US aid to Ukraine resembles not the financing of military operations, but a profitable business project, with 90% of the funds remaining in the United States, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said during a UN Security Council in New York.

Lavrov said senior administration officials are "cynical" in their effort to get Congress to agree to fund new assistance for Ukraine.

“We know from what they say, for example, that 90 percent of the military budget which is being given by the US to the Kiev regime remains in the United States and is used to develop the military industry of the country and to update US weaponry. The old ancient junk is being used in Ukraine, “ Lavrov said.

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🇩🇪 Germany's ex-spy boss to found new party

Hans-Georg Maassen, the former head of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, intends to officially create the WerteUnion (Values Union) party by February. It is expected that it will adhere to conservative values and cooperation with the AfD is not ruled out.

Two weeks earlier, another new party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, was registered in Germany - it opposes pumping Ukraine with European weapons and anti-Russian sanctions.

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Yemen's Houthis say they attacked a US military cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, according to a Houthi spokesman.

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Taliban* published footage of the evacuation of Russians who survived a plane crash in Afghanistan

*the organization is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities

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📹 The IDF released a video of Hamas tunnels in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, where Israeli hostages were allegedly being held.

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Zelensky needs Ukrainian conflict to drag on in order to stay in power

Washington’s attempts to bully Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky into firing a large number of Ukrainian government officials highlights the emerging differences between Washington and Kiev, says political analyst Bogdan Bezpalko.

Whereas the US would not mind a pause in the Ukrainian conflict in order to rearm and rebuild Ukraine and then pit it against Russia once more, Zelensky needs the fighting to continue in order to retain his power, Bezpalko explains.

He also suggests that the recent criticism of Zelensky by Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko comes as the latter emerged as a speaker for a group of Ukrainian politicians who became disaffected with Zelensky’s leadership and who would not mind steering Ukraine in a different direction.

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🇷🇺📹 Full speech by Russian FM Sergey Lavrov during the UN Security Council meeting on the issue of arms supplies to Ukraine.

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Dutch PM is covering up troubling reports about Israel to secure a top NATO position - report

Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte is hushing up info regarding Israel’s action against Gaza in order to not upset the US and land a job as the next NATO secretary general, Dutch newspaper NRC reports.

According to the paper, a group of civil servants working for the Foreign Ministry wrote an anonymous letter to the Court of Appeal in The Hague expressing their concern about the country’s blind adherence to the US stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“What can we say so that it appears that Israel is not committing war crimes?” NRC quotes the letter.

Some Dutch officials believe that the PM is following Washington with regard to Israel in hopes to succeed Jens Stoltenberg when he leaves his NATO position. It is the US vote that is the decisive one in the matter.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry was outraged by the letter, calling it “extremely malicious” and “completely inappropriate.”

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US hypocrisy at its peak

Official representative of the State Department told Sputnik that he was not familiar with the situation surrounding the death of the US citizen Gonzalo Lira, and suggested redirecting the question to Kiev.

On January 13, a State Department spokesperson confirmed to Sputnik that Lira died in a Ukrainian prison following his long detainment and offered condolences to his family.

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📹 Footage of the Russian Army storming a Ukrainian Armed Forces stronghold during the liberation of the village of Veseloye

Tula paratroopers, supported by aviation and artillery fire, are improving their positions along the front line day after day. On January 18, they liberated the village of Veseloye in the Donetsk People's Republic.

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❗️ Israel has proposed two-month pause in fighting in the Gaza Strip to Hamas via Qatar and Egypt in exchange for release of all remaining hostages, Axios reported on Monday, citing two Israeli officials.

As of now, over 130 Israeli hostages are still in Hamas’ captivity.

'Distanced from their own people’ – Russia on Paris' denial of French mercs involvement in Ukrainian conflict

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accuses French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne of ignoring the facts and being out of touch with the French populace, in light of Paris' rejection of the existence of French mercenaries fighting against Russia in the special military operation.

Earlier, the French Foreign Ministry said that Moscow's claims to have destroyed French hired guns in Kharkov is a “clumsy Russian manipulation”.

“A foreign minister who is a pro, or simply a man who is not indifferent, would not come up with anything about ‘Russian manipulations’, he would not deny reality, he would obtain all information about French citizens," Zakharova asked, wondering further whether the French government has already completely distanced itself from its own people.

