🇪🇺 Only 14% of Ukrainian refugees in Europe hope to return soon, surveys conducted by the UN refugee agency UNHCR have found

"The majority, of course, hope to return one day to Ukraine but just 14% of them plan to do so in the near future. That's because of the security concerns along with the access to the basic services, housing and livelihoods," UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh told a news briefing of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva.

Europe is hosting some 5.9 million Ukrainians displaced by the nearly two-year conflict, 62% of them women and girls and 36% children. Another 2 million have fled to Russia.

"The majority of refugees plan to remain where they are but they will require continued support from the host governments and the international community to meet their basic needs and to access key services and build their self-reliance," Saltmarsh added.

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🗺️😵‍💫The world could see a lost decade of low economic growth if current trends continue, according to a report released by the World Bank on Tuesday.

“Global cooperation is critical to address the issues of high debt, climate change, trade fragmentation, and food insecurity and conflict,” read an overview on the World Bank’s website.

The report noted the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine as a threat to growth – coercive Western sanctions on Russia have increased energy prices worldwide, damaging European economies in particular. The report argued the end of 2024 is likely to conclude the slowest half-decade of economic growth in 30 years.

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The Syrian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that eight servicepeople have been killed and another 13 people have been injured as a result of a terrorist attack on a bus south of the city of Palmyra in the Syrian governorate of Homs.

"Eight soldiers and one civilian were killed, another 13 people, including two civilians, were injured as a result of a terrorist attack with the use of an explosive device on a military bus in the Syrian Desert south of Palmyra today at noon," the ministry said in a statement.

A security source told Sputnik earlier on Tuesday that an explosion in a bus in the governorate of Homs has killed nine soldiers and injured another 22 troops.
The source added that the bomb had been planted by terrorists of the Daesh* terrorist group.

*Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.

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🇷🇺 Russia Will Try to Decrease India-China Tensions, Valdai Expert Says

Strained ties between India and China due to the Ladakh border dispute pose a “significant problem” for Russia, which will try its best to “decrease tensions”, a Russian expert has told Sputnik India.

“Trilateral format as proposed many years ago by (Russian PM) Yevgeni Primakov doesn't work well under circumstances, but multilateral arrangements suit them better,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the Research Director of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club.

🌐 Multilateral groups such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are better platforms for the three powers to pursue global issues of "overall interest," Lukyanov said.

“It (interactions in SCO and BRICS) is not a replacement for bilateral relations which need to be reinvented. But it helps in forging some cooperation,” the Valdai Club expert said.

🇨🇳🇮🇳 Sino-India tensions weren’t an “obstacle” in the three countries’ mutual objective of a “multipolar world order”, he said.

“We don’t know yet what exactly this [multipolar world] order means. This is a work in progress. But rivalry between poles is an imminent characteristic of such a system, so India-China relations cannot be an obstacle,” Lukyanov explained.

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🇫🇷👦🏻💩 “So you've heard of the phrase, I presume, of polishing a t**d?” asked political commentator Phil Kelly on Sputnik’s Political Misfits program Tuesday, using a scatalogical metaphor to describe new French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

“Within the Western political landscape, this is what we get… when something gets too stench-filled and the public know that they need a change, but they're not sure what the change should be.”

The activist described the 34-year-old politician as “an individual who was groomed by the establishment,” claiming he abandoned his former Socialist Party to seek “personal advancement” in President Emmanuel Macron’s movement.

Kelly said Attal is “anti-Muslim” and “anti-worker,” noting his criticism of strikes and pandering to Islamophobic sentiment in French society. He insisted right-wing politician Marine Le Pen is actually calling the shots in French politics, with others merely offering a milder version of her rhetoric.

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🇷🇺🇹🇷 Turkiye has remained the main importer of Russian grain and wheat in the first half of the 2023-2024 season, which starts on July 1, 2023, and ends on June 30, 2024, the Russian Union of Grain Exporters said.

"Turkiye has retained its position as the main importer of Russian grain and wheat in the first half of the 2023-2024 season," the union stated on Telegram, adding that Turkiye's imports of Russian grain in the said period amounted to 4.281 million tonnes, down 12.7% year-on-year, including a 2% decrease in wheat imports to 3.929 million tonnes.

Egypt ranked third in the list of grain importers, having reduced imports of Russian grain by 24.6% year-on-year to 2.956 million tonnes.

Iran was second on the list of the largest importers of Russian grain in the said period, having increased imports by 4.9% year-on-year to 3.902 million tonnes.

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📊🇩🇪 More than 40% of German nationals could imagine their participation in protests against policies of the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a poll conducted by the Institute for New Social Answers (INSA) for German newspaper Bild showed.

The poll showed that 45% of respondents could imagine taking their discontent with the incumbent government to the streets, while some 40% of the polled people said they would not protest.

About 48% of supporters of the Free Democratic Party in the ruling coalition said that they might be ready to take to the streets in protests against the policies of their party as well. Supporters of Scholz's Social Democratic Party and the Alliance 90/The Greens coalition are more loyal to the government's policies: 66% and 69% of supporters of these parties have no intent of participating in protests.

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🇷🇺 A Russian paratrooper Kornet ATGM crew using a guided missile destroyed a Western-made armored combat vehicle in service with Ukrainian forces near Artemovsk, the Ministry of Defense said

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🇯🇵 Japan continues its militarization by building more and more US military bases

This time, construction of another new US military base in Okinawa will begin today and will take just over nine years, as stated by the Japanese government’s chief cabinet secretary.

In December, the Japanese authorities, without the consent of Okinawa Prefecture, approved the continuation of the construction of a US base in the area of the city of Nago in order to move the Futenma base there. Work on filling the seabed has already begun.

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US & China wrap up military talks at Pentagon for first time in 4 years

Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, has met with China's Major General Song Yanchao, according to US Defense Department readout.

The talks were held amid the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s secret hospitalization scandal which had raised questions about who was in charge of the nation's defense and security for over a week.

The US side claimed keeping lines of military communication open would “prevent competition from veering into conflict.” However, after the talks, China reiterated that the US should first put an end to its “provocative actions” in the South China Sea, abide by the One China principle, stop arming Taiwan, and not support Taiwanese self-proclamation attempts.

The military sit-down also came as Taiwan is holding regional leadership elections this weekend.

“The United States should fully understand the root causes of the maritime and air security issues, strictly restrain its front-line forces, and stop hyping up [the issues],” China's Ministry of National Defense was cited as stating.

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