📹 The crews of the Ka-52M carried out an attack on enemy positions and personnel in the direction of Donetsk.

According to the coordinates of the aircraft's gunner, the Russian pilots of the Army aviation launched missiles and destroyed the control center and armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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The head of the Iranian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the detention of a number of people involved in the Kerman terrorist attack on the day of remembrance of General Soleimani, according to media

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Biden can't even tell us what the endgame is. He will not articulate this, 2024 US presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said during a CNN Town Hall hosted by Kaitlan Collins.

The US should focus on defending its own southern border against pressuring migration and against China, but Washington is ignoring these security threats and keeps sending "an awful lot of money" to Ukraine, including money paying for "pensions for bureaucrats, salaries," DeSantis said while questioning "how is that something benefiting the American people."

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

▪️In Krasny Liman, Russian forces repelled four attacks by Ukrainian troops during the week. Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 690 servicemen and 42 pieces of equipment;

▪️In South Donetsk, five attacks by Ukrainian troops were repulsed. Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 950 soldiers during the week;

▪️In the Kupyansk region, Russian troops repelled 18 attacks in one week. Ukrainian losses amounted to 6 tanks, including Leopard 2, as well as 3 warehouses;

▪️In Donetsk, in one week Russian forces repelled nine attacks by Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian losses amounted to almost 2 thousand soldiers;

▪️ Russian aviation and air defense systems shot down 107 HIMARS, Alder and Vampire shells, three HARM missiles, 253 drones, one Su-27 aircraft, one Mi-8 helicopter, 14 Tochka-U missiles, eight Storm Shadow missiles and three S-200 APU missiles;

▪️13 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered during the week.

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Eurozone annual inflation up to 2.9% in December 2023 from 2.4% in November - Eurostat

In December 2023, food, alcohol and tobacco were the biggest contributors to eurozone inflation, followed by services, non-energy industrial goods and energy, the statement read.

"Euro area annual inflation is expected to be 2.9 % in December 2023, up from 2.4 % in November 2023," Eurostat said in a statement.

The highest annual inflation rates were recorded in Slovakia with 6.6%, while the lowest rates were reported in Belgium and Italy with 0.5% each, the estimates showed.

For comparison, in December 2022, eurozone annual inflation amounted to 9.2%.

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One in three UN countries has opted for de-dollarization, Sputnik's analysis has indicated.

At least 68 UN members have openly supported the process of de-dollarization or stated that they were taking measures to this effect, the study showed.

The most decisive calls for scrapping the greenback came from politicians whose countries are members of major regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and BRICS, which currently сomprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa plus Saudi Arabia, which officially joined the group in early January.

De-dollarization is related to the process of scrapping the US dollar's hegemony in global trade and financial operations by shifting to alternative exchange methods, such as national currencies and domestic payment systems.

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Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gives his second speech in three days:

The American administration is concerned about the expansion of the scale of war in the region and does not want this. The US is at a stalemate in the war in Ukraine, bogged down on the Ukrainian front and preparing for a major historical and strategic defeat there from Russia.

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🇮🇷 Iran raises the red flag of revenge on the dome of the Jamkaran Mosque

The flag was raised after explosions near the cemetery in Kerman where Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani is buried.

The last time the red flag of revenge was raised over this mosque was after the assassination of the leader on January 3, 2020.

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Terrorists from Central Asia arriving to Germany through Ukraine war zone

The conflict in Ukraine has made it easier for terrorists to enter Germany, as they can pose as refugees, German media outlet BILD has reported. They often purportedly have false documents and made up stories of torture and persecution. In addition, on their way through the war zone in the south and east of Ukraine, they may easily obtain bombs, which they take to Western Europe.

The number of people arrested on charges of terrorism has been growing of late in Germany. They are often purportedly associated with the Islamic State in the Khorasan group. This is an offshoot of Daesh* operating in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

In July, five citizens of Tajikistan and one each from Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan were detained in the west of Germany on such charges. Recently, militants from Central Asia who were allegedly preparing a terrorist attack on Cologne Cathedral were arrested.

* A terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other states

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📹 Russian D-30 howitzer crews of the Vostok Battlegroup strike drone-identified enemy targets

The artillerymen of the Vostok Battlegroup calculate the flight path of projectiles with mathematical precision and hit targets at a distance of about 15 kilometers.

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Mideast conflict over Gaza war getting hotter, more attacks to come

"There are going to be others [attacks] unless someone begins to tamp this down a little bit and begins to try and bring some reasoning. But there are no adults in the room anymore," former Pentagon senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik's The Final Countdown podcast.

Over the past few days, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in Beirut, Lebanon; almost 100 people were killed in the Iranian city of Kerman; and the Pentagon stepped up attacks against Shiite militias in Iraq. The trend is worrisome with more tit-for-tat attacks likely to occur soon, the former Pentagon analyst warned.

"So this thing easily could escalate so fast and make your head swim," Maloof stressed.

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🗣 India and China will make peace in 2024:

“I think that Modi will be able to make a big gesture to China once the 2024 elections are over. Because India knows: the rise of the multipolar world, the decline of the US power. And if you look at India's dependency on China for pharmaceuticals, electronics, machinery and all of that, we know that China is the place to be friends with. So I think that as the US power declines, naturally India will have better and better relations with China,” SL Kanthan (@Kanthan2030), India-based geopolitical analyst, told New Rules podcast.

