🪖 New Ukrainian brigades lack needed vehicles and have obsolete equipment - report

According to a recent report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Western military aid to Ukraine has plummeted by 87% year-on-year from August to October, reaching its lowest since January 2022 of $2.3 billion. This plunge can be attributed to the lack of new commitments by the European Union and the United States.

A Forbes article recently revealed that photographs featuring the five fresh mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were noticeably lacking combat equipment. Moreover, these brigades might be supplied with outdated Soviet vehicles.

Forbes explained that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently in the process of forming five new mechanized brigades: the 150th, the 151st, the 152nd, the 153rd and the 154th.

"None of the photos show the brigades' equipment. An old BMP-1 appears in some photos, but it probably belongs to a training unit," the journalist noted.

👉 Follow the link to learn more

🇺🇸 Hunter Biden will “not go down alone”

On Thursday, Hunter Biden was charged by a federal grand jury in California on nine charges, including three felonies and six misdemeanors.

“I really don’t think that Hunter Biden is actually going to be convicted,” Sabrina Salvati, an activist and former educator, joined Sputnik’s Political Misfits podcast to share her opinion on the issue. “I’m pretty sure he’s probably lawyered up, there’s been a lot of time that has passed for him to make sure he has all his ducks in a row, and I think that’s why he is so willing to testify,” she added.

Meanwhile, the investigators are seeking a private testimony from Hunter Biden, but aren’t interested in the public one that Biden has offered them.

According to Salvati, Hunter Biden will “not go down alone,” that’s why he wants to “have this public display” to target the Republican party.

👉 Follow the link to learn more

🇬🇧🇷🇼 UK pays Rwanda $126Mln amid new asylum deal

"Ministers have agreed that I can disclose now the payments so far in the 2023-24 financial year. There has been one payment of £100m, paid in April this year as part of the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund [ETIF] mentioned above ... This was entirely separate to the Treaty - The Government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a Treaty to be signed, nor was any offered," UK Home Office Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft said in a letter to lawmakers.

The official further stated that London had paid Kigali 140 million pounds in 2022; however, no migrants were transported to Rwanda that year.

Another 50 million pounds will be wired in the 2024-25 financial year "as part of the ETIF as agreed with the Government of Rwanda when the Migration and Economic Development Partnership was signed," the letter read.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin congratulated Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, on its 10th anniversary, wishing that it maintain its leading position

"It is gratifying that you are worthily continuing the creative traditions of your predecessors - famous journalists, correspondents, editors, translators, publicists. You generously share your experience and knowledge with young employees," the congratulatory telegram read.

The president expressed confidence that the media group "will continue to raise the bar for the quality of its work and maintain its position as one of the recognized leaders of the domestic and international information space.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Russian drone operators from the Far Eastern Airborne Forces in the area of Artemovsk in the DPR shot down a Ukrainian drone known as the "Baba Yaga" by ramming it in the air with their own drone.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin congratulates Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, on 10th anniversary

The prime minister stressed that the media group "sets high journalistic standards in the media space" of Russia and beyond, and that its round-the-clock news resources "in dozens of languages provide a wide audience of readers and listeners with reliable and objective information about the most important events in the world."

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Latest updates on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

▪️By blocking the UN Security Council draft resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza, the US signed a death sentence for thousands of residents of the besieged Palestinian enclave, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said;

▪️The UAE-drafted UN Security Council resolution calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Israel and Gaza is unrealistic and dangerous, US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said after his country vetoed the measure. He added that among other things, it did not contain a condemnation of Hamas and did not reflect Israel's right to self-defense;

▪️Intensive fighting by the Israeli Army in the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, Khan Yunis, where, according to Israel, the Hamas’ leadership is located, will last for another three to four weeks, Axios reports, citing a military source;

▪️China calls on Israel to stop the collective punishment of the population of the Gaza Strip, Chinese Permanent Representative to the UN Zhang Jun said at a meeting of the UN Security Council;

▪️Israeli authorities should make more efforts to protect Palestinian civilians during their military operations in the Gaza Strip, the White House said;

▪️The US administration has asked Congress to authorize the sale of 45,000 shells to Israel for its Merkava main battle tanks;

▪️A UN Security Council delegation will visit the Rafah checkpoint on the border of Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Monday.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📊 A poll among voters in the United States shows that more people believe in Trump's ability to cope with the conflict in Gaza (44%) than in Biden's ability to resolve the crisis (32%), the WSJ reports.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

A growing number of voices in the US do not want to help Ukraine because of the huge losses of Western equipment and the outcome of the counteroffensive, Military Watch Magazine writes.

