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(WASHINGTON) — China has nearly tripled its nuclear warhead arsenal since 2020, according to the Pentagon’s latest China military power report released Wednesday.

“DOD estimates the PRC has surpassed 600 operational nuclear warheads as of mid-2024,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters this week.

In 2020, the Pentagon estimated China’s nuclear stockpile was in the low 200s.

“The PLA continues its rapid nuclear build up,” the official said, using an acronym for the People’s Liberation Army, adding that China is expected to exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030.

China is also diversifying the kinds of nuclear weapons it’s building, the official said.

“When you look at what they’re trying to build here, it’s a diversified nuclear force that would be comprised of systems ranging from low-yield precision strike missiles all the way up to ICBMs, with different options at basically every rung on the escalation ladder, which is a lot different than what they’ve relied on traditionally,” the official said.

China’s budding nuclear arsenal, still dwarfed by those of the U.S. and Russia, is just one part of a broader strategy to build its influence on the global stage, the official said.

“The PRC seeks to amass national power to achieve what Xi Jinping has referred to as the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2049 and to revise the international order in support of the PRC system of governments and its national interests,” the official said.

Despite economic and corruption-related setbacks, China’s military is making steady progress in modernizing its non-nuclear capabilities as well, according to the official.

“They also are showing some interest in developing a new conventional ICBM that could strike Hawaii, Alaska and the continental United States. And I think this is in part to address what they’ve seen as a long-standing asymmetry in the U.S.’s ability to conduct conventional strikes against the PRC, and for many decades, their inability to reach out and strike the U.S. territory with anything other than nuclear and ballistic missiles,” the official said.

Beijing has become ever more willing to use military coercion to help achieve its aims, according to the DOD report.

“Throughout 2023, the PRC escalated tensions with the Philippines in the South China Sea by ramming and boarding vessels en route to supply Second Thomas Shoal. The PRC also amplified its diplomatic, political and military pressure against Taiwan in 2023 and into this year,” the senior defense official said.

But the People’s Liberation Army has identified some of its own shortcomings, including with the strength of its leaders, according to the report.

“The PLA to continues to highlight what they refer to as the ‘five incapables,’ which is a PLA slogan asserting that some PLA commanders are incapable of judging situations, understanding higher authorities’ intentions, making operational decisions, deploying forces or managing unexpected situations,” the defense official said.

Despite several soft spots, the U.S. lists China as the Defense Department’s No. 1 “pacing challenge.”

“Our National Security Strategy identifies the PRC as the only competitor with the intent, and increasingly, the capability, to reshape the international order,” the official said.

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(LONDON) — Ukraine’s intelligence services released new information Tuesday about the conduct of North Korean troops now fighting alongside Russian forces in the western Russian region of Kursk, which since August has been a key front of Moscow’s war on its neighbor.

U.S. and Ukrainian estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops currently inside Russia, with their focus on the Kursk region. Ukrainian and American officials now say North Korean forces are actively engaged in fighting and taking casualties.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) this week reported at least 30 North Korean troops killed and wounded in Kursk.

On Tuesday, the GUR said North Korean forces were taking additional security measures to try to blunt the threat of drone strikes.

“After serious losses, North Korean units began setting up additional observation posts to detect drones of the security and defense forces of Ukraine,” the GUR wrote in a post to its official Telegram channel.

The directorate said North Korean troops gather in groups of between 20 and 30 soldiers before launching attacks, moving “to the concentration area in small groups of up to six servicemen” and using red tape for identification.

“The constant accumulation of assault groups by the personnel of the DPRK army in the Kursk region indicates that Moscow does not want to lose the pace of offensive actions,” the GUR added, using an acronym for the country’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Security Service of Ukraine, meanwhile, claimed on Tuesday to have intercepted a phone call between a nurse at a hospital near Moscow and her husband — a soldier fighting at the front.

In two days, the nurse said, more than 200 wounded North Korean servicemen were brought to one of the Russian hospitals near Moscow.

“Are they elite, these Koreans?” the nurse asked in the purported recording, which ABC News cannot independently verify. “We are freeing up certain wards for them.”

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told a Tuesday briefing that the U.S. assesses “that North Korean soldiers have engaged in combat in Kursk alongside Russian forces.”

“We do have indications that they have suffered casualties, both killed and wounded,” he added, though declined to provide specific numbers.

“I would say certainly in the realm of dozens, several dozens,” Kirby added when pressed. The North Korean forces are now also moving “from the second line to the front line,” Kirby said.

An unnamed senior U.S. official, meanwhile, told the Associated Press that a couple hundred North Korean troops had been killed or wounded while fighting in Kursk.

The North Korean deployment followed more than two years of closer ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, a relationship that previously saw North Korean munitions sent westwards to support Russian operations in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign partners have condemned what White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby called a “dramatic move.”

