Biden officially signs 2024 US defense authorization bill

The document envisages the allocation of more than 880 billion dollars for such relevant programmes of the Pentagon, the State Department and intelligence services as:

▪️ 4.6 percent pay raise for military and civilian members of the DoD

▪️ $30.3 billion for national security programs in the Department of Energy and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

▪️ $378 million for other defense-related activities.

The defence budget has set aside $800 million for assistance to Ukraine. This assistance includes $300m under the Security Assistance Initiative. Under this programme, the Pentagon contracts with manufacturers, rather than providing Ukraine means directly from its stockpile.

Joe Biden also criticised provisions that would require him and other officials to submit reports to congressional committees with classified information, that could reveal intelligence sources or military operational plans.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukrainian TV host unexpectedly fled to Europe

The presenter of the Ukrainian TV channel 24, Oleksiy Peciy, refused to return to Ukraine after the European Council summit held in Brussels on 14-15 December, the Strana-ua website has reported.

The journalist said on social networks that the "difficult" decision was based on his wish to contribute to the "promotion of the Ukrainian agenda" in Europe.

The information about the "runaway" was officially confirmed by the media holding that owns the TV channel, reported by Strana-ua.

"To say that I am shocked is to say nothing!... And the people who loved to watch and listen to Oleksiy's analyses so much should accept this and decide for themselves whether they are ready to continue to trust him," said Roman Andreiko, the general director of the holding company that owns the channel.

Ukraine has been under martial law since 24 February 2022. It is forbidden for men aged 18 to 60 to leave Ukraine for the period of martial law.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

US President Joe Biden during his Christmas visit to Children's National Hospital to congratulate the children offered to sit on his lap, but the boy refused.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Tape Appears to Show Trump Pressuring Electors in Michigan

A phone conversation allegedly between former US President Donald Trump, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and two Michigan canvassers appears to show the Trump and McDaniel attempt to pressure the canvassers into not certifying the 2020 election in that state.

“We’ve got to fight for our country,” Trump said. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”

Later in the call, McDaniel told the canvassers “If you can go home tonight, do not sign [the certification documents] We will get you attorneys,” with Trump adding “We’ll take care of that.”

The two canvassers originally opposed signing the certification, and then agreed to sign it if an audit were taken in certain precincts in Wayne County. After the phone call with Trump and McDaniel, they attempted unsuccessfully to rescind their certification.

Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, told media outlets that Trump’s actions on the call “were taken in furtherance of his duty as president of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election.”

👉 Read more to get all the details

Lockheed Martin and the United States Air Force are attempting to create a ‘Franken-bird’ out of two damaged F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

If successful, it will be the first time two F-35s are combined to make one field-ready vehicle. One plane had its nose damages due to a failure of its front landing gear and the second suffered a severe engine fire but its nose was recoverable.

“All of the aircraft sections can be de-mated and re-mated theoretically, but it’s just never been done before,” Scott Taylor, the lead mechanical engineer on the Franken-bird project for Lockheed Martin said. “This is the first F-35 Franken-bird to date.”

The hope is to get the new plane ready for action by March 2025.

👉 Hit the link to know more

🇷🇺⚓️ Admiral Nakhimov: What to know about Russia’s carrier-killer battlecruiser upgrade

Russia's Admiral Nakhimov, a nuclear-powered battlecruiser, is nearing the end of a major upgrade. Mikhail Budnichenko of Sevmash highlighted its advanced weaponry, including long-range precision, air defense and antisubmarine systems. The cruiser will be armed with Kalibr, Onyx and Zircon offensive missile systems, along with S-350 Poliment-Redut and Pantsir-M air defense systems. It will also feature Packet-NK and Otvet antisubmarine missile systems. With 176 vertical launch tubes, the ship is designed for a mix of anti-surface and anti-air missiles, prominently featuring Zircon hypersonic missiles.