"The scale of losses suffered by Ukraine and the increasingly widely recognized failure of its offensive operations have played an important role in increasing resistance in the United States to supplying arms to the Ukrainian armed forces," the publication said.

The article points out that cutting off aid could completely undermine not only Kiev's ability to sustain military operations, but also the Ukrainian state's ability to perform even the most basic functions. Besides, Russia is seizing more and more trophy samples of Western equipment, while the Ukrainian Army is just leaving them on the battlefield.

In addition, there are fears in the US about the reputation of allegedly best American tank, the M1 Abrams, according to the article.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

😳 Come again? How much, Joe??

President Biden is again being mocked after his speech on investments in infrastructure in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The US president announced that the administration had spent “over a billion, three hundred million, trillion, three hundred million dollars” on investments in major rail projects across the country.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇯🇵 Japan advised to go nuclear as US 'umbrella' 'frayed irreparably'

Ex-editor for The New York Times Barry Gewen has described the American “nuclear umbrella” that previously offered Japan military protection as being “increasingly frayed, probably irreparably.”

The report rationalized the need for Japan to “go nuclear” by dredging up traditional US-fueled claims of alleged threats from neighboring states, like China, North Korea, and even Russia.

The author posed the simple question: “Would America be willing to risk the destruction of Los Angeles to protect Tokyo?”

Japan should not rely on “decisions of impulsive and unreliable leaders in Washington,” the author of the report said.

It is worth recalling that Russia’s nuclear doctrine forbids the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. The fearsome weapons are regarded “exclusively as a means of deterrence, their use being an extreme and compelled measure.”

👉 Follow the link to learn more

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇮🇱Israel plans to end operations in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis in 3-4 weeks – reports

The operation in Khan Yunis has just started, an official told media outlet, adding that the Israeli military believed that the leadership of Palestinian movement Hamas was located there.

According to the source, the high-intensity phase of the conflict between Israel and Hamas will last for three to four weeks.

According to the report, the US does not give Israel a clear deadline for the end of the operation, but points out that time is limited and it is necessary to end the fighting as quickly as possible and with fewer civilian casualties. Washington prefers Israel finished the high intensity phase of the operation in the Gaza Strip by the end of December, and Israel aims at the end of January 2024, the report added.

Earlier, Head of the Israeli General Staff Herzi Halevi said that the IDF had moved to the third phase of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip and was surrounding Khan Yunis.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💥 Russian forces launched strikes with high-precision long-range air-based weapons on ammunition production sites for Olha, Grad, and Grom systems.

The targets of the strikes were achieved and all objects were hit, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov congratulates Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, on media group’s 10th anniversary

"The media group is a legitimate leader among domestic media. It is a worthy representative of our country in the international arena, publishing a wide range of news products in 30 languages and actively cooperating with more than 100 foreign partners," Lavrov said in his congratulatory letter.

The foreign minister stressed that at a time of unprecedented international pressure on Russian media, Rossiya Segodnya "continues to meet high professional standards of honest journalism."

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🪖 Key points of Russian MoD briefing on progress of special military op in Ukraine:

▪️ In the Krasny Liman region, Ukrainian losses amounted up to 155 soldiers;

▪️ In the Kupyansk area, Ukrainian losses amounted up to 105 servicemen;

▪️ In the Donetsk region, Russian forces repelled five attacks by Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian losses amounted to 200 soldiers;

▪️In southern Donetsk, Ukrainian losses amounted to 80 soldiers;

▪️ In the Kharkov region, Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian ammunition depot;

▪️ Russian air defense systems destroyed 11 drones of the Ukrainian forces.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇺 EU strikes sweeping AI regulation deal

The EU hammered out a deal on the comprehensive regulation of AI. Thierry Breton, commissioner for internal market of the European Union, took to the X social media platform to hail the AI Act as harnessing the potential benefits of the rapidly advancing technology, while mitigating possible risks.