Both the U.S. and European Union this week introduced additional sanctions on individuals and entities they said are involved in North Korean military assistance to Russia.

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(WASHINGTON) — The upcoming change in the White House is sparking uncertainty for the Middle East. President-elect Donald Trump might be a familiar face (and a historically friendly one for the Israelis), but what he will do to address the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territories remains unclear.

During his first term, Trump moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a deeply symbolic show of support for Israel. The decision created anger among Palestinians, since it effectively recognized the city as Israel’s capital.

Jerusalem lies at the heart of the near-century-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, since it stands as a powerful political and religious symbol for both sides. Palestinian protests over the move spread to Gaza and the West Bank, turning deadly as demonstrators clashed with the Israeli military.

Many Israelis welcome Trump’s return to the White House. In his first term, Trump became the first Western leader to officially recognize Israel’s control over the Golan Heights, which it seized from Syria in 1967. And, as a thank you, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renamed a planned settlement in the area “Trump Heights” in 2019.

Some members of the Israeli government hope Trump will go a step further when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20. Days after Trump won the presidential election, Bezalel Smotrich — Israel’s far-right finance minister — announced at a press conference that he’s ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the West Bank.

“I intend, with God’s help, to lead a government decision that says the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” he said in Hebrew.

Smotrich referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, a reference to ancient Israelite kingdoms as some Israelis assert that the area is a historic Jewish homeland.

Smotrich’s plan would effectively cement the West Bank as Israeli territory, despite the occupied land being part of what would form a Palestinian state.

Official U.S. policy has always been in favor of a two-state solution, meaning it supports the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. Trump’s appointment of Mike Huckabee — the former governor of Arkansas and a staunch supporter of Israel’s expansion ambitions — as ambassador to Israel has thrown continued commitment to that policy into question.

In the West Bank village of Al-Makhrour, a Christian area west of Bethlehem, local woman Alice Kasiya is holding out hope for better days under Trump. Her family’s land was seized by Israeli settlers at the end of July. In a video posted to social media, she said 50 Israeli soldiers sealed off the area as bulldozers drove through.

“He’s a business guy. He had many peace agreements with other countries before, in his presidential time,” she told ABC News. “And I know everyone says no, it will, it will be worse with him, but I believe it will be better. He’s a good guy.”

Kasiya, who’s been arrested three times while protesting, said she believes the situation can’t get any worse. She noted that Israeli settler expansionism has accelerated dramatically since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

“We have seen many settlers coming and trying to take over lands, ” she said. “So it’s like cancer. They are spreading. They put the first step and they will keep moving around until they get everything slowly, slowly.”

Kasiya also warned that what happens in her area reverberates far and wide.

“It’s not for us only, it’s for the whole world,” she told ABC News. “Because this city is the Holy City that affects the whole world. If it’s not in peace, nowhere else will be living in peace.”

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(LONDON) — Russian investigators detained a 29-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan in connection with Tuesday’s assassination of a general in Moscow, an attack in a residential neighborhood for which Ukraine claimed credit.

Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov was killed by an explosive device that appears to have been hidden in a parked scooter and set off by remote control, Russian state-affiliated media TASS reported. The explosion also killed an aide accompanying him.

Kirillov was the head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological protection troops. Sources told ABC News that the Security Service of Ukraine was behind the killing. Kirillov is the most senior Russian military official assassinated by Ukraine.

The suspect, whose name has not been released, had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence officers, Russian police said as they announced the arrest.

“On their instructions, he arrived in Moscow and received an improvised explosive device,” police said. “He placed it on an electric scooter, which he parked at the entrance of the apartment building where Igor Kirillov lived.”

The suspect had used a carshare to rent a car and installed a video camera in the vehicle, which was then parked near where the blast went off, police said.

“The footage from this camera was broadcast online to the organizers of the terrorist attack in the city of Dnipro,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said. “After a video signal was received about the exit of the servicemen from the entrance, the explosive device was remotely activated by them.”

Russia’s internal intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, released a video of a man who they said was the suspect. In the footage, which aired on Russian state TV, the man appears to confess to the killing, saying he had been hired by Ukraine, according to the FSB.

Russia claimed the suspect had been offered payment of $100,000, along with an agreement that he would be given a European passport.

President Vladimir Putin offered condolences on Wednesday for those who were killed, according to the Kremlin. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the country’s law enforcement and intelligence services had been “working effectively.”

“It is once again confirmed that the Kyiv regime does not disdain terrorist methods of work,” Peskov said. “We clearly understand who our enemy is, what he is capable of, and this is once again proven by our actions during the special military operation.”

ABC News’ Joseph Simonetti, Helena Skinner, David Brennan and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.

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