As one of two Orlan-class cruisers, the Admiral Nakhimov's return to service will mark a significant advancement in Russia's naval power. The modernized Nakhimov represents a substantial enhancement of maritime combat capability, particularly with its hypersonic missile arsenal.

👉 Read more

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The United States is willing to sacrifice the US Dollar in order to not appear to lose to Russia in Ukraine, despite the catastrophic consequences, Mark Sleboda, an analyst for security and international relations told Sputnik’s Final Countdown on Friday.

“Other countries will say, ‘well, the dollar is no longer a reliable global reserve currency’ if the US can just seize somebody's money, whenever [they] have geopolitical problems with them. That breaks the terms of the global financial and economic system that was set up by the US and the West starting all the way back with Bretton Woods in the 1960s,” Sleboda explained.

Doing this would cause more countries to abandon the dollar, a process that already began when the West froze Russian assets at the start of the special operation in Ukraine.

“When that happens, then $30 trillion-plus of US national debt becomes suddenly real and that could have severe economic effects, not just on the United States but the whole world,” Sleboda said.

But, they are willing to do this if it helps them fund the Kiev regime while Congress refuses to authorize more aid. “I can't stress to you how important they feel not being seen as losing to Russia in Ukraine is,” Sleboda added.

US media reported on Thursday that the US under President Joe Biden, is considering using the estimated $300 billion in Russian assets that are frozen in Western banks to fund the Kiev government. Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened “severe consequences” if the plan is put into action.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 By their silence and inaction, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Secretariat and other international organizations exposed the farce of the Bucha massacre staging, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik.

“The lack of reaction from all international organizations, whose mandate requires close attention to the situation in the region, proves that the whole story with Bucha was a staging carried out by the hands of the Kiev regime at the instigation of the United States and Britain. By their silence and inaction, the OSCE Secretariat and other international organizations literally exposed this terrible farce,” the ministry source said.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) earlier said in response to a request from Sputnik that it is not in contact with the Ukrainian authorities on the issue of the list of "Bucha victims," but did not directly answer the question whether it has such a list.

In early December, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at his press conference following the OSCE Ministerial Council, noted that the list of allegedly killed residents of Bucha in Ukraine's Kiev region had not yet been published, and urged journalists to investigate the 2022 events.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Bucha provocation staging noscript was "copied" from the noscript for Nazi Germany's provocation against the Red Army in Nemmersdorf, the source added.

Nemmersdorf (now Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Region) was a locality in East Prussia, liberated by the Red Army on October 21, 1944. However, already on October 23, Red Army advanced units were forced to retreat for fear of being surrounded by counterattacking Nazi troops. After the locality returned under the control of Nazis, they blamed the Red Army for the deaths of 19 to 30 civilians, which was widely covered by German propaganda. However, after the end of the war, representatives of the German side admitted that the killings had been staged.

Immediately after the start of Moscow's special military operation in February 2022, Russia took under control the territory of the Kiev region, including Bucha, a small city northeast of Kiev. Following the Russian military withdrawal from the region, Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of numerous killings of civilians in Bucha, as well as in the surrounding areas.

Russia denied its role in the killings of civilians, insisting that the footage of the murdered local residents, which was distributed in the Western media, is nothing more than a staging and provocation on the part of Ukraine to put pressure on the Western ruling circles in order to achieve their goals in the conflict with Russia.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📊 The United States recorded the third highest number of illegal crossings on the US southern border under the Biden administration this past November, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed in newly released data.

CBP data revealed that there were 242,418 illegal crossings on the US southern border in November, the third most number of illegal crossings in a month since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Republicans in the Senate are currently negotiating with Senate Democrats and White House officials to include border policy changes in the Biden supplemental bill to deter the massive number of illegal crossings on the border. The White House is reportedly willing to make such concessions in exchange for Republicans supporting the bill, which includes more than $60 billion in additional aid for Ukraine.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 UAV units of Russian paratroopers destroy Ukrainian infantry near Artemovsk using drones

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukrainian forces fired five 155 mm NATO-caliber shells at Donetsk and the Yasinovatsky district on Saturday, the DPR representative office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of issues related to Ukrainian war crimes said in a statement.

