🤔Talking about cutting expenses?

US President Joe Biden vowed $350 billion for a new initiative, "the Digital Transformation with Africa", while speaking at the US-Africa Business Forum Wednesday.

❗️However, it appeared that something hadn't gone according to the president's plan, as his administration later specified that what Biden really meant to announce was a sum 1,000 times smaller - $350 million

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📹 More than a thousand asylum-seekers lined up on the US side of the border with Mexico, wrapped in blankets on a bitterly cold afternoon, patiently waiting to be processed by American immigration authorities, a week before a Trump-era expulsion policy is expected to terminate, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

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Ex-Austrian Vice Chancellor: EU May See More Protests Due to Bloc's Anti-Russian Sanctions

Former Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has warned of a looming shortage of raw materials in the EU due to the bloc’s sanctions against Russia.

Strache, who also served as leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), told Sputnik that “the sanctions has increased the foreign trade turnover of raw materials in Russia from $100 billion to $220 billion, while in Europe, prices for energy supplies, raw materials, electricity and food are rising significantly.”

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⚡️EU countries fail to agree on 9th sanction package against Russia, reports say

📹 Sputnik has obtained footage showing how a Russian Lancet UAV destroyed a Ukrainian radar station in the Kherson region.

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🙊 Good words and no deeds.

Biden swung at solving all the problems of digitalization in Africa, but this time he was stopped by the White House staffers protecting the US treasury

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❗️ An update by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov:

▪️ Russia knows nothing about the results of the probe into terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines or whether the West will insist on finding out the truth;

▪️ Canada’s decision to reimpose sanctions on the Nord Stream turbine is unlikely to affect Russia, sanctions will hit European consumers;

▪️ No decision has been made to launch the intact line of the Nord Stream pipeline;

▪️ Polish authorities refuse to face the truth and recognize that the TU-154 crash was a tragic accident.

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🇪🇺🇷🇺 Another interesting observation from Karin Kneissl's interview. She said that the transition from fossil fuels to green energy can’t happen overnight, as the European Union is now attempting to do, it may be a matter of 10-15 years.

Former Austria's top diplomat has also slammed Europe's decision to get rid of Russian gas supplies.

French Politician Accuses Macron, Von Der Leyen of Adding to EU Energy Crisis

French politician Florian Philippot, head of the right-wing Les Patriotes Party, blamed French President Emanuel Macron and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen for rising energy prices in Europe.

“The Russian budget surplus quadrupled in November, while our deficits are skyrocketing. We have stopped heating schools and hospitals, and we plan to use candles,” the politician tweeted. "Ursula, Macron and [French Finance Minister Bruno] Le Maire are doing a great job!" Philippot concluded sarcastically.

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📹 When Sputnik cameras stopped rolling after the interview with Austria's ex-minister of foreign affairs Karin Kneissl on Wednesday, she has shared her views on how China and the Gulf States are perceiving the G7, EU and US sanctions against Moscow.

💬 “The Chinese, I think, are just as stunned as any person who still believes in the rule of law must be - stunned, astonished, irritated, because the fact that the assets of the Russian central bank were attacked” - said Kneissl, adding that the Gulf states are unhappy with G7's 60-dollar-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil, which puts the Arab nations and Beijing on the same page when it comes to common concerns about restrictions.

A boy from Donbass told how he didn't have time to save a cat running out of a burning house after the building was set on fire by Ukrainian shelling. It's unknown if the cat is alive or not.

⚡️Main statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects meeting:

▪️An unprecedented aggression has been launched against Russia to crush its economy;

▪️The West's calculation for the destruction of the Russian economy was not justified - citizens showed solidarity and responsibility;

▪️Russia will never follow the path of self-isolation and autarky;

▪️Despite the sanctions, in nine months the supply of basic goods from Russia to the EU increased by 1.5 and exports by 42%;

▪️EU faces unprecedented inflation, Brussels confirms that US policies lead to deindustrialization of Europe;

▪️Russia Gas Supplies to Asia Will Reach 88 Bln Cubic Meters by 2030.

❗️Russian MoD briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️ Russian forces eliminated up to 35 Ukrainian troops, as well as an armored vehicle and three pick-up trucks near Sofievka (LPR);

▪️ The Russian Army eliminated up to 40 Ukrainian troops, as well as infantry combat vehicles and three armored vehicles near the settlements of Ploschanka, Golikovo and Kremennaya (LPR);

▪️ Russian troops eliminated and wounded about 30 Ukrainian troops, as well as an armored carrier and two other vehicles near Severnoye and Krasogorovka (DPR):

▪️ Russian forces eliminated two Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups near Pavlovka (DPR);

▪️ The Russian Army hit 45 Ukrainian artillery units at their firing positions;

▪️ Russian troops destroyed an Ukrainian ammunition depot in the Kharkov region;

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▪️ The Russian Army destroyed a warehouse of weapons, military and special equipment of the Ukrainian Army in the Kherson region;

▪️ In the Zaporozhye region, the warehouse of material and technical means of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed;

▪️ In the DPR, an AN / TPQ-37 counter-battery radar station manufactured by the United States was destroyed;

▪️ Russian aviation in the area of the village of Yablonovka shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 plane. A Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in the DPR;

▪️ Air defense destroyed 11 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the DPR and Zaporozhye regions;

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