Ex-CIA Agent: FBI Psyop Possible Against Texas Convoy

🗣"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. 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," Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, told Sputnik.

"Here in the United States we have, probably, over 200 political prisoners, people that were arrested and many held without charges for extended periods 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 goes on with great regularity," he said.

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What’s in Ukraine's new mobilization bill?

The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers has submitted an amended draft bill on mobilization to Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, as President Zelensky is seeking to draft a 450,000-500,000-strong contingent to keep the conflict going on.

🔸The draft legislation envisages abolition of connoscript service and the introduction of basic combined arms training for three months for all citizens aged 18 to 25.

🔸The draft age would be lowered from 27 to 25 years.

🔸Electronic military summonses and recruiter's electronic accounts are introduced. The summons would be sent by email.

🔸Ukrainians removed from military registration due to departure abroad (and staying there for over three months) are required to register for military service within 30 days from the date of the law's enactment.

🔸The rights of draft-dodgers would be restricted through the courts, including a ban on traveling abroad and blocking of their bank accounts.

🔸Citizens of Ukraine from 25 to 55 with disabilities of groups II and III due to injuries, concussions and crippling wounds received during the ongoing conflict are subject to a repeated medical examination for suitability for military service until the end of 2024.

🔸Female doctors and pharmacists would become subject to military registration. Other women would be able to register on a voluntary basis and could be involved in defensive works.

🔸Сonvicts who have been released from serving their sentences (on parole) may be called up for military service during mobilization, except for those who have been convicted of crimes against Ukraine's national security.

The law ramps up control over the draft-age population and tightens the screws on draft dodgers in a bid to amass as much manpower as possible. However, even if the full number of troops is mobilized, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lack ammo and weapons — as the West's enterprises struggle to ramp up arms production and military aid funding runs out.

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Zelensky and Zaluzhny at loggerheads over Avdeyevka – Bild

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny had major disagreements over Ukrainian military positions in Avdeyevka (a small town 10 km from Donetsk) a few weeks back, Bild reported, citing privy sources.

The report suggests that Zaluzhny insisted on withdrawing troops from the town, hoping it would stabilize the front line and facilitate Ukraine’s defense efforts. However, Zelensky rejected the idea.

Avdeyevka became a contentious point for the Ukrainian command due to its strategic significance. Ukraine’s weakening positions there mirrored how the situation in Artemovsk (Bakhmut) unfolded last year. In May, 2023, Russian forces liberated the city, dealing a huge blow to the Ukrainian Army.

Zelensky’s decision to remove Zaluzhny from his post was based on arguments that the Ukrainian people had grown tired of the conflict, Western military aid was drying up, and that such changes could improve the situation, The Washington Post wrote earlier. Another point of contention was the fact that Zaluzhny insisted on mobilizing additional 500,000 Ukrainians to the front lines, a proposal Zelensky did not approve of.

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🔸Were American troops in control of the Patriot system that shot down the Il-76 carrying Ukrainian POWs? Former Pentagon analyst explains.

🔸Steadfast Defender 2024: What to know about NATO’s biggest drills since Cold War

🔸Quick facts about Patriot missile system Kiev used to down planeload of Ukrainian PoWs

🔸Who supplied Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine and when?

🔸Does Gaza have a future while Netanyahu is in power?

🔸Ex-CIA Agent: FBI psyop possible against Texas Convoy

🔸What’s in Ukraine's new mobilization bill?

❗️ The Ukrainian state needs to recognize that it is unable to strengthen troops without "unpopular measures", and that Russian forces have a “significant advantage”, said Ukrainian Armed Forces commander-in-chief Zaluzhny

❗️ Yemen's Ansar Allah (Houthis) movement shelled a UK commercial ship in the Red Sea heading to a port in Israel, said Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree.

"As a sign of support for the oppressed Palestinian people and as part of the response to the US-UK aggression against our country, the naval forces of the armed forces of Yemen attacked a UK commercial ship in the Red Sea, which was heading to a port of the occupied territories of Palestine, with appropriate anti-ship missiles," Saree said on Telegram.

Forgotten EU farmers: Brussels focused too much on climate agenda and Ukraine

The farmer protest movement has been increasingly engulfing Europe since January, with massive demonstrations in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the Netherlands.