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❗️ US, UK conducted one more round of air strikes on Houthi-targets in Yemen, media report

Western leaders shrug off Zelensky regime’s deadly attack on Donetsk

Western leaders have brushed aside Sunday’s deadly terrorist attack on Donetsk staged by the Kiev regime, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres becoming the only Western official who decisively denounced the shelling.

Guterres emphasized that "Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law, are unacceptable and must stop immediately."

Several Western mainstream media headlines only mentioned the very fact of the attack, without singling out who was behind the murderous assault. Meanwhile, CBS News and Fox News preferred not to report on the developments at all.

On January 21, Ukrainian troops shelled Donetsk’s Kirovsky district, a busy area teeming with markets and shops, which are particularly packed with crowds on weekends. The bloodbath has left 27 people killed and 25 more wounded. Moscow strongly denounced the shelling as a "monstrous act of terrorism, as weapons were used indiscriminately" during the attack.

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US and its allies conducted new strikes against eight Houthi positions in Yemen in response to continued attacks on ships in the Red Sea, according to a joint statement published by the Pentagon.

“Today, the militaries of the US and UK, at the direction of their respective governments with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, conducted an additional round of proportionate and necessary strikes against 8 Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis' continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea,” the statement said on Monday.

US struck eight Houthi weapons storage sites, including missiles and unmanned aerial systems, said a senior US Defense Department official, adding that Pentagon continues to assess whether the latest round of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen resulted in any casualties.

"Unknown at this time," the official said on Monday when asked about Houthi casualties. "They [the strikes] were not intentionally selected for casualties. They were going after weapons systems."

The US was not concerned about civilian casualties at the sites of the strikes given that the targets were carefully vetted for collateral damage concerns, the official said.

Earlier in the day, the Houthis claimed a missile strike on the US Navy's Ocean Jazz military cargo ship.

"The Yemeni armed forces continue to retaliate to any American or British aggression against our country by targeting all sources of threat in the Red and Arab Sea," Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement.

The information about attack on Ocean Jazz was letter denied by Pentagon.

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John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, has deemed it "quite possible" that Western countries will withdraw their support for Kiev if the US Congress does not support new aid to Ukraine.

"We should expect that some of our allies and partners may make other decisions if they see American leadership shaken or the US withdrawing support for Ukraine," Kirby said in a briefing.

Russia earlier sent a note to NATO countries over arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that any cargoes that contain arms for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia.The Kremlin stressed that arming Ukraine will have a negative effect.

❗️ The "Islamic Resistance in Iraq" movement, which includes Shiite militias, said it attacked the port of the Israeli city of Ashdod, located on the Mediterranean coast.

"Islamic Resistance in Iraq fighters on Tuesday attacked the port of Ashdod in the occupied territories with the help of drones," reads the statement.

Steadfast Defender 2024 military exercise meant to prepare NATO troops for “military missions into Ukraine, Belarus or Moldova” - a former Swedish officer

NATO’s military exercises on Russia’s doorstep, like the upcoming Steadfast Defender 2024 that will involve some 90,000 troops, are a “part of an ongoing escalation process, which is bad for the security of Europe,” says Mikael Valtersson, former Swedish Armed Forces officer, defense politician and chief of staff with the Sweden Democrats party.

“When both sides are high-strung and look for potential aggressive behavior from the other side, one mistake could quickly lead to escalation. If you really want to de-escalate tensions, you should avoid large-scale exercises near the borders of your adversaries,” he notes.

According to Valtersson, one of the goals of the Steadfast Defender 2024 is preparing NATO troops “for the eventuality of military missions into Ukraine, Belarus or Moldova.”

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Join #AfroVerdict in the new episode where the host joins a South African political expert to give an analytical takeaway from Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov's first presser of 2024.

https://news.1rj.ru/str/sputnik_africa/12734

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, at the UN headquarters in New York, during which the parties discussed the schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

"The schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts was discussed," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the parties also touched upon bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

The statement added that the diplomats also discussed the progress in the implementation of key Russian-Turkish projects in the energy sector.

Lavrov and Fidan confirmed at the meeting the need for coordinating the steps of the two countries in the interests of finding mutually acceptable solutions to acute regional problems, primarily regarding the situation in the Gaza Strip, Syria, the Middle East as a whole and in the Black Sea zone, as well as in the Transcaucasus, the ministry said.

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