🇷🇺🇦🇿❗️ — Plane which crashed in Kazakhstan was hit by a Russian surface-to-air missile, according Azerbaijani government sources to Euronews

🇷🇺✈️🚫 — Rosaviatsia, Russian Federation’s Federal Air Transport Authority, announces the temporary closure of all Moscow airports!

🕎🗣🇺🇸📺🇮🇱❌🇮🇷 — 🇺🇸 CBS News | Israel's spy agency, Mossad, spent years orchestrating Hezbollah walkie-talkie, pager plots | December 22, 2024:

"After nearly a year of war between Israel and the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, Lebanon was sent reeling in September when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded.

Two recently retired senior Mossad agents, who were among those spearheading the years-long operation, detailed the inside story of how they built the devices and got them into Hezbollah hands, shifting the course of Israel's escalating war with the Iran-backed group. The walkie-talkie and pager plots had a profound ripple effect: weakening Iran by leaving its proxy empire in ruins, with Hezbollah crushed in Lebanon and the Assad regime toppled in Syria.

(...)

"We create a pretend world. We are a global production company: We write the screenplay, we're the directors, we're the producers, we're the main actors," Michael said. "And the world is our stage."

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🇺🇸🇺🇸⚓☠️⚰️ Valentina Gómez, a Colombian candidate for Congress in Texas, proposes public executions for illegal immigrants who pose a threat to American citizens as rapists or murderers.

It's that simple: public executions for any illegal that rapes or kills an American.

They do not deserve deportation. They deserve to be ended.

In the videos Gómez showed up with a gun and shot at a life-seized doll.

https://x.com/ValentinaForUSA/status/1871288974071001265

@FelipeChannel

🇺🇦👤❗️📉 — 🇩🇪 BILD:

"Ukraine Running Out of Soldiers, Zelensky Faces Tough Choice

The Russian army continues to seize Ukrainian territory in the east of the country. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are struggling with a shortage of not only weapons, but also personnel. According to the Guardian, the command is already sending soldiers from air defense units to the front as infantry. The Ukrainian army has found itself in a very difficult situation:

▫️War fatigue has made desertion commonplace. According to the AP news agency, about 100,000 soldiers have been accused of desertion since the war began

▫️According to an estimate of the number of losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces obtained by the Wall Street Journal from a source in Ukraine itself, about 80 thousand Ukrainian soldiers have died since the beginning of the war, and about 400 thousand have left the ranks due to injuries

▫️There are not enough trained soldiers to replace the losses. A Ukrainian officer from the 114th Territorial Defence Brigade told the Guardian that the new recruits were unfit for service, poorly trained and poorly equipped:

Of the 90 newly arrived recruits, "only 24 were ready to take up their positions, the rest were old, sick or alcoholics."

This puts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of a very difficult decision. According to some reports, Washington has asked him to lower the mobilization age from 25 to 18. This would be very painful for Ukraine: the generation of 18-25 year olds is already small, since the birth rate fell sharply after the collapse of the USSR.

Zelensky has previously said that he does not want to lower the mobilization age. But does he have a choice? He has already been forced to lower the bar from 27 to 25 years, recalls BILD political observer Judith Goers.

On the other hand, the problem is not only in the mobilization age. Due to the indecisiveness of the West, Ukraine had to compensate for the lack of equipment with human sacrifices. And here are the consequences:

"18-year-olds are still children. Maybe they could lower the minimum age to 23, but even now there are enough people in Kyiv who could fight. They just don't want to do it," a soldier from the 114th Brigade told the Guardian."

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🇷🇺🚀❌💡🇺🇦 — 🏴 ZeroHedge | Russia Launches Christmas Assault On Ukraine, Targeting Power Grid | December 25, 2024:

"Russia unleashed a massive aerial attack using missiles and drones on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the Christmas Day assault "inhuman."

"Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than a hundred attack drones," the Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram.

Bloomberg cited Ukraine's power grid operator, Ukrenergo, as saying the attack left 500,000 customers in the Kharkiv region without heating, while blackouts were triggered in parts of Kyiv and elsewhere."

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🇧🇷❌💰❌🌐 JUST IN: Brazil’s central bank has proposed banning stablecoin transfers to self-custodial wallets like MetaMask and Trezor.

https://x.com/Cointelegraph/status/1872319077487681908?t=vGgShwg8QT05tJkokFVWMg&s=19

@FelipeChannel

📈 Nearly $15 Billion Distributed Through Airdrops in 2024

👉 https://dropstab.com/activities

🇨🇳🆕✈️ — 🏴 ZeroHedge | China's 6th-Gen Fighter "White Emperor" Takes To Skies Ahead Of Trump's Second Term | December 26, 2024:

"Footage circulating on social media appears to show the maiden flight of China's next-generation tactical fighter-bomber, which is expected to replace the Xi'an JH-7, according to Defense Blog.

