10/08/2025
For Bill Cole, founder and CEO of the Peace Through Strength Institute, the danger extends far beyond Ukraine. “Putin has no shortage of manpower, he just conscripted another 130,000 men,” Cole told me in an interview. “What’s really happening is that Russia’s partners want a piece of the action. North Koreans, Cubans, and Chinese are on the ground not only to fight for Russia but to gain experience in modern warfare, especially drones.”
He added that each foreign unit is effectively a rotating military academy. “Every foreign unit that rotates through Ukraine is learning how to fight in the world’s first large-scale drone war,” Cole said. “That’s the danger. It’s not just Russia’s power, it’s the fact that its partners are gaining battlefield skills they can export to other conflicts across Europe, Latin America, and Asia.”
Facing over a million casualties, Russia is sourcing foreign fighters from Cuba to North Korea.