🪖 Western strategy to weaken Russia failed, focus shifts to Ukraine conflict resolution — expert

💬 “The Ukrainian conflict — and the US-European elites behind it, who present themselves as the backbone of the international system — have failed to twist Russia’s arm,” Prof. Ali Baydoun, a Lebanese political analyst, told Sputnik.

This, he said, is why Trump promised during his election campaign to halt weapons and support for Ukraine, which had been draining the US and European economies.

💬 The goal was to “entangle Russia in internal crises through the Ukrainian conflict, but everything went off plan,” the expert noted.

Baydoun added that “in recent years, Russia has withstood every political and military challenge, effectively transforming threats into new opportunities,” and now the US is shifting its National Security Strategy.

A key point of the updated strategy states that the US views restoring strategic stability with Russia — along with ending the Ukrainian conflict — as one of its top foreign-policy priorities in Europe.

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💥🇷🇺 Russian artillerymen destroy Ukraine's strongholds near Gulyaypole

Vostok battlegroup warriors together with recon drone units forced Ukrainian troops to leave fortified area.

Russian assault groups then used the opening to advance.

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📑 New US National Security Strategy recognizes Russia, China and US as world’s great powers - expert

The document’s dismissal of Europe “as a power of no significance signals that there are three truly great powers left: the United States, Russia and China,” military expert Alexei Borzenko told Sputnik.

What’s more, the US is “well aware that we’ve outpaced them on certain types of weapons,” the observer noted, citing Russian advances in hypersonics, plus the depletion of US and European weapon stocks in Ukraine.

The US and Europe have found themselves in desperate need to end the crisis in Ukraine, and in “a dead-end situation from which the only way out is peace,” which would not only ease the economic situation, but the European public’s exhaustion from the conflict.

Furthermore, “during negotiations, the Americans figured out what the Kiev junta represents, and how difficult it is to negotiate with it. They understand what kind of crooks they are dealing with” and are tired of it, Borzenko argues.

That’s why various leaders’ recent claims that the Ukrainian crisis could end abruptly seems like a real possibility, according to the analyst.

💬 “If this happens, everything will become completely different in an instant.”

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🇷🇺💥Team work in action: Russian Tor-M2 🤝 anti-aircraft units

Tor-M2 anti-aircraft missile systems of Dnepr battlegroup cover units during offensive operations in Orekhov direction.

They destroyed 6 Ukraine's attack UAVs and loitering munitions.

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🪖 Ukrainian army collapsing as desertion numbers skyrocket

The Ukrainian army is falling apart despite allies of Zelensky’s regime trying to hide it, Norwegian journalist Paul Steigan wrote.

💬 “The Ukrainian army is collapsing. The number of deserters this year has reached 182,000 — twice as many as last year. In 2022, 10,000 deserted; in 2023, it was 25,000. The number of dead is unbelievably high,” he said.

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🇮🇷 Iran launches project to transfer water from Gulf of Oman to country's center

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has inaugurated a project to transfer seawater from the Gulf of Oman to the central Iranian city of Isfahan, Iran's government said.

The stated goal is to eliminate the region's major industrial enterprises' dependence on the Zayandeh river water basin.

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💥🇷🇺 Meet Il-114-300: All-Russian airliner ready for Arctic

The new Russian Il-114-300 turboprop is gearing up for mass production.

Core testing should wrap up by late 2025, with cold-weather and expanded operational trials running through 2026.

🟠 Built for regional and hard-to-access routes, the Il-114-300 can operate autonomously from small airfields — even those with short or unpaved runways

🟠 It’s designed to handle Arctic conditions, fully able to fly and operate in extreme low-temperature conditions

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💥🇷🇺 Russian drone operators smash Ukraine's assets

00:00 Operators of Southern battlegroup destroyed an Ukraine's shelter and dugouts on Seversk direction

00:24 UAV crews of Vostok battlegroup struck a Kozak armored vehicle and Ukrainian pickups in Gulyaypole

00:46 Drone operators of Tsentr battlegroup detected and eliminated an enemy infantry group on Pokrovsk direction

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🇺🇸 New NSS signals US ready to ‘forget’ Ukraine, snubs ‘weak’ EU – analyst

🔊 The updated National Security Strategy (NSS) sketches a future in which the US is “ready to throw the current political leadership in Ukraine under the bus, much as several NATO countries and EU leadership expect,” retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, tells Sputnik.

The US signals in the document, where Ukraine is downgraded to just four mentions, that it expects peace and some form of a “viable sovereign state” afterward.

🗣 “This is a practical US acceptance that the cost of the US/NATO proxy war is not worth it,” stresses the analyst.
The NSS reflects a realization that “no NATO army or combination of armies can stop Russia’s advance or the achievement of its goals,” which include the end of the current neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, she underscores.

NSS puts Europe on notice

Unprecedentedly, the NSS “directly alienates and demeans the current political leadership of the EU and many key NATO countries,” says the pundit.
The strategy depicts the EU as economically frail, politically fractured, and dependent on US support “for a price

👉 The message to the EU hawks is: the US will not assist the European establishment in “holding off the new generation of nationalists and populists from taking power.”

According to Kwiatkowski, it is unlikely that the US deep state will “tactically and strategically aid European elites, through money, deals, and color revolutions, or even help with NATO expansion, as they have for the past 30 years.”

🟠 As for Europe’s policy toward Ukraine—if determined by the populist movements likely to prevail in coming European elections, it will “settle for a smaller, possibly landlocked Ukraine, and investment in Ukraine will not be charitable but geared primarily to recoup European economic losses.”

