📌 More statements by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu:

▪️Russian forces continue to inflict precision strikes on military command systems, military-industrial complexes, and related facilities in Ukraine;

▪️Russian Armed Forces take comprehensive measures to prevent civilian deaths in Ukraine;

▪️Total of 27 countries have already spent $97 billion on arms supplies to Ukraine;

▪️NATO officers, artillerymen, and other specialists, more than 500 NATO satellites are working for Kiev;

▪️Total silence of Western media about war crimes of Ukrainian military is cynical

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📹 Vladimir Putin: Military potential and capabilities of NATO countries are actively used against Russia

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📹 Vladimir Putin: Russia knows all information about NATO forces, their means of counteraction

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📹 Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu: Western-funded coup in Kiev in 2014, which brought anti-Russian forces to power, caused current conflict in Ukraine

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📹 Sergei Shoigu: Ukraine's forces suffered significant losses, large part of weapons and equipment that Kiev had at beginning of operation destroyed

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How Lethal is India’s Pralay Missile Set to Be Deployed Along China Border?

🚀 The acquisition is likely to change the tactical battlefield dynamic, since India, unlike 🇨🇳China, has limited conventional ground-launched missile options.

👉 Find out more in our explainer

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: Elon Musk looking for CEO 'foolish enough' to replace him as Twitter's big cheese

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Hungarian Parliament Speaker: West’s Push to Turn Ukraine Into Anti-Russian Bridgehead is ‘Mistake’

Hungarian Parliament speaker Laszlo Kover has lashed out against Western governments’ “hypocritical” behavior in Ukraine, and warned that the West’s attempts to pry Kiev out of Russia’s orbit and turn it into an armed base against Russia has proven to be a “strategic mistake.”

💬 “I think the Western world made a strategic mistake when it tried to not only take Ukraine out of Moscow’s sphere of interest, but also turn it into a large military base against Russia,” Kover said in a broad ranging interview with a Hungarian radio station on Tuesday.

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Volodymyr Zelensky would not be going to the US for a visit amid the ongoing conflict at home if there were no signs of US support weakening, former White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Wednesday.

She expressed confidence that Zelensky will see "many well deserved standing ovations" during his address to the US Congress later in the day. The former spokeswoman also called the visit a "sales pitch to Congress and public."

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📍Russia’s special operation in Ukraine: Check out Sputnik’s new interactive map for daily updates on the situation on the front lines

⚡Biden directs drawdown of up to $1Bln in defense articles for Ukraine, White House announces

❗US Senate confirms Lynne Tracy's nomination as ambassador to Russia

⚡ US announces $1.85Bln in new military aid for Ukraine, including Patriot system, Blinken says

⚡Russian Foreign Ministry summons French ambassador to protest Foreign Minister Colonna's statement on assassination attempt on head of Russian House in Central African Republic

❗️The office of the Red Cross in Donetsk has been hit by shelling for the third time in recent days, with the attack damaging the building and several vehicles, according to the latest ICRC press release.

The ICRC strongly condemned the shelling of their office and called for “respect of the humanitarian space.”

Authorities in Donetsk, which became part of Russia on September 30, have said repeatedly that Ukrainian forces shell civilian infrastructure in the region on a regular basis.

US Oil Stockpiles Tumble as Fuel Demand Jumps Amid Holiday Travel, Package Delivery

Crude inventories fell by 5.894 million barrels for the week ended December 16, versus a drawdown of 10.231 million during the previous week to December 9, the EIA said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. Analysts polled by US media had expected a smaller drawdown of 1.657M barrels for last week.

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Zelensky’s DC Christmas Visit Meant to Evoke Churchill, Comes at End of Scrutiny-Free Aid: Experts

💬 “Ever since Winston Churchill came to the US for Christmas after the attack on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, foreign leaders have felt this time of the year was a good time. Like Churchill, Zelensky is coming to make future plans and to say 'Thank You' for past aid. The timing is good, the president has just survived a midterm election referendum and Congress is in the last days of its session,” Professor David Woodard, Clemson University political scientist and former political consultant for Republican congressmen, told Sputnik.

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💬 “This is not some right wing trope. Big tech works with the Democrats. They're an arm of the Democratic Party, and that's a problem. So I don't have a problem with this coming out. I worry about people, liberals who say, oh, it's nothingburger, there's nothing here, you already knew this. I'm glad that we know that it's official and we know how this is done,” says Margaret Kimberley, an editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report.

🎧 Listen to more of Kimberley’s analysis in our podcast: Jan 6 Criminal Referrals for Trump, Fed Budget Agreement Reached

📹 Russian Grad MLRS in action as part of the special military operation in Ukraine (video courtesy of Russia’s MoD)

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'There Can't Be Any Just Peace': Zelensky Urges Biden to Up Ukraine Aid in First Joint Presser

At a joint press conference with US President Joe Biden at the White House Wednesday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claimed “there can’t be any just peace” in Ukraine, pressuring the US government to provide even more weapons and cash to his notoriously-corrupt regime in Kiev.

Zelensky offered “all my appreciations [sic]” to Biden for his efforts in NATO’s ongoing proxy war against Russia at an earlier address on the White House South Lawn, the first of his inaugural trip, but added in the joint conference several hours later that “we would like to get more Patriot missiles.”

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💬 “Anything that helps make the case for their candidates or their policy, all they have to do is scream out the word Russia, and that's supposed to end any conversation. So Russiagate is going, unfortunately, I think it will be haunting us forever because of that. That's the collusion that everyone should be concerned about. But I hope people learn a lesson about what happens when liberals don't behave in the way they claim and in the way the things they claim to believe in they don't act on,” says Margaret Kimberley, an editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report.

🎧 Listen to more of Kimberley’s analysis in our podcast: Jan 6 Criminal Referrals for Trump, Fed Budget Agreement Reached