"European agricultural sector has traditionally faced a lot of challenges, especially because it is an industry which is very difficult to compete against production coming in from outside Europe because production costs are much higher here in Europe," Josep-Maria Arauzo-Carod, professor of economics at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), chair of the Research Center on Economics and Sustainability (ECO-SOS), told Sputnik.

Under these circumstances, the influx of cheap products from Ukraine — which was freed from all tariffs and quotas by Brussels under the pretext of the ongoing conflict — decoupling from Russian energy imports has sent European prices higher, accelerating inflation, while an aggressive climate agenda dealt a heavy blow to the continent's agricultural sector.

The EU’s "green agenda" push is last straw, the expert said. Arauzo-Carod pointed out that European farmers have had to bear the brunt of of the costs of energy transition. "And then they are arriving to a point in which in some sectors and places it is very, very difficult to survive," the expert stressed.

DoD insider details level of possible US involvement in Ukraine training Patriot missile system operators

“I think that it’s fair to say that there are either American, Israel or some European military people [in Ukraine], or contractors who are experts in the use of the Patriot system. The team for the Patriot is over 90 people. It’s very complex,” former Pentagon and National Security Agency officer and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik, when asked whether it was possible that there was some kind of American oversight over the Patriot missile system which downed the Il-76.

“My experiences with contractors and contractor systems [has been that] they don’t want their systems to be broken or mishandled. They want to be able to be there looking over the shoulder. There’s always kind of training transition. So I would expect that there are contractors, very possibly people in the direct employ of the United States, or possibly contractors in Europe that use the Patriot and possibly obviously the Israelis or retired military,” the retired Air Force Officer said.

The power outage at a BP refinery in the US state of Indiana has led to chimney fires

Local authorities said flames were bursting out of the pipes as extra product was allowed to burn as safety measures, causing the fire to erupt.

Some of the plant's employees, as well as a daycare center nearby, were evacuated and surrounding roads were closed.

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📹 Russian military intelligence of the “South” group of troops disrupted the rotation of Ukrainian Armed Forces military personnel near Donetsk.

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Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has apologized for withholding information about his hospitalization

"I did not handle this right," said Austin. "I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis."

Austin stated he had not considered resigning, adding that he has not yet fully recovered and is traveling around the Pentagon in a "pretty neat" golf cart.

Austin publicly apologized at the first press conference after his discharge from the hospital and assured that he did not order his staff to conceal his hospitalization from anyone.

The British Navy is preparing for the first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile in the Atlantic since 2016, the Sun newspaper reported.

According to the newspaper, the Trident 2 missile without a warhead will be launched from the nuclear submarine Vanguard 90 kilometers off the east coast of the United States.

The missile should travel about 6,000 km and fall into the sea between Brazil and West Africa.

The British Navy has conducted Trident II D5 missile launches five times in the 21st century. The last one took place in 2016 and was unsuccessful. The ballistic missile manufactured by the American Lockheed Martin was launched from the submarine HMS Vengeance dangerously deviated from its course and automatically self-destructed.

In November 2023, The Sun reported that a nuclear submarine of the Vanguard type with Trident 2 ballistic missiles almost sank. According to the publication, the cause was the failure of depth sensors.

The White House will look into reports of a years-long US campaign of sending undercover operatives into Venezuela to build drug trafficking cases against the country's leadership, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

"I don't have anything to share on that at this time, obviously we can look into it," Jean-Pierre said during a briefing, when asked if the White House can confirm reports of such a campaign.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted a multi-year spy operation in Venezuela to build drug trafficking cases against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other top officials, The Associated Press reported earlier in the day, citing a secret 2018 memo.

The operation arguably flouts both Venezuelan and international law, the report said.

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The start of construction of a new Iranian nuclear power plant, was announced by Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as reported by Iranian state-run news agency IRNA.

The Iran-Hormoz nuclear plant with a capacity of 5,000 megawatts, will be built in Sirik city, located in the southern coastal province of Hormozgan, Eslami was cited as saying.

The project was given the green light by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi along with 157 other initiatives in the field of industry and energy,

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The EU's new 50bln-euro ($54bln) aid package to Ukraine will cost France 8bln euros in taxpayers' money, which could be put to better use such as helping the protesting farmers, French member of the European Parliament Thierry Mariani said.

"Another 50 billion [euros] for Ukraine (17 in donations plus 33 in loans … which will never be repaid). Do the French realize that they will have to pay 8 billion [euros] since we contribute 16% of the EU spending? Eight billion that our farmers would dream of," Mariani wrote on X.