The draft agreed by EU lawmakers would ban:

▪️Use of real-time surveillance and biometric technologies, with three exemptions;

▪️Untargeted extraction of facial images from the Internet or CCTV footage for setting up facial recognition databases;

▪️Emotion recognition in workplace and educational institutions;

▪️Social scoring - determining an individual's social behavior - based on social performance or personal characteristics;

▪️AI systems able to manipulate human behavior to bypass their free will;

▪️AI used to exploit the people’s vulnerabilities based on age, disability, etc.

Special obligations, such as “fundamental rights impact assessments,” are set out for AI “high-risk systems,” which could potentially cause harm to health, safety, fundamental rights, environment, and rule of law.

General-purpose AI systems will adhere to “transparency requirements,” with obligations including disclosure of data used to teach the machines.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❓Have you seen our fresh episode of the New Rules podcast?

👆Here is a quick peek on what our host Dimitri Simes Jr. discussed with Russian foreign policy strategist Dmitry Suslov.

Make sure to subscribe on our X official page to follow our work and watch exclusive content!

🇩🇪 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz blames Russia for cutting off pipeline gas supplies to Europe

"Russia - yes, Russia has cut off Europe's energy supply... It was the Russian president who cut off the supply of gas through an operational pipeline!" Scholz claimed at the congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

The German chancellor's statement sounds bizarre after the EU itself has imposed anti-Russian sanctions, including sanctions on gas from Russia. The EU has spent 304 billion euros on gas imports since February 2022, having overpaid 185 billion euros due to anti-Russian sanctions, according to Eurostat data.

Vladimir Putin said earlier that sanctions have dealt a serious blow to the entire world economy. According to him, the main goal of the West is to worsen the lives of millions of people. Russia has repeatedly stated that the country will solve all the problems the West creates for it.

After last year's terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, gas supplies to Germany were severely disrupted. In November, the head of the Russian Energy Ministry said that Russia itself had not "closed" the Western direction of energy supplies and remained a reliable gas supplier even in the current difficult conditions.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇵🇸 US-Arab post-war Gaza scenario talks doomed while Israel bombs enclave — expert

Negotiations between the US and its regional allies on Gaza’s post-war governance are not likely to achieve USA’s aims, Shahram Akbarzadeh told Sputnik.

‘No Arab state will agree to be part of post-war future while Israel is bombing Gaza,’ the expert in the Middle Eastern politics at Deakin University said.
The US is ‘delusional’ if it thinks Israeli actions have ‘killed’ the two-state solution, Akbarzadeh stressed, but admitted that there were ‘no immediate or near future prospects’ for that to materialize.

Negotiations between the US authorities and the Palestinian administration on Gaza’s future must rule out Israel occupying the enclave, installing a temporary military administration there, or creating a buffer zone, said Dr Vladimir Morozov, Professor and vice-Rector at MGIMO University. He agreed that the two-state solution was more of a guideline, but not a matter of the next 10 years.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇵🇱 Polish media debunks Zelensky narrative that Ukraine is fighting for West's freedom

Kiev’s “cunning propaganda” suggesting that a Russian victory in Ukraine will inevitably be followed up with attacks on NATO countries are little more than a form of “demagoguery” and “blackmail” completely detached from reality. That’s according to an editorial published in Polish politics journal Mysl Polska.

“An Estonian military officer has formulated the following thesis: that ‘there are only two options: either Ukraine will win, or there will be World War III’. This ridiculous proposition is probably shared by a large part of Ukraine’s supporters in our country,” the alternative conservative media outlet wrote, pointing to efforts by some actors to convince the public “that a Ukrainian defeat will mean we will definitely be attacked by Russia.”

👉 Follow the link to learn more

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 New Era of Confrontation between Russia and NATO

“I think that Ukraine war is the first big war between Russia and the West. Historically, it could be compared with the Korean War of 1950-1953, because the Korean War was the first major military conflict of the Cold War. I think that the effect and the role of the Ukraine conflict will be pretty similar,” Dmitry Suslov, Russian foreign policy strategist, told Sputnik.

👉 Watch the full episode of our show on Rumble and on our X page

🎧 If you prefer to listen to our podcast, make sure to check the New Rules page on our website!