📹 This is how children in the Gaza Strip are entertained to distract them from the war

More than 5.3 thousand children died from the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip until the truce was declared on November 24, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported. This number does not include missing persons or those who may be trapped under the rubble.

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⚡️Farmers in France tried to seize the Rangis food market near Paris, 79 people were arrested, media report

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If fired, Zaluzhny could focus on political competition with Zelensky

"The fact is that there was an attempt to replace Zaluzhny; it was an impromptu attempt that failed, because Zelensky hoped to remove a political competitor, not so much a military one," Alexander Dudchak, leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries, expert on the 'Another Ukraine' movement, told Sputnik.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still seeking to replace Zaluzhny despite quashing the rumors of the general's sacking earlier, the Financial Times reported. The newspaper's sources claimed that Zaluzhny was offered a position as a defense adviser which he turned down.

Dudchak explained that the controversy over Zaluzhny is fanned by Washington and London which are pulling the strings of Ukrainian politics in order to reach their separate geopolitical objectives. Still, even if Zaluzhny is ousted he could become a formidable political rival for Zelensky, according to the analyst.

"In fact, if [Zaluzhny] resigned and went into politics, perhaps this would be the best option for him, because presently it is problematic to achieve any success on the battlefield," Dudchak said. "In such a position, he could have said what a brilliant commander he is, and that all the failures stemmed from [Zelensky's] decisions, which were not agreed upon with the military leadership."

❗️The International Court of Justice rejected the majority of Ukraine's claims against Russia under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in Crimea and the Convention on Combating the Financing of Terrorism in Donbass.

▪️The proceedings were initiated by Kiev back in January 2017.

▪️The court rejected Ukraine's demand to hold Russia responsible for the Boeing MH17 crash.

▪️ The court did not consider it possible to support Ukraine’s arguments about the alleged involvement of Russia and the guilt of Donetsk militias in the shelling of the Bugas military checkpoint near Volnovakha, the military airfield in Kramatorsk and the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Mariupol and Avdeevka (in 2014-2017).

▪️The court indicated that Russia faithfully fulfilled its obligations to cooperate in the field of terrorist financing, including the obligation to identify and block funds used to finance terrorism.

▪️In two episodes, the court found that Moscow did not properly investigate the activities of individuals who, according to Ukraine, collected funds in Russia to help the people of Donbass. The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that such a conclusion is puzzling.

Who’s eager to get a piece of the Ukrainian pie amid rising territorial disputes? (PART 1)

Last weekend two prominent EU politicians from Hungary and Slovakia reiterated their countries’ territorial claims to Ukraine.

Laszlo Toroczkai, leader of Hungary’s Our Homeland Movement party (MHM), said that MHM “lays claim to Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia)” if Ukraine loses its statehood after the conflict.

Romanian MP Claudiu Tarziu, in turn, said: “We will not be truly sovereign until we reintegrate the Romanian state within its natural borders. South Bessarabia, North Bukovina, Herz Land, Transcarpathia […] must rejoin the borders of the same [Romanian] state”.
Here is a brief overview of some Ukrainian territories that could be claimed by EU states:

1. Eastern Galitsia – at different points in history former part of the Polish Kingdom, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the USSR. Today it covers regions in Western Ukraine. It is still referred to as “Malopolska”, or Lesser Poland (it joined Soviet Ukraine in 1939 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact);
Who’s interested?
🇵🇱 Poland

2. Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia) – a former part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia and the USSR at different points in history. Currently populated by 6.9% Hungarians, and 2.2% Slovaks (joined Soviet Ukraine in 1946 under a post-WWII treaty between Czechoslovakia and the USSR);
Who’s interested?
🇭🇺 Hungary
🇸🇰 Slovakia

Who’s eager to get a piece of the Ukrainian pie amid rising territorial disputes? (PART 2)

3. Bessarabia – at different points in history a former part of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Romania, and the USSR. Per the 2014 census, populated by some 75% Moldovans, and 7% Romanians (part of it joined Soviet Moldova and the other went to Soviet Ukraine in 1940);
Who’s interested?
🇷🇴 Romania
🇲🇩 Moldova

4. North Bukovina – formerly part of the Austrian Empire and Romania at different points in history. In 1940, it was handed over to Soviet Ukraine under the pretext of having a Ukrainian ethic majority, despite almost 30% of its citizens being Romanian. Scholars debate the decision to this day.
Who’s interested?
🇷🇴 Romania
🇲🇩 Moldova

Deep state will be desperate to ‘bury’ evidence that Patriot missile shot down Il-76

“The Western media is hardly mentioning this incident at all,” former DoD security policy analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik, commenting on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks that Russian investigators had concluded that the Il-76 full of Ukrainian PoWs that was shot down over Belgorod region last week was downed by a US-made missile system. “Now, the revelation that it was a Patriot missile has not been reported whatsoever, at least here in Washington. This is quite extraordinary, and I think that they’re going to want to bury that.”