On Thursday, leaders of the 27 European Union countries sealed a deal to allocate 50 billion euros as part of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine over the next four years.

Recently French farmers have been protesting by blocking highways and dumping manure in front of government buildings. The farmers are demanding recognition of the importance of their profession and denouncing the government's agricultural policies, which they say make them noncompetitive.

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Ex-CIA officer Joshua Adam Schulte sentenced to 40 years in jail for the biggest data breach in the agency's history, espionage and child pornography, announced the Department of Justice.

"...Schulte was sentenced to 40 years in prison by US District Judge Jesse Furman for crimes of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography," the release said on Thursday.

Schulte was convicted at trials that concluded on March 9, 2020 and September 13, 2022, the Justice Department said.

According to court documents, from 2012 to 2016, Schulte was employed as a software developer in the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI). In 2016, Schulte used his access to steal copies of the entire CCI tool development archives and then transmit them to WikiLeaks. The effect was described at trial by the former CIA Deputy Director of Digital Innovation as a "digital Pearl Harbor".

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🎙Check out AfroVerdict's latest episode where the host joins an IR expert to examine why the West refuses to pay attention to the Global South's peace proposals to the Ukrainian crisis.

Germany will send its frigate Hessen to the Red Sea next week to take part in a European operation to protect merchant vessels from Yemen's Houthi rebels, DPA news agency reported.

The frigate, equipped, among other weapons, with air defense missiles, is expected to arrive in the Red Sea by the end of the month.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on January 31 that the EU aimed to establish and launch the maritime mission in the Red Sea no later than February 19, adding that it would be defensive and no operations would be carried out on land.

In mid-January, Borrell called on the Houthis to show restraint and stressed that countries had the right to protect their ships from attack. He said the Red Sea was a vital maritime route for the whole world, which is the reason why he would propose that the EU establish its own mission in the Red Sea to ensure safety of navigation. Last week, Borrell said EU foreign ministers had agreed to set up the mission.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s failure to fire his Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny shows that there is no “center of power” in Kiev, international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

“if [US President] Joe Biden is the ‘emperor with no clothes’, then that kind of makes Zelensky the ‘butt-naked king.’

“The president has failed to fire his own commander-in-chief. That means there is no center of power within the regime at the moment, or perhaps Zaluzhny has more power than Zelensky. Or, the West is just running the show and Zelensky [has] been revealed as nothing but a puppet middle manager with no agency or control in his own country.”

Sleboda said that the Ukrainian general’s reported refusal to resign at the behest of Zelensky, as well as the reported refusal by his potential replacements to take the post, showcase that the “military establishment united against [Zelensky]. … they all said ‘no’ to him,” describing it as “defiance.”

Sleboda noted it reminded him of a situation in 2019, when an Azov commander got into an argument with Zelensky on video.

“Right after he became president. 'I'm not some loser off the street,' he said. And [the] Azov commander is like, 'Yeah, okay, whatever, dude.' And it was after that that he gave up on any attempts to complete the Minsk protocols, which initially he made some gestures, some small gestures towards [that]. That's what he was there to do to get Azov to stop firing artillery shells into Donetsk and they refused.”

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The US has “overstayed” its “effectiveness in our influence” in the Middle East, Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst for the Secretary of Defense and author told Sputnik’s Final Countdown while speaking about the drone strike in Jordan that killed three US soldiers and injured dozens more.

“Clearly, we have overstayed our effectiveness in our influence [in the Middle East] because everyone uniformly hates us,” Maloof explained. “We really have to reevaluate what our policies are, and that’s not happening. All we’re doing is reacting now to events and what it’s doing is putting us on more of an escalatory approach and having us dig deeper holes than we ever wanted.”

Maloof called for a flexible foreign policy that reevaluates the situation and adjusts to changing conditions. “We’re looking at the Middle East completely through the prism of Israel and look [at] what it’s gotten us. It started with Iraq… we spent trillions there, and what [do] we have to show for it? Nothing,” he explained.

Maloof also warned the situation could escalate quicker than the US is prepared for. “It could bring in Russia and China. I mean, this thing could get out of control completely. … Why do we want to continue on? We have Saudi Arabia and UAE saying, ‘Look we want normalization. We want to get this war over with so we can have normalization and bring some sanity to the region again’ but instead we’re provoking and continuing to agitate even further.”

He also warned that if Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, “it would create a worldwide depression… and no one’s talking about it.”

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