the plane.

though he did stop short of claiming that it was intentional. Speaking on Azerbaijani state television, Ali have said, quote, we can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia. We are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done end quote.

He added that the aircraft wasn't just hit by fire from the ground, but was also rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare. Aliyev criticized Moscow for what he described as an effort to hush up the incident for days, saying he was upset and surprised by Russian officials' explanations. Originally, the Kremlin said the crash occurred after the Embraer 190 aircraft hit a flock of birds.

Meanwhile, Russian President Putin has issued what some might call a partial apology and others might just call a statement. On Saturday, the Kremlin acknowledged that air defense systems were firing near Grozny's airport as the airliner repeatedly tried to land there. However, the statement stopped short of admitting that these defenses hit the plane.

Putin's apology, if that's what it was, to President Aliov, was limited to expressing regret that the tragedy occurred in Russian airspace, with inconvenience for Putin, a response unlikely to satisfy Azerbaijani officials. Aliov has also demanded that Russia punish those responsible and provide compensation to both the Azerbaijani state and the injured passengers and crew members.

Whether or not any of that happens, well, that remains to be seen. But Putin's Russia doesn't frankly have a good record of admitting guilt when it shoots down passenger planes, or really admitting guilt to anything. Take Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, for example. Back in 2014, 298 people were killed when the plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine. Investigators later found that it was hit by a Russian-made missile system operated by pro-Russian separatists

But despite the evidence, Moscow has repeatedly denied any responsibility, calling the investigations biased and political. Given that history, it's hard to say if Azerbaijan will get the accountability or justice that they're demanding for last week's crash. Alright, coming up next, the latest from Western Russia, where North Korean troops are reportedly deployed in human wave attacks.

And the Taliban retaliates against Pakistan after a series of airstrikes just last week. I'll have those stories when we come back.

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More grim news coming from the front lines of the Ukraine-Russia conflict with reports that Moscow is now using North Korean troops in what are being referred to as human-wave attacks, with some soldiers choosing to take their own lives to avoid capture, driven by fear of retribution under Kim Jong-un's regime.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby weighed in on Friday, describing Pyongyang's forces as, quote, highly indoctrinated and being treated as expendable. He explained that they're forced into waves of assaults against Ukrainian defenses with little concern for their survival. Kirby confirmed reports that suicides among North Korean soldiers are, quote, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they're captured, end quote.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service confirmed last week that at least one captured North Korean soldier died of self-inflicted injuries after being taken into Ukrainian custody. Ukrainian President Zelensky stated that some captured North Korean troops could not be resuscitated, suggesting, quote, their own people are executing them in an effort to prevent their capture.

According to Kirby, the North Korean troops deployed in Russia's Kursk region are being deployed into, quote, massed, dismounted assaults with minimal protection. He described their tactics as ineffective and extraordinarily costly in human terms. Zelensky echoed this assessment by accusing the Russian military and their North Korean enforcers of displaying blatant disregard for the lives of these soldiers.

As we've been tracking here on the PDB, estimates from U.S. and allied intelligence indicate that North Korea has dispatched a minimal of 11,000 troops to support Russia's war effort. Zelensky reported via Telegram Friday that over 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in the past week alone, while Kirby cited a lower figure of more than 1,000 deaths during the same period, and those are numbers which were corroborated by South Korean intelligence.

The desperation of Moscow's approach is evident in its staggering casualty numbers. Earlier this month, British intelligence reported that over 45,000 Russian casualties took place in November alone. That's the highest monthly toll since the war began. The report added that more than 1,500 Russian soldiers are being killed or wounded daily.

Adding to the challenges for Ukrainian forces, Russia's grinding assault on energy infrastructure continues to strain the country's ability to weather the winter. Despite these obstacles, Ukraine does appear to be resolute, bolstered by its continued foothold in Kursk and a new stream of aid from the U.S. government.

All right, shifting to Central Asia. Afghanistan's Taliban government escalated tensions with Pakistan on Saturday with retaliatory strikes, targeting what it described as, quote, several points within Pakistan. Now, the strikes come days after a Pakistani military airstrike inside Afghanistan killed at least 46 people. The Afghan defense ministry, notably avoiding direct mention of Pakistan

Frame the attacks is occurring, quote, beyond the hypothetical line. That's invoking the contested Durand line. That's a colonial era border established in the 1890s that Afghanistan has long disputed. In a statement, the Afghan ministry's spokesman elaborated, quote, we do not consider it to be the territory of Pakistan. Therefore, we cannot confirm the territory, but it was on the other side of the hypothetical line, end quote.