What Russia needs to do now is show its proof on the Patriot’s use in the incident, to put it on public display and go “to the United nations with any evidence to be displayed in front of the naysayers in the UN Security Council,” Maloof stressed.

As for the Pentagon, US defense staffers “could probably figure…out” who shot down the Il-76 using radar, the observer believes. “If they can get their hands on the radar information and read that data - but clearly there was a shootdown. Whether it was purposeful or not by the Ukrainians, I don’t know, but I think the Pentagon is going to have to respond to this. Questions should be raised at the press conferences and certainly addressed to the Pentagon during their daily press briefings [about] what they knew and when they knew it and what did they know,” he said.

The Ukrainians are “clearly misusing equipment,” Maloof emphasized, citing the appearance of stolen weaponry meant for Ukraine in far-off destinations from Scandinavia to Mexico. “I think all of this has got to stop. And yet the Biden administration wants to send billions more to Ukraine, but not do anything for the border,” the observer said, characterizing the Ukrainian crisis as a “lost cause” for Washington.

The head of Ukrainian intelligence Budanov expects that in the spring the Ukrainian Armed Forces will again try to go on the offensive

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Why 'Take Our Border Back' convoy trigger concerns of January 6-style FBI setup

The "Take Our Border Back" trucker convoy is driving across the US to Texas in a bid to mobilize tens of thousands of trucks to stop illegal aliens from crossing the nation's southern border. However, some conservatives fear the rally may be used by FBI-linked provocateurs to smear the protesters akin to January 6 protesters.

"I think these people who are gathering in this convoy have to be genuinely concerned that the FBI will absolutely insert agents, informants, activists inside," retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik. "That organization wants to collect information, but also to be in a position to try to create a situation that would then justify federal intervention."

The fact that people are scared about protesting and expressing themselves speaks volumes about the erosion of democratic freedoms in the US, according to the CIA veteran.

"Here in the United States, we have, probably, over 200 political prisoners, people that were arrested and many held without charges for extended period of time in isolation, in solitary confinement, for the simple act of having walked into the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021. It's outrageous. And so we've seen this kind of persecution of conservatives that go on with great regularity," Johnson said.

Even though the rally has the potential to take a dark turn, Johnson thinks that ultimately, cooler heads will prevail and Team Biden will back down.

Drones are the ‘most important and dangerous weapon’ of Ukraine conflict

Drone technologies have developed at a stunning pace over the past two years, explained Altai, a Russian Spetsnaz drone operator in the Donbass.

He told Sputnik’s Russell Bentley (@TXDPR) that drones now effectively control the situation on the battlefield 24/7, a reality that has forced both sides to change how they fight and resupply their troops.

1st part of the interview

▪️Who’s eager to get a piece of the Ukrainian pie amid rising territorial disputes?

▪️Would Zaluzhny focus on political competition with Zelensky if fired?

▪️Canada’s Parliament openly backs Canadian ‘hired guns’ in Ukraine, Sputnik has discovered

▪️What are ground-launched glide bombs US is sending Ukraine and how can Russia stop them?

▪️What the Western deep state is going to do after the revelation that it was an American Patriot missile that downed the plane with Ukrainian PoWs? Ex-DoD security policy analyst Michael Maloof explains.

▪️Why 'Take Our Border Back' convoy trigger concerns of January 6-style FBI setup?

❗️ The US military has launched a new strike on the territory of Yemen, targeting a surface-to-air missile of the Ansar Allah rebel ("Houthis"), reported Central Command of the US Armed Forces.

"Jan. 31 at approximately 3:30 p.m. (Sanaa time), USCENTCOM forces struck and destroyed a Houthi surface-to-air missile prepared to launch. US forces identified the missile in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined that it presented an imminent threat to US aircraft," CENTCOM said in an X message.

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Why take care of your own citizens when you can keep pouring money into Ukraine instead?

Despite a massive wave of farmers’ protest that broke out across the EU, European officials keep pursuing out-of-touch policies that actively harm domestic agriculture.

Ahead an upcoming EU summit, European leaders keep reiterating the same old ideas about their “unwavering support for Ukraine” whatever the cost — even though the very future of European agriculture is at stake.

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How Biden's pause in LNG exports may help Russia's gas producers

💬 "For Europe, it makes sense to think that even short-term restrictions on the issuance of new export licenses indicate that the United States is not so reliable partner, as it could manipulate the rules of the game in the field of gas trade – which are fundamentally important to Europe – to reach its internal political goals," Stanislav Mitrakhovich, leading expert of the National Energy Security Foundation and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, told Sputnik.