In addition, at 07:55 Moscow time, Ukrainian troops opened fire on the Yasinovatsky district, firing three 155 mm shells.

The office also reported that on Friday evening, Ukrainian troops fired four 155 mm shells at the Petrovsky district in Donetsk.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️"Shame on Israel & USA!": Huge crowds marched through Sydney streets today protesting in support of Palestine for the 12th week in a row.

Full story tonight on @SputnikInt

🇪🇪 Estonia is ready to extradite Ukrainian citizens to Ukraine who are subject to mobilization, the Baltic country's interior minister, Lauri Läänemets, has said. This applies to those who can actually be drafted under Ukrainian law as part of mobilization. A total of 7,500 Ukrainians of connoscription age live in Estonia, the newspaper Postimees said.

This comes against the background of the Ukrainian General Staff's proposal to mobilize 500,000 more men.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 Russia will not participate in financing a group imposed by the US in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

“At the same time, Russia, together with some of our partners, will continue to withhold part of its contribution, which is allocated by the OPCW Technical Secretariat to finance the illegitimate “attributive” investigation and identification group imposed by the US and its satellites, which conducts illegal activities in the interests of the collective West,” Zakharova said.

According to her, Russia will leave the OPCW executive board in May, but will remain as an observer in order to consistently defend its national interests in an area as important as the chemical industry.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Dipping into ESM to bankroll Ukraine will ‘weaken EU'

Taking funds from the “last resort” European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to bankroll Ukraine and bypass Hungary’s veto is highly problematic, Gabor Stier, senior foreign policy analyst at the conservative Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet, told Sputnik.

Such a step will only serve to weaken the European Union, he emphasized.

“This fund was created in 2012 in order to ensure the competitiveness and viability of European states and European economies in difficult times,” he pointed out.

However, the EU is already experiencing a systemic crisis, a severe economic crisis. “The competitiveness of the European economy will suffer as a result,” Stier, who is also a member of the Valdai Discussion Club, warned.

Earlier, Olli Rehn, the governor of the National Bank of Finland, suggested a way to override Hungary’s veto on financial assistance to Ukraine by using the rescue fund as a “Plan B.” While such a plan would weaken the EU, “of course, this is not entirely bad for the US,” Stier speculated.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

✈️ Today marks 109 years of Russia’s Long-Range Aviation

In honor of this significant date, Sputnik offers you a video showing the masterful work of its pilots.

“Skill, Courage, Dignity, Honor” is the motto of Russian Long-Range Aviation pilots flying Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers, MiG-31I fighter jets, Tu-22M3 long-range bombers, Il-78 tanker aircraft, as well as training and transport aircraft of various types.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Dozens of people were killed in Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip overnight, media reported.

The night attack thwarted efforts of rescuers and paramedics to reach the devastated area, the broadcaster reported, adding that the bodies of people killed in the attack remained in the area.

The Israeli military is continuing to bombard the city of Jabalia, the report said. The strikes have disrupted communication in the region.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️On December 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, which will be held in St. Petersburg.

During the meeting, the results of the work of the Eurasian Economic Community during the year of Russia’s presidency will be summed up, current issues of the union’s activities will be considered, and promising directions for deepening integration processes will be discussed. A number of important decisions and documents are planned to be adopted, including a declaration on the further development of the Eurasian Economic Union until 2030 and for the period until 2045.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Syrian Girl hit the Sydney's streets for Sputnik amidst a heavy police presence to talk to Pro-Palestine protestors. Here’s what one of them had to say.

Subscribe @SputnikInt

🇧🇭 The people of Bahrain held a demonstration to protest against the country joining the US coalition against Yemen

Subscribe @SputnikInt