According to Afghan Taliban officials, these strikes were aimed at dismantling hideouts and coordination centers tied to, quote, malicious elements and their supporters orchestrating attacks inside Afghanistan. The report from Reuters offered no details about casualties or specific strike locations.

The Afghan Taliban government issued a sharp warning on Wednesday that they pledged sharp retaliation for the Pakistani military aerial bombardment, which they claimed killed mainly women and children in Afghanistan's Pateka province. As we previously reported on the PDB, Islamabad, for its part, defended last week's military operations, asserting that they were necessary to neutralize strongholds and training facilities of the TTP. That's essentially the Pakistani Taliban.

For background, the TTP is a terror group affiliated with, but operationally distinct from the Afghan Taliban. The group has intensified its assaults along the border region, including the killing of 16 soldiers in a checkpoint attack earlier this month in northwest Pakistan.

The relationship between Kabul and Islamabad continues to fray with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of providing sanctuary to terrorists responsible for cross-border attacks. Kabul, however, categorically denies these claims, further exasperating the cycle of accusations and reprisals. That's what we needed. We needed another area with increasing tension and conflict.

and coming up in the back of the brief. Former President Jimmy Carter has died at 100 years of age. I'll be right back.

In today's back of the brief, former President Jimmy Carter, a one-time naval officer and peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States, died at the age of 100 on Sunday in Georgia, surrounded by his family. The Carter Center confirmed his passing, noting he had opted for home hospice care in February of 2023,

after a series of hospitalizations, choosing to, quote, spend his remaining time at home with his family. In recent years, President Carter battled melanoma, a form of skin cancer. Carter's ascent to the presidency in 1977 was nothing short of improbable.

a political outsider from Plains, Georgia. He campaigned on a promise to restore integrity to the White House. Well, there's a thought. Vowing to lead a government as, quote, good and honest and decent and compassionate and filled with love as are the American people, end quote.

His tenure, however, oversaw a time of major political upheaval in the Middle East. Carter grappled with one of the most significant crises in US history, and that was the Iran hostage crisis. For 444 days, 52 Americans were held captive by revolutionary students in Tehran, a saga that culminated in a failed rescue mission, costing the lives of eight US service members.

The crisis eroded national confidence and contributed to Carter's landslide to feed a 1980 by Ronald Reagan. Domestically, his presidency faced economic challenges. Stackflation, a combination of stagnant growth and higher inflation, plagued the economy while an energy crisis left Americans waiting in long lines at gas pops.

Yet Carter's presidency was not without triumphs. He brokered the Camp David Accords, facilitating an historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and formalized diplomatic relations with Communist China, building on the groundwork laid by former President Richard Nixon.

Perhaps Cardi's most defining legacy, though, emerged after his presidency. His decades-long post-presidential career redefined the role of former presidents, as he dedicated himself to humanitarian work through the Carter Center, which was founded to, quote, wage peace, fight disease, and build hope.

This work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter's hands-on involvement with Habitat for Humanity, where he was often seen hammering nails alongside volunteers, became an enduring symbol of his commitment to service. Carter's death marks a historical milestone in U.S. political history, ending the longest life of any president, a previous record held by George H.W. Bush.

He and Rosalind Carter, who passed away in November of 2023, shared 77 years of marriage. And that, as an aside, would be the longest presidential union in American history. Rest in peace there, President Carter.

And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief for Monday, 30 December. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb at thefirsttv.com. And I do hope you had a chance over the weekend to check out our latest episode of the PDB Situation Report. As you probably know by now, that's our extended weekend show.

This week's guests included retired General Ben Hodges, the former commanding officer of the U.S. Army Europe, and Dr. Robert Marbit, he's the producer of an important and very sobering documentary on the fentanyl crisis. You can catch this episode as well as past shows on our YouTube channel. Check that out. You can find it at At Presidents Daily Brief and, of course, all the podcast platforms.

I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.