On January 26, US President Joe Biden hit the pause button on LNG exports, in a move seen as appeasing his base prior to the 2024 elections. According to Team Biden, the Department of Energy (DOE) will now review applications to export the commodity through the lens of climate change agenda.

Biden's flip-flopping sends a worrisome message to both Europeans and Chinese, Mitrakhovich warned. He suggested that even temporary suspension in US exports of LNG could affect global energy market.

"In this situation, it would be rational for China to play it safe and have a pipeline that comes from Russia, passes through Mongolia, which is friendly to both Russia and China, and does not have the risks associated with transporting gas by sea," said Mitrakhovich. "Let alone the possibility that by 2025 there may be an escalation of the conflict over the Taiwan Island and other issues."

In this case, the US may try to asphyxiate the Chinese economy by blocking energy deliveries by sea from the Middle East and other directions, he stressed, emphasizing the role of Russia as a reliable supplier.

Ukrainian armed forces are experiencing a "critical shortage" of artillery shells, the Bloomberg news agency reported after reading a letter from Ukrain Defence Minister Rustem Umerov to Western allies.

The message sent to Kiev's European allies shows that the Armed Forces of Ukraine cannot fire more than 2,000 shells a day on the 1,500-kilometre front line. This is three times less than the amount of ammunition used by Russia, Bloomberg reported.

The news comes amid statements that the EU will not be able to fulfil its own promise to supply 1 mln shells to Ukraine by March 2024. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that only about half of the targeted amount would be delivered.

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❗️ Yemen’s Houthis said they fired missiles at a US commercial ship heading for Israel

"The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a specific military operation targeting an American merchant ship 'KOI' that was heading to the ports of occupied Palestine with several appropriate naval missiles that directly hit the vessel," the movement said on telegram.

Mark Zuckerberg exposed, as Marsha Blackburn inquires him after "Teenagers for Sale" ads on Instagram didn't violate his terms of service

Instagram didn't remove these ads until a congressional staffer told the safety committee what was going on.

"Do you know how often a child is bought and sold for sex in this country? Every two minutes a child is bought and sold for sex... That's not my stat...This content was taking down after a congressional staffer went to Meta's global head of safety. Would you please explain to me why explicit predatory content does not violate your platform's term of service or your community standards?" Blackburn asked.

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Did she bring more cookies? Victoria Nuland travels to Ukraine, vows ‘enduring US support’

Acting deputy secretary of state Victoria Nuland, the seemingly perennial State Department official who served as one of the key architects of the 2014 Euromaidan coup d’etat that kicked off the Ukrainian crisis, traveled to the country on Wednesday to assure Kiev that American support isn’t going anywhere.

"While there, she met with senior Ukrainian government officials to reiterate the United States’ enduring support for Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity in the face of Putin’s brutal war," the State Department said in a press release.

Nuland, 62, is known for her deep involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, boasting about the billions of dollars in USAID funding sent to the country ahead of the 2014 coup, posing for photo ops with protesters in downtown Kiev while handing out cookies alongside then-US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, and famously blabbing to Pyatt in a leaked phone call about American plans for Ukraine’s post-coup government shortly before the country’s democratically elected government was overthrown.

Married to well-known Washington neocon Robert Kagan, Nuland last appeared in the public limelight in the spring of 2022, when she confirmed that to US lawmakers the US was operating “biological research facilities” in Ukraine, and expressed concerns over what would happen if Russian troops captured them.

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The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) was shelled by Ukrainian troops 60 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 60 cases of armed attacks by Ukrainian armed units," the office said on Telegram.

Two civilians were killed and nine others wounded, according to the statement.

The office said 199 rounds of various ammunition had been fired by Ukraine with a total of 45 shelling attacks by Ukrainian troops were registered in the previous day.

President Biden's decision to halt new liquified natural gas (LNG) exports is a major mistake that harms the US economy and national security, Christi Craddick, chairman of the industry regulator in Texas, told Sputnik.

“The Biden administration’s announcement that they are halting all future LNG exports takes a unilateral hammer to the American economy, American jobs, and national security," Craddick said. "This is a major mistake."

Craddick said Biden is scaling up his assault on the United States' energy industry to the profit and benefit of countries who are not US allies.

On Friday, Biden paused the approval of new LNG exports, citing a need to better assess climate, health and economic considerations of pending licenses.

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More than 60% of American voters in swing states believe Biden is responsible for the situation on the southern border of the United States, a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll showed.

The survey was conducted from January 16 to 22 and included 4,956 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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