🇭🇺 Hungary resolute on no aid to Ukraine from EU joint budget, no entry talks until June

Budapest believes that Kiev should not receive aid from the joint budget of the EU and that the bloc should decide on membership talks with Ukraine not earlier than the European Parliament elections are held in June, the Financial Times reported, citing Hungarian Minister for European Affairs Janos Boka.

Earlier, Hungary refused to approve the eighth tranche of 500 million euros ($543 million) in military funding for Ukraine within the European Peace Facility, saying that Kiev did not provide guarantees that Hungarian companies would not be put on its blacklist of "sponsors of war."

The EU is trying to reach agreement on 20 billion euros in military support for Ukraine and intends to include another 50 billion euros in the EU budget to provide assistance to Kiev over the next four years. However, these plans face opposition from some member states, including Hungary.

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New US Russia-related sanctions target over 200 companies, more than 20 people, according to US Treasury

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow must be prepared for the fact that Western sanctions pressure will increase. Putin added that the West's countless sanctions primarily hit their own economies and jobs.

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🇧🇪 Thousands of EU demonstrators took to the streets in Brussels to demand an end to strict budget rules limiting aid to the population. Another demand is to not increase military spending.

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Air raid alerts in Ukraine were cut off in 76 locations in the Kiev region due to a mobile operator failure.

Meanwhile, the Kievstar company reports that its IT infrastructure was partially destroyed due to a hacker attack. Later, the same problem was reported by Vodafone.

At the same time, the Main Directorate of Ukrainian Intelligence reports that it managed to break the server of the Russian Federal Taxation Service. The service later denied this message.

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💰Merchants of misery: cornered Zelensky joins team Biden in appealing for more Ukraine funding

It's unclear what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is hoping for while in DC, given his latest fiasco to address US lawmakers online and his failure to win the hearts or minds of Congress in September, says Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

"I would be very worried if I were him, he is a total liability right now. He's going to have to hope his money is in a secure place because he's going to have some tough times. So he's kind of in a corner without a lot of options right now. And I think the laws are closing in on him," McAdams told Sputnik.

Team Biden is looking increasingly desperate as it tries to persuade lawmakers to pass more funding for Ukraine. To complicate matters further, the House GOP is due to formalize their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky provided no new information or arguments to US lawmakers during a closed-door meeting as he arrived to Washington in order to beg for new financial assistance, US Senator Eric Schmitt said on Tuesday.

Schmitt also criticized the Biden administration for sending Zelensky to meet with lawmakers about Ukraine instead of meeting with them himself about US border security.

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The agenda of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has ceased to be regional long ago and currently includes various global aspects, SCO Deputy Secretary General Grigory Logvinov said on Tuesday.

"It used to be rather a local association whose agenda was mainly focused on Central Asia. Now the SCO is a giant transregional organization ... And the organization's agenda is no longer regional, it has many global aspects," Logvinov told a press conference.

The organization has no attributes of a military bloc and was not designed as such, the official stated, adding that coordination between defense ministries and armed forces of the SCO member states had a "strong counterterrorism orientation," with all joint drills aimed at improving capacities to repel large-scale attacks by international terrorists.

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🇺🇸 The members of Congress are still waiting to see a clear articulation of strategy on Ukraine and so far the White House has not provided any sufficient responses to their questions, US House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington.

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🇺🇸 US Congress’ move to ban Russian uranium imports may cost US taxpayers a lot

US lawmakers’ earnest efforts to sever the supply of enriched uranium supply to their country is a “purely political decision that can be summed up as ‘we’ll do it even if it makes things worse for ourselves’,” says member of public council of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear corporation Valeriy Menshikov.

According to him, any alternative uranium procurement scheme would be much more expensive for the United States than the arrangement with Russia.

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Zelensky and team Biden's fantasies of turning Ukraine into defense hub won't fly

Volodymyr Zelensky's idea of creating a defense hub in Ukraine is a pipe dream, says retired Colonel Anatoliy Matviychuk, commenting on the Ukrainian president's meeting with US industrial CEOs in DC.

"I think that everything that Zelensky told them was his fantasies and his attempt to come up with something," Matviychuk told Sputnik.

"Who in their right mind would now invest money in a country that is practically non-existent? Can Ukraine produce anything? I doubt it very much, because the production facilities are completely in tatters."

Likewise, Washington's new strategy envisaging Ukraine digging in and accumulating forces for a new counteroffensive against Russia appears to be Team Biden's fantasy to stay in power as long as possible, per the expert.

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

▪️Death toll in Gaza Strip from Israeli attacks up to 18,412 while number of injured exceeds 50,000, according to Gaza's Health Ministry;

▪️Gaza down to 11 functional hospitals, according to the WHO;

▪️The IDF has destroyed the headquarters of Hamas' elite Nukhba unit, where documents with plans for October 7 attack were located;

▪️Netanyahu said Israel received full US support for ground operation in Gaza Strip;

▪️Gaza conflict can go out of control at any moment, Iranian Foreign Minister said;

▪️WHO chief voices concern about prolonged security checks for medical staff in Gaza.

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🇭🇺 Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday it was discriminatory that the European Union was delaying the accession of Western Balkan countries but fast-tracking Ukraine, despite the latter being less prepared.

"It would be irresponsible to start accession talks with Ukraine as the European Commission has not made adequate preparations. Neither the EU nor Ukraine is ready for a mutually beneficial and well-structured start of accession negotiations. The Western Balkan countries, on the other hand, have been waiting for many years and are quite prepared, so it is simply incomprehensible why some member states are blocking progress in their case," Szijjarto wrote on social media.

He added that the countries opposing the Western Balkan states' accession have been prevailing in the EU recently. However, Hungary is among the proponents of the EU's expansion and "deems unacceptable the discrimination of the Western Balkans."

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Biden said at a meeting with Zelensky that he signed an executive order granting Ukraine a $200m aid package, but NYT notes that those money was already approved by Congress

Zelensky added at the White House that he wants to use "frozen Russian assets," which are more than $300 billion, for strengthening Ukraine, media reports

However, many US officials have noted that any action to use those assets would undermine the trust in Western financial institutions.

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Ukraine becomes critically dependent on US aid, ‘has nothing with which to negotiate with Russia’

The cessation of US financial aid to the regime in Kiev, if it were to occur, would likely result in Ukraine’s swift collapse, says Professor Rodney Shakespeare, renowned political commentator and binary economist.

According to him, factions within the United States’ “political structure” apparently hope that the delay in the provision of the latest US aid package to Ukraine might urge Kiev to sue for peace, even though the Ukrainian leadership “has nothing with which to negotiate.”

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'Hush up!' - Biden to reporters

When asked "Do you want Ukraine to win?," Joe Biden simply smiled in response

US House Speaker Mike Johnson - 'They [Ukraine] have not given us the clarity and detail that we have requested over and over'

Johnson also noted that he considers concern for US national security to be first priority, and pointed to the deteriorating situation at the border.

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The lower house of Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, on Tuesday passed a vote of confidence in the government of Donald Tusk, according to the live broadcast.

All opposition factions of the Sejm voted in favor of Tusk and his government, while the PiS party, which until recently was Poland’s ruling, and the Confederation alliance of rights and eurosceptics were against.

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❗️ The US House of Representatives Committee on Rules has approved a resolution authorising further investigation to impeach Joe Biden.

Precise hits

📹 Russian drone operators eliminate Ukrainian militants near Berestovoye.

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