Footage first appeared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Thursday of a new stealth bomber with a "diamond-shaped wing design" flying at low altitude in an unspecified region of China.

"The new design signals a shift in China's emphasis toward a more stealth, precision-strike capability," a military analyst told the Defense Blog, adding, "Its low-observability features align with the need for platforms capable of operating in contested environments."

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📹 Video from Insider Paper

🇨🇳⚠️✈️❌🇺🇸🚀 — 🇺🇸 The Epoch Times | China Drone Swarms and US Lasers: The Coming Revolutions in Warfare | December 21, 2024:

"(...)

China’s “loyal wingman” fighter drones get a lot of attention these days. The wingman is a force multiplier, meant to fly in numbers alongside its crewed jet fighters or to lead a fleet of smaller drones. If deployed in a swarm, the wingmen and smaller drones could quickly overwhelm a fleet of manned fighter jets and air defenses. They are jet-powered but far less expensive than a regular fighter jet to fly, in part because they do not require a trained pilot. Some simulated dogfights between human pilots and artificial intelligence (AI) pilots who learn on the fly have resulted in AI wins as far back as 2020.

(...)

One promising defense against Chinese drones is laser-based weapons; for example, the HELIOS system deployed on a U.S. naval destroyer in 2022 and the DragonFire system tested by the United Kingdom in January.

The DragonFire laser can destroy targets with pinpoint accuracy in its line of sight with shots that would cut through the drone’s mechanics or explode its warheads. Each shot costs less than £10 ($12.61) to fire for 10 seconds, suggesting they could be used to cheaply slice into an enemy system with repeated passes. Compare that to the cost of a missile interceptor at a million dollars or more, which can be a waste of money against some of the cheapest Iranian military drones, for example, that cost at most $2,000 each. The British system is planned for deployment on the country’s naval ships by 2027, with the British army also considering a deployment. Scientists in China are also developing laser weapons, including for use from space."

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🇨🇳🆕⚠️ — 🇬🇧 Financial Times | China’s ‘loyal wingman’ drones open new front in military competition with US | Aircraft designed to accompany crewed stealth jets could help Beijing challenge American air superiority | December 15, 2024:

"China’s development of stealth fighter jets has drawn global attention, but just as significant, analysts say, is the unveiling of its attack drones — a fast-emerging area of defence competition with the US.

The updated Feihong FH-97A, a so-called loyal wingman drone, of which a prototype was on static display last month at the biennial Zhuhai air show in southern China, boasts an enhanced weapons bay, allowing it to conduct both ground and air strikes. The drone, designed to accompany crewed aircraft, also has the ability to catapult launch from aircraft carriers.

The mass adoption of drones on both sides of Russia’s war against Ukraine has shaken up the global defence industry in recent years, with militaries around the world seeking to integrate the latest unmanned technologies into their arsenals.

Analysts say wingman drones are now at the centre of the technological race between China and the US for air superiority, a competition that has only become more pressing as tensions escalate over Taiwan, which Beijing views as its territory and has threatened to claim by force if necessary.

“In the future, [the FH-97A] will be extremely important,” said Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based military analyst. “The future of war will be competition between drone and anti-drone technology.”

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🇺🇸💲❌🇨🇳⚡️ — 🇺🇸 The Epoch Times | US Launches New Trade Probe Into Chinese Legacy Chips | The new investigation could pave the way for the incoming Trump administration to add more tariffs | December 23, 2024:

"The Biden administration announced an 11th-hour probe on Monday into China’s trade practice regarding “legacy” chips that power everything from smart appliances and phones to the electric grid and weapons systems.

The administration has already imposed 50 percent tariffs on semiconductors from China, which are set to take effect on Jan. 1. The new Section 301 probe could pave the way for the incoming Trump administration to add more tariffs on legacy chips or take other measures.

The probe was launched because evidence indicates that the Chinese regime’s attempts to dominate domestic and global chip markets “appear to have and to threaten detrimental impacts on the United States and other economies, undermining the competitiveness of American industry and workers, critical U.S. supply chains, and U.S. economic security,” the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement."

#Sanctions

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Several prominent X accounts are reporting that their verification badge and monetization has been revoked after criticizing Musk’s pro-mass immigration bent.

📎 AF Post