🇪🇺 Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed she will be a candidate for a second term as president of the European Commission

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Spy Versus Spy: Chinese Intelligence Agency Slams CIA

The US Central Intelligence Agency, known for its long history of morally dubious activity, was criticized by Chinese officials in a post on the WeChat platform Sunday.

In a rare bilingual article China’s Ministry of State Security strongly criticized the CIA’s recent focus on China, responding to a missive from CIA director William Burns published in US media last month.

China’s Ministry of State Security said the CIA’s anti-China crusade represents “another typical case of hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices of the US.” Previously the agency has accused the CIA of promoting a “Cold War mindset” against the country.

Anti-China narratives have pervaded Western media in recent years as the country solidifies its status as the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity.

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💬 "The Armed Forces of Ukraine uses toxic compounds not only in military operations, but also for acts of terrorism. For example, on August 9, 2022, the head of the administration of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, was rushed to the hospital with signs of poisoning. Laboratory tests showed the presence, in the biomedical samples, of the substance ricin, listed as a primary toxin in the Chemical Weapons Convention," Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said in his statement on violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention by the US and Ukraine.

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🤡 Clown world: CNN’s Fareed Zakaria attempts to rationalize away the superiority of the Moscow metro

Zakara chides Tucker Carlson for praising the Moscow metro system, arguing that it doesn’t matter that Russians enjoy clean and safe public transportation because Joseph Stalin built some stations in the 1930s.

He then goes on to claim that Americans should be grateful for their decaying metro systems because they are “expressions of democracy.”

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Neocon-in-chief Lindsey Graham drools over Ukraine’s resource riches

The US is “$34 trillion in debt” and doesn’t have the money to send to Ukraine without getting something in return, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has said. “Ukraine has minerals, have a lot of resources…Why don’t we make this a favorable loan?” Graham said in an interview Sunday.

What kinds of Ukraine’s resources may the West want?

▪️ Ukraine possesses 21 of 30 rare earth elements identified by the European Union as "critical raw materials," with lithium, cobalt, scandium, graphite, tantalum, niobium among them.

▪️ Ukraine is rich in a wide variety of mineral resources, worth some $14.8 trillion, according to a 2023 Forbes assessment. They include coal, manganese ores, titanium, gold, bauxite, potassium and rock salts, mercury ores and uranium. Small pockets of natural gas and petroleum deposits are also present.

▪️ Ukraine’s 206,000 km-worth of rivers make it ideal for hydroelectric power generation, with a network of power stations built in the Soviet period providing it with some 11 billion kWh of electricity. The country also operates three major Soviet-built nuclear power plants in Rovne, Khmelnytsky and Nikolaev regions. These have a generating capacity of up to 3,400 Megawatts.

▪️ Ukraine is home to the largest reserves of chernozem (‘black earth’) in the world, accounting for a quarter of the highly fertile, humus, phosphorus and ammonia compound-rich soil, perfect for agriculture. Ukraine has up to 30 million hectares of chernozem.

▪️ The country is also home to vast forest resources, which comprise over 16 percent of its total territory and include over 30 types of trees, from pines and oaks to beech, birch, spruce, alder and ash.

Ukraine's wealth in natural resources explains the interest of Western countries in military support for the Kiev regime, as they eventually seem to benefit from their investments.

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💬 How did the Ukraine crisis and Donbass war begin? Alexander Matyushin, former Donbass commander and war correspondent, breaks it down.

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Why did the Donbass rise up?

📹 "The crisis came only in February 2014. When the images of burning Berkut [special police unit] and burning internal [ministry] troops were shown, when the confrontation on the Maidan escalated, we had already started to gather almost all the activists in Donetsk," Alexander Matyushin, former Donbass commander and war correspondent, shed light on the events that led to the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014.

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🇷🇺🇨🇺 The foreign ministers of Russia and Cuba began negotiations in Havana.

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Dutch PM frontrunner Geert Wilders blasts Ukrainian refugees

“Ukrainians flock to the Netherlands from all over the EU, not because of the war, but for free housing, free healthcare and our jobs. The Netherlands is once again the village idiot of Europe,” he wrote on X.

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What is known about the Avdeyevka Coke and Chemical plant?

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on February 17 that the Armed Forces had taken full control of Avdeyevka, a northern suburb of Donetsk. On February 19, Russian troops completely liberated the town’s coke and chemical plant from Ukrainian forces.

Here is what we know about the compound:

History & Production

🔺Built in 1963
🔺Used to employ 4,000 people
🔺Covers 340 hectares (3.4 square km)
🔺Over 40 workshops, 84 km of railway lines on site
🔺Nine coke oven batteries produced 6.8 million tons per year.
🔺The plant could process 6.4 million tons of raw coal per year.

Before the crisis escalated, it was considered one of the largest coke producers in Europe.

Bunkers & Tunnels

The Avdeyevka plant was built with typical Soviet-era readiness, reportedly equipped with:

🔺7 bomb shelters able to accommodate 2,500 people
🔺Bunkers with generators, fuel, water, food and medicine supplies

There is speculation that the Avdeyevka compound would become a second “Azovstal” – the factory in Mariupol where Russian forces trapped over 2,000 Ukrainian troops and fighters of the Azov Battalion in April 2022.

Strategic Value

The liberation of Avdeyevka means further terrorist attacks by Kiev’s troops on Russian cities and residential areas of Donetsk can be prevented, said the MoD. Moscow also warned that Ukrainian troops were provoking an environmental disaster by shelling Donetsk with Grad MLRS from the plant’s grounds, which still store flammable compounds.

Ownership

The Avdeyevka Coke and Chemical Plant is part of the ‘Metinvest’ group, controlled by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.

A Moscow court ruled last summer that the assets of Metinvest’s Russian subsidiary should be seized as part of a criminal case into Akhmetov for financing the Ukrainian military, including the Azov Battalion (a terrorist organization banned in Russia).

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Ukrainian servicemen confirm that they left Avdeyevka as best they could; no one organized their “evacuation,” Ukrainian media report.

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