❗️ Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has announced his intention to participate in the presidential election in 2025 and said that the more the West "stresses" the Belarusians, the "sooner he will go to the polls."

📹 2S5 Giatsint-S self-propelled gun destroys camouflaged dugout and enemy manpower near Kupyansk

Battlegroup Zapad’s 1st Guards Tank Army artillerymen deliver precision strikes on uncovered Ukrainian military facilities, positions, fortifications, armored vehicles, and manpower both day and night.

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❗️ In the Donetsk area, Ukrainian losses amounted to over 360 military personnel, an American M777 howitzer, and a German Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer, the Russian Defense Ministry said

🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️ Russian troops have taken up more favorable positions near Avdeyevka and repelled seven counterattacks by Ukrainian forces;

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces struck three Ukrainian brigades in the southern DPR, with the enemy losing up to 140 soldiers;

▪️ Russian air defenses destroyed 77 Ukrainian drones;

▪️ Russian troops repelled four counterattacks near Kupyansk, with Ukrainian forces losing up to 180 men;

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a Grad MLRS combat vehicle in the southern Donetsk People’s Republic.

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A woman was injured and several cars and buildings were damaged as a result of Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk earlier in the day.

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Zelensky claims that Ukraine will use the weapons transferred by the West only for strikes on the territory it considers its own, in other cases "it has no right and never will."

At the same time, at the end of December, Ukraine hit Belgorod with a Czech-made RM70 Vampire MLRS. 21 people were killed, including children, and more than 100 people were injured. In addition, on January 24, the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down a Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft over the Belgorod region, in which 65 Ukrainian prisoners were being taken for exchange. The examination found that the board was shot down by the American Patriot system, namely two MIM-104A missiles.

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🫠 Disney, which is facing serious trouble amid plummeting stocks and box office flops, is blaming "sexist" fans for not liking their movies due to inclusive political messaging.

But this finger-pointing game won't solve their issues. With Disney+ losing millions and their stock price dropping significantly, their financial woes are mounting. The company's film sector alone may have lost up to $900 million, with recent releases like “The Haunted Mansion” adding to the losses.

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🇷🇺 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile system crews control airspace above Russian positions in special military operation area both day- and nighttime

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Russian air defense systems destroyed 2 Ukrainian aircraft guided missiles over the Black Sea at about 7 pm Moscow time, Russian MoD said.

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💬 “The government is funded by money printing—a bubble that will inevitably burst. If most Americans & the rest of the world were to become aware of this farce, confidence in your currency will be lost, the dollar will fall, and Western civilization with it,” El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said at the 2024 CPAC in the US

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❗️Russian fighters entered Rabotino, continue to advance and grind the Ukrainian forces, Governor of the Zaporozhye region Balitsky told Sputnik.

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CIA supervises Ukrainian intel since the Maidan coup, according to the New York Times

Cooperation between the SBU and the CIA began immediately after the 2014 coup d’etat, when the American agency offered assistance to the Ukrainians in exchange for valuable intelligence information regarding Russia, the newspaper reports.

Around 2016, the CIA began training elite Ukrainian special forces known as Unit 2245 to seize Russian drones and communications equipment so CIA technicians could study them and break encryption systems.

One of the officers in this unit was Kirill Budanov, now head of the Security Service of Ukraine. The CIA also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, throughout Europe, in Cuba, and elsewhere.

As the newspaper emphasises, the relationship between the two intelligence services became so close that CIA officers remained in Ukraine when the Biden administration evacuated American personnel several weeks before the conflict with Russia began in February 2022 and passed on valuable information about Russia to the Ukrainians.

At the same time, a narrow circle of Ukrainian intelligence officers also became vitally important for the Americans over time, supplying them with top-secret intelligence concerning Moscow, the publication writes.

However, as the partnership deepened after 2016, the Ukrainians became impatient with Washington’s “unjustified caution” and began organising assassinations and other operations that violated the terms originally set by the Americans.

Furious officials in Washington then threatened to withdraw support, but never did.

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▪️5 Euromaidan myths busted

▪️CIA supervises Ukrainian intelligence since Maidan coup — NYT

▪️Western sanctions on Russian diamonds may 'severely harm trade’

▪️49% of Germans believe that the authorities are providing too much support for Ukrainian refugees, poll says

▪️A woman was injured and several cars and buildings were damaged as a result of Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk earlier in the day

▪️Europe scrambles to mobilize 'fractured arms industry' to meet Ukraine's voracious demands

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Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) warned Democrats are preparing to "blame Russian disinformation" again to prevent former President Donald Trump from returning to the White House.

“So for all of us who just care about America, the American people, our hard earned American tax dollars, get ready to be called a 'Russian blah blah blah' because Democrats know that Trump is going to win and they are setting up to refuse to certify his election, preparing to impeach him again when he becomes POTUS again,” Taylor Greene wrote on the X social network.

Democrats, she said, are already hyping the impact of "Russian disinformation" on a congressional investigation into the Biden family's foreign business ties and are ready to accuse those who oppose funding the conflict in Ukraine of supporting Russia.

The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed allegations of a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as the conspiracy theory of Trump "colluding" with Russia in the 2016 election which was eventually disproven by US authorities themselves.

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❗️ The Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone near the city of Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

No injuries or damage were reported per preliminary information, according to the governor.

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