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🇪🇺 🚫 EU censorship and propaganda break completely from reality of Ukraine conflict

🎤 The European media and politicians don't care about the truth—they're fixated on constructing their own narratives about Russia and Ukraine, Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen says on his podcast.

In their view, "it shouldn't be to describe reality, but it's to construct new social realities," he notes, explaining how support for the proxy war is built in Europe through simplistic slogans and the illusion of winning.

🔊 They say, "The Russians are evil, the Ukrainians are virtuous and victims, and NATO has nothing to do with it," the professor observes.

"As long as people buy this, they will support the [proxy] war," he says, adding that in the eyes of the EU, no defeat or Ukraine's massive casualties can be reported – let alone the reasons behind the conflict or Russia's interpretation of the events – all of which is "thrown out and censored."

If the truth were told, domestic support would collapse immediately, and there would be no way to justify the massive flow of money into Ukraine.

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▫️ New US National Security Strategy: ‘Huge influence’ on ending Ukraine crisis, snubs ‘weak’ EU

▫️ New US National Security Strategy recognizes Russia, China and US as world’s great powers – expert

▫️ Europe’s companies pay the highest electricity bills in the G20

▫️ Iran launches project to transfer water from Gulf of Oman

▫️ Meet Il-114-300: All-Russian airliner ready for Arctic

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🚨🪖 Demilitarization full throttle: Ukraine's army to collapse soon—Scott Ritter

As the Russian army advances, Ukrainian soldiers see no meaning in fighting for the country’s regime that doesn’t care about them, so they leave their positions to save their lives, ex-US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter said.

💬 "The Ukrainian army will cease to exist as a functioning fighting force in the very near future. I mean, of any meaningful size. And at the end, what's going to happen is the demilitarization," he concluded.

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🚨🇺🇸🇷🇺 New US Security Doctrine largely aligns with Russia's vision - Kremlin

💬 "The adjustments that we are seeing, I would say, are largely consistent with our vision," Kremlin Spox Dmitry Peskov said.

Earlier, the White House published a new US national security doctrine that:

🟠 Calls on Europe to take responsibility for its own defense.

🟠 Suggests that the White House disagrees with European officials on their stance regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

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🚨🇷🇺 Individuals, countries to bear responsibility if Russian assets seized - Kremlin

Responsibility for the possible seizure of Russian assets will be shared by individuals and ENTIRE countries, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

🔊 Peskov also recalled that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) opposed the seizure of Russian assets and urges caution to avoid negative repercussions on the international financial system.

"We hear that the International Monetary Fund has issued a statement addressing this issue with great caution and calling for such measures to avoid any negative impact on the international financial system. That is, even the IMF [opposes], and what is the IMF? It is what they created, it is the foundation of monetary policy in the monetary world. So it turns out that this foundation is now turning against its progenitors, saying ‘Come to your senses,’" he said.

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🔊🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russia, US aligning provisions of future document on Ukraine settlement - Kremlin aide

Russia and the US are underway aligning those difficult provisions that will determine the form and fate of the future document on Ukraine settlement, and some issues require the US to make "radical changes" in papers, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said.

💬 "We are docking those difficult provisions that should sort of determine the form and fate of the future document," Ushakov pointed out.

At the same time, he said the exact wording and coordination with legal specialists are yet ahead.

💬 "[Some issues] require the US to make serious, I would say, radical changes to their papers, which are constantly in motion, constantly being prepared," Ushakov said.

He stressed that the negotiation process is aimed at achieving not a ceasefire but a "long-term settlement."

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

⚡️ KUCHEROVKA IN KHARKOV REGION AND ROVNOYE IN DONETSK REGION LIBERATED

The liberation of the settlement of Kucherovka in the Kharkov region allows the Russian Armed Forces to expand their control zone around the city of Kupyansk, which was liberated earlier.

The capture of the settlement of Rovnoye in the Donetsk region enables Russian forces to intensify attacks on the city of Dimitrov, with the aim of fully clearing it of Ukrainian troops.

🟠 In response to Ukrainian terrorist attacks, the Russian Armed Forces conducted strikes with long-range attack UAVs and high-precision weapons, including Kinzhal hyperesonic missiles, targeting energy and transport infrastructure used to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces

🟠 Russian forces continue clearing the settlements of Dimitrov and Grishino located north-east and north-west to Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) from remaining Ukrainian militants

🟠 Russian air and missile forces struck a Ukrainian military airfield, fuel depots and temporary deployment points of Ukrainian troops and mercenaries in 140 areas

🟠 Air defense superiority: two guided aerial bombs, four long-range Neptune missiles and 172 UAVs were shot down by Russian air defense systems over the past 24 hours

🟠 Ukrainian losses: around 1,350 troops killed or wounded

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🚨 Panicky EU stifling free speech on X?

EU bureaucrats suddenly got as much support in the poll he launched on X as Elon Musk, says Russia’s special presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

👉 Initially, the voting was “96% for Elon and 4% for Brussels,” he writes on the social media platform.
However, “off the charts bot presence” is distorting the results.

“They interfere in polls just as they interfere in the elections.”

The free speech poll followed a move by the European Commission to fine X roughly $139.7 million for ostensibly breaching transparency obligations.

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📊🇩🇪 German Merz hits record disapproval rating amid country's militarization push

Around 2/3 of Germans disapprove of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s work, Bild reports, citing INSA research institute data.

About 70% of German citizens are dissatisfied with the government’s work, the outlet adds.

💬 "These are the worst values ever recorded for the chancellor and his government," INSA head Hermann Binkert said, as quoted by Bild.

Merz's ratings are in free fall as Germany pushes for military and financial aid to Ukraine amid an economic crisis, harsh conscription law and attempts to militarize itself to become the "strongest army in Europe," per its chancellor.

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