👉 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 the website!

Russian electronic warfare troops detect over 2 Mln airborne targets in 2023

Western military experts have cited Russia's unmatched capabilities in electronic warfare as one of the key factors contributing to the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The electronic warfare divisions of the Russian Armed Forces identified and tracked over 2 million airborne objects. Among them were 600 thousand foreign aircraft, including 2 thousand reconnaissance planes and over 20 strategic bombers.

During the year, troops on duty were put in the highest combat readiness over 4 thousand times. The Ministry of Defense stressed that this is an obvious indicator of the high level of pressure on electronic warfare. The Ministry noted that Russian electronic warfare equipment is capable of detecting any airborne object in space, from small drones to hypersonic missiles.

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

▪️Death toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza rises to 22,600, according to Gaza Health Ministry;

▪️Children in Gaza face "deadly triple threat" of hunger, disease, and hostilities, according to UNICEF;

▪️Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said he thinks Israel will create its own civil administration in the Gaza Strip;

▪️Hezbollah announced strikes on seven Israeli army positions.

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❗️ Russian air defense systems destroyed five Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

“On January 5, at about 20.00 Moscow time, an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack with five unmanned aerial vehicles of airplane type on objects on the territory of the Russian Federation was foiled. The air defense systems on duty intercepted all Ukrainian UAVs over the western part of the Black Sea,” the ministry said in a statement.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James wants to make former president Donald Trump and his fellow defendants pay nearly $370 million for their alleged financial fraud, court documents filed on Friday showed.

"Defendants reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains through their unlawful conduct. Record evidence, including the substantively unrebutted testimony of Plaintiff’s banking expert Michiel McCarty, supports disgorgement of $370 million, plus pre-judgment interest," New York Attorney General Letitia James argued in the filing.

Additionally, the attorney general asked for Trump and his co-defendants, to be barred permanently from serving as officers or directors of any New York corporation.

"Lifetime injunctions barring Trump, Weisselberg and McConney from participating in the real estate industry in New York State or from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity are necessary and appropriate," the documents read.

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The Israeli air force had struck a Hezbollah operational command center in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Friday.

"An IAF fighter jet struck a Hezbollah operational command center in the area of the town of Blida in Lebanon," the statement read.

IDF tanks and artillery also launched strikes in several areas in Lebanon, the IDF said.

"Earlier today, numerous launches were identified from Lebanon toward the Israeli territory. The IDF struck the sources of the fire," the IDF added.

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Industrial logic behind 'wars of attrition' says Ukraine has nanoscopic chance of winning

Ukraine has little if any chance of prevailing against Russia in a war of attrition, no matter how much intelligence it gets from the West or how well the Kiev regime troops may fight, Mark Sleboda, a Moscow-based international relations security analyst, told Sputnik.

While Russia is stepping up its defense production and sending both brand new and upgraded equipment to the special military operation zone, the Kiev regime is struggling to operate a hodgepodge of NATO legacy tanks and other weapons having neither properly trained personnel nor supply parts chain to maintain them, Sleboda explained.

"That's what happens when you try to create a proxy army in the middle of a war," Sleboda said. "It's not a good situation for the Kiev regime to find itself in."

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The US military base Harir near the city of Erbil in northern Iraq was attacked by a bomb-laden drone on Friday, Iraqi Kurdistan's counterterrorism service said.

"As per information from the Kurdistan Region Counter-Terrorism unit, at 16:29 [13:29 GMT] today, Friday, an explosive-laden drone targeted the Harir military base in Erbil," the service was quoted by the Shafaq news agency as saying in a statement.

On Thursday, Shia militia commander Abu Taqwa was killed in a drone strike on the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Baghdad. The Iraqi armed forces accused the US-led international coalition of the deadly attack, calling it an "act akin to terrorist activities" and "a dangerous escalation and assault on Iraq." Later in the day, the Pentagon confirmed that US forces conducted a strike in Iraq targeting Abu Taqwa for his alleged role in attacks on US troops in the region.

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How remote-controlled armored vehicles may reshape warfare

Remote-control capabilities of Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle, which allow it to be operated via a tablet, do not turn this vehicle into a drone, says veteran military analyst Viktor Litovkin who also voiced his doubts about plans to make remote-controlled self-propelled guns.

Military journalist Aleksey Borzenko, however, argues that the latest advancements in this field may eventually lead to warfare becoming the lot of robots, in a manner of speaking.

Earlier, Russian defense industry conglomerate Rostec announced that new Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles with remote-control capabilities may be tested in the Ukrainian conflict zone.

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Ukraine shelled the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) 48 times over the past day, the DPR representative office in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of issues related to Ukraine's war crimes said in a statement.

"Over the past 24 hours, the office reported 48 cases of fire by Ukrainian armed forces," the office wrote on Telegram.

According to the statement, five civilians were wounded. The DPR said that the Kiev regime fired 165 rounds of various ammunition.

In the previous day, Ukrainian troops launched 84 strikes, the office reported.

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