A staggering number of British households are unable to pay their electricity and gas bills due to the cost of living crisis

The amount owed to energy suppliers has risen by £400 million since mid-October, reaching £3 bln ($3.8 bln), revealed a report released.

These concerns have prompted the industry regulator Ofgem to propose raising its cap on household bills by £16 or £1.33 a month, for the next financial year from April 2024. That rise is aimed at helping intermediary billing companies offset higher debt costs they say could drive them to bankruptcy.

“The record level of debt in the system means we must take action to make sure suppliers can recover their reasonable costs, so the market remains resilient, and suppliers are offering consumers support in managing their debts,” stated Tim Jarvis, Ofgem's director general for markets.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Main statements by Vladimir Putin in interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin:

▪️ Putin admitted that naivety was inherent in him despite his work in intelligence and government positions;

▪️ The president added that in the 2000s, he had naive ideas about the West;

▪️ Vladimir Putin said that he blamed the inertia of the West's thinking for its tendency to confront Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union;

▪️ The West believes that such a big Russia is not needed and wants to divide and subjugate it;

▪️ Putin called the claim that Russia might attack NATO "complete nonsense" and that Biden's remarks about it were a figure of speech;

▪️ Russia is interested in developing relations with NATO countries;

▪️ Russia has neither territorial claims nor any other interest in going to war with NATO countries;

▪️ Russia had great relations with Finland, and now it will have to concentrate military units in the Leningrad Military District;

▪️ The US will have to take Russia into consideration and find common ground.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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

▪️Russian troops repelled nine attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kupyansk direction;

▪️The Russian Armed Forces repelled an attack by a Ukrainian special forces brigade in the Krasny Liman direction. Enemy losses amounted to up to 90 military personnel;

▪️In the South Donetsk direction, the Russian Armed Forces repelled two attacks by Ukrainian assault groups;

▪️The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a HIMARS launcher in the Konstantinovka area in the DPR;

▪️Ukrainian forces lost up to 100 military personnel in the South Donetsk direction;

▪️Ukrainian losses in the Donetsk direction amounted to up to 250 military personnel and four of their attacks were repelled;

▪️Over the past 24 hours, the Russian Armed Forces shot down two Ukrainian MiG-29s, one Su-25, two HIMARS missiles, a JDAM guided bomb, and 91 drones;

▪️Russian troops destroyed a command post of Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized as well as fuel depots for aircraft.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Crews of Russian army aviation helicopters strike enemy strongholds and manpower in the Kupyansk direction

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎄 Germany's Grinch-like Federal Customs Service has warned on its website of the possible confiscation of Christmas gifts sent from Russia this festive season.

German authorities have threatened to steal Christmas by confiscating gifts mailed from Russia.

The EU's sanctions on Russia already include financial blocks, sectoral restrictions, transport and visa bans, export controls and import restrictions.

It has prohibited the import of strategic raw materials from Russia, including oil, petroleum products, coal, ferrous metallurgy products and gold — but now authorities have seemingly added frankincense and myrrh to that list.

The Federal Customs Service has extended the ban to personal belongings, including Christmas gifts, from Russia. Customs officials may now confiscate or detain items such as paper, wooden products, cosmetics and more.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The United Russia Party Congress unanimously has supported Putin’s candidacy in the presidential election

LIVE: Putin Speaks at United Russia Party Congress

The live stream is over. Follow the link to the Sputnik's website for more details.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Russia will either be a self-sufficient, sovereign power, or it will not exist at all, this must be remembered, Putin said.

Russia cannot, like some countries, give up its sovereignty "in exchange for sausage" and be someone’s satellite, he added.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ The satellites tried to bring down the Russian state system and sow confusion, but such recipes have not worked and will not work when it comes to Russia, Putin said

📹 Russia cannot, like some countries, give up its sovereignty "in exchange for sausage" and be someone’s satellite, Vladimir Putin said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Western elites tried to bring down the Russian state system and sow confusion, but such recipes have not worked and will not work when it comes to Russia, Putin said

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❄️ The tasks facing Russia are growing like a snowball, but Russia is a winter country and loves snow, Putin said

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 The full video of Putin's speech during the United Russia Party Congress.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🪖 The US will ring in the new year with its smallest active duty footprint since 1941 – the year Washington abandoned its non-interventionist foreign policy and joined the Second World War.

That’s according to military strength levels outlined by the NDAA, which showed a drop in active duty personnel to 1,284,500 service members, from 1.39 million in the previous year, as recruiters face growing difficulty enticing young people to join.

Observers blame a variety of factors for falling recruitment numbers, from declining confidence in the US military (from 70 percent in 2018 to about 46 percent now), to growing incidence of health problems among young people, to concerns among conservatives about the military’s increasingly “woke” culture, to falling morale in the wake of decades of illegal wars abroad.

👉 Follow the link to learn more

🇺🇸🇸🇾 US occupation forces in Syria have made off with dozens’ more truck and tanker loads’ worth of food and oil from the war-torn country, sending them across the border into Iraq using two separate convoys.

Sources on the ground in the Yarubiya countryside near the Iraqi border told Syrian media that a convoy consisting of 40 tankers’ worth of oil exited Syria via the Mahmoudiya border checkpoint.

Separately, sources said, 55 trucks worth of wheat and barley and an unspecified number oil tankers were spotted leaving the Yarubiya countryside via the al-Walid crossing.

Both Mahmoudiya and al-Walid are outside the Syrian government’s control, making them illegal under international law.

👉 Follow the link to learn more

🇺🇸 Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan has lambasted the Biden administration’s border policies for generating the ongoing migrant crisis.

Homan quoted official data showing that under the Biden administration, deportations had dropped from a high of 267,258 in 2019 to 72,177 in 2022. According to the former agency chief, the Biden administrations border polices have in effect "enriched and emboldened" the people-trafficking cartels.

He lamented that the cartels are “making more money than they have in their entire existence,” smuggling illegal immigrants and drugs. The gangs are well-trained, possess sophisticated weaponry and “meet all the definitions of terrorist organizations,” he warned, adding that “US special intelligence and special ops are the only means of taking them out.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, during his upcoming visit to Israel on Monday, intends to seek information from the country's authorities about the specific goals that the Israeli command is setting for itself during the operation in the Gaza Strip in order to move to its next stage, media report, citing a source.

Hamas intends to resume negotiations on hostages in the Gaza Strip after the end of hostilities and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave.

Representatives of the Hamas should not be included in the future Palestinian government, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict itself should end on the basis of peaceful coexistence of two states that will recognize each other’s sovereignty, said Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a threat to the Middle East region and the entire structure of international relations, said Fatah leader Abdel Fattah Daula.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt