🇵🇸🇮🇱 Netanyahu visited the Gaza Strip and said the military "asked not to stop"

“We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight and we are deepening the fighting in the coming days, and this will be a long battle and it is not close to being over. We need patience, unity, and to stick to our mission,” said Netanyahu at a meeting of the Likud faction meeting in Knesset.

“Everyone asked me only one thing: that we don’t stop and continue on until the end,” he added.

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⚡️Russian troops completely liberated Maryinka in the DPR, Shoigu reports to Putin

❗️WATCH LIVE: Putin Speaks at Eurasian Economic Union Summit

The leaders will gather to assess the results of Russia’s presidency of the union and gauge opportunities for further economic integration among the five member states.

The heads of state and government are expected to make important decisions and adopt a number of documents, including a declaration on the development of the EAEU for 2024-2030. A free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Iran is also planned to be signed.

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💱🌐 Events of 2023 herald 'de facto start of organized new economic order'

As 2023 comes to a close, this year may be looked upon as “de facto the beginning of an organized new economic order,” Paul Goncharoff, a businessman and chief manager of consulting firm Goncharoff, LLC, told Sputnik, stressing that the West’s “unprecedented extraterritorial measures” are accelerating de-dollarization, that is, the global shift away from the US greenback.

“When a country uses the dollar, it effectively surrenders part of its economic sovereignty to Washington, which alone enjoys the right to print dollars and set US monetary policy,” Goncharoff pointed out, adding, however, that the multipolar approach was “already changing the structural financial systems of the world.”

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Tears of Joy: Donetsk civilians celebrate liberation of Maryinka

Sputnik correspondent Russell Bentley (@TXDPR) explained that for years, the Ukrainian military used Maryinka as a key launching pad for drone and artillery strikes against Donetsk. That reign of terror has finally come to an end.

“This victory is personal for me and my family - My wife and her family are from Petrovsky, my wife and I lived there for three years before the beginning of the SMO, but moved to the city center because of heavy shelling about two years ago. Our house in Petrovsky has been damaged three times by shelling - not directly hit, but from heavy artillery shells landing within 100 meters of our house multiple times. We were lucky. Some of our close neighbors were killed. Many people never understood that the Petrovsky District was closer to the Nazis in Maryinka than to the Donetsk city center.

I have close friends among those who liberated Maryinka, and one great friend who died in the effort, and did not live to see the task completed. And he was not alone. There is no victory without sacrifice, and great sacrifices were made to reach this seminal turning point in the war. And make no mistake, though on a smaller scale, this victory is every bit as profound as the liberation of Bakhmut. It is not just a turning point in this war, it is the point of no return.

There are tears of joy in Petrovsky tonight. The last couple of months have seen a major escalation of targeted attacks specifically against civilians there, that have taken a heavy toll, both physically and spiritually. Those attacks will now diminish, and while there is no easy road ahead, the liberation of Maryinka is a huge stepping stone towards the defeat of the Nazis in Avdeevka, and the eventual liberation and de-nazification of Ukraine.”

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

▪️Netanyahu visited the Gaza Strip and said the military "asked not to stop": “We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight and we are deepening the fighting in the coming days, and this will be a long battle and it is not close to being over. We need patience, unity, and to stick to our mission,” said Netanyahu at a meeting of the Likud faction meeting in Knesset. “Everyone asked me only one thing: that we don’t stop and continue on until the end,” he added.

▪️An adviser of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in an Israeli missile attack on the outskirts of Syria's Damascus, the Tasnim news agency reported.

▪️The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) sent 12 ambulances to evacuate its personnel and patients from a number of hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip after local emergency transport was destroyed in a raid by Israeli forces.

▪️The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has donated 80,000 vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella for children aged up to six years in the Gaza Strip, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) of the Israeli Defense Ministry said.

Hamas released a video of ambush on IDF military transport in the Central Gaza Strip.

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❄️ Is America playing 'catch-up' to Russia in the Arctic?

"Russia won the race in the Arctic. It will take the United States years to catch up, if ever. Consequently, the US can’t threaten Russia’s achievements in the Arctic," Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh, an international oil economist and a global energy expert, told Sputnik.

Moscow is concerned about Washington's unilateral push to hastily expand its continental shelf rights in the Arctic in defiance of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The United States has neither signed nor ratified the Convention.

"The Biden administration has stated that it may want to join [UNCLOS]," Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik. "We'll see what it does in its remaining months in office here during this term."

Time will tell whether the US will start playing by the rules.

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🇷🇺 How Russia's layered air, ground and sea-based defenses shield its Black Sea shores

The Black Sea has been a focal point of the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine from the opening days of the special military operation, with the body of water witnessing naval blockades, amphibious landings, drone warfare and even close calls between Russian and US forces.

What resources does Russia have at its disposal to secure this vital theater?

👉 Follow the link to learn about Russian onion layer defenses

‘War is scary’: Donbass children send a message to American children

Sputnik correspondent Russell Bentley (@TXDPR) asked schoolchildren in Makeevka, a city near Donetsk, what they wanted to tell American kids their age. Here’s what they had to say.

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President Putin plans to call battalion commander Troshin, who took part in the liberation of Maryinka, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik

🇨🇳🇵🇭 China сastigates Philippines 'extremely dangerous' South China Sea incursions

In an announcement, The People's Daily, an official publication of the Communist Party of China, has raised alarm over the Philippines' continued reliance on US support to engage in "extremely dangerous" actions in the South China Sea aimed at disrupting regional peace.

The report, published on Christmas Day, has not yet elicited any official response from the Philippines' Foreign Ministry or the national task force responsible for managing South China Sea issues.

Over the past few months, tensions between Beijing and Manila have flared up due to a spate of run-ins in the South China Sea. These include accusations that China rammed a ship carrying the Philippines' armed forces chief of staff earlier this month.

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