🇿🇦🇷🇺 South African President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulated Vladimir Putin on his victory in the Russian presidential election and reaffirmed the readiness to work together on multilateral platforms.

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The US feels it “won” Europe in the Cold War, political commentator and senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute George Szamuely told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

“For the US, [the Ukraine conflict] fulfills the goals they set for themselves at the end of the Cold War, ‘Hey we won the Cold War, we want our winnings. And our winnings [are] we scoop up the entire European continent within our military alliance.’”

Szamuely noted that the US goal of inflicting economic damage against Russia “hasn’t really worked very well,” describing the policy as “very cynical” and “bloodthirsty.”

“As far as the US and NATO were concerned, it was a win-win for them. They either push Russia further and further against the wall by pulling Ukraine into NATO” which would surround Russia, turning it into “essentially a minor power in the world,” or “Russia is forced to intervene and try to prevent this, in which case Russia has a difficult war on its hands…which will divide Russia from Europe.”

Meanwhile, Szamuely said that French President Emmanuel Macron’s threats to send troops to Ukraine were meant to set a redline in Ukraine with the aim to partition it "with a view to continuing the war at some later date," adding that it is obvious that Macron is "pursuing an American-driven agenda" that is "clearly harming Europe."

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Texas Constitutional Crisis: Round Two?

A federal court of appeals has again restricted Texas from implementing its migrant law SB4, which allows the state to arrest and detain people illegally crossing the southern border.

The decision was announced on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s March 19 ruling that paved the way for Texas to immediately begin enforcing the legislation, which was signed into law by Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott last December.

On Monday the Supreme Court decided to leave in place an appeals court administrative stay on a preliminary injunction blocking the law.

The Biden administration is striving to halt the Lone Star State’s legislative initiative which makes illegal border crossings a state crime.

The White House claims the law is nothing short of an intrusion on federal power to set immigration policy. The back-and-forth has created confusion at the border, while Mexican authorities and human rights watchdogs have openly condemned the Texas statute.

Mexican foreign ministry Chief Officer for the North America Roberto Velasco Alvarez took to social media on March 19, arguing that immigration policies should be discussed at a federal level.

The ministry warned the same day that Mexico will not recognize deportations made by Texan police and will not accept any illegal immigrants onto its territory "under any circumstances."

The Texan effort comes amid an unprecedented influx of illegals across the southern frontier under President Joe Biden's tenure. The White House's failure to solve the border crisis has backfired on Biden as House Republicans refuse to pass the $60 billion Ukraine package unless the migrant dilemma is solved.

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💥 Russian Grad MLRS artillerymen fired a series of 122-mm high explosive projectiles and destroyed the enemy's stronghold near Avdeyevka, more than 10 kilometres away.

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Saudi Arabia to allocate $40Mln to UNRWA for humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip

Saudi Arabia will allocate $40 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for its humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip amid the humanitarian crisis in the enclave, the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) said.

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through KSrelief, enhances its funding to UNRWA with USD 40 million to support lifesaving operations in Gaza," the center said on X.

The additional funding will help provide food for more than 250,000 people and shelter for about 200,000 people, the organization added.

UNRWA is the primary humanitarian agency in the Gaza Strip, with over 2 million people depending on it for their survival. In January, Israel shared data with UNRWA's leadership on the alleged involvement of some of the agency's staff in Palestinian movement Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023.

Several countries, including the US, Finland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Japan and the UK, suspended funding for UNRWA. Canada, Sweden and Australia have lifted their suspensions of UNRWA funding after a pause of more than two months.

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French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to put around 2,000 troops in Odessa would only serve as a “human tripwire force” and would be “the equivalent of NATO, like a dog, urinating on Odessa, marking it as NATO’s territory,” Mark Sleboda, an international relations and security expert, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour. He added that in this analogy, France is like “a poodle.”

On Tuesday, French ground army chief of staff General Pierre Schill said in an op-ed that his forces are ready to respond to “the toughest engagements” and said the country could engage a division of 20,000 troops within 30 days.

“He’s wrong. The French army is most certainly not ready for this,” Sleboda said, commenting on the General’s assertion. “If they were engaged in a high-intensity conflict such as the Kiev regime is engaged in, firing many less artillery shells than Russia, then France would have enough artillery shells for four days of conflict with Russia. Four days,” Sleboda explained.

“Of course, with NATO troops officially in uniform dying in Ukraine, that would take us to a whole other level,” he warned.

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Foreign mercs from UK, Japan, Israel, as well as Armenians and Azerbaijanis are fighting on the side of the Ukrainian regime in the "Georgian National Legion", Mamuka Gatsareli, who himself is a captive merc from this legion and is now sentenced to life imprisonment in Russia, told Sputnik.

He said that until 2022 he served as a gunner of the Alpha Company of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade's 22nd Battalion in the Georgian Army. According to his confession, under the influence of propaganda he decided to participate in the conflict on the side of Ukraine.

For this purpose, on March 15, 2022, Gatsareli flew to Warsaw and at the airport approached a man who had a sign "Foreign Legion" in his hands, but because of his age - born in 2001 - he was not taken there, the prisoner said. Then he found a contact of a mercenary handler named Lana, who gave him the contacts of Mamuka Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian Legion.

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Election and polls show Russia is united while West fractures

Vladimir Putin’s resounding victory over the weekend shows that Russia is more united than ever while the West has a “huge problem” unifying a “divided support base,” Nicolai Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.

“I think [the election results] pretty accurately reflect the desires of the Russian people and it’s hard to come up with any evidence to the contrary,” Petro said, adding that in Western media you will find “contrary opinions, but you cannot find any evidence.”

“We have a divided support base in the West, perhaps a more ostensibly unified leadership, but that’s only until an opposition comes into power. Then, we’ve got huge problems for the West, no matter which way you slice it,” Petro explained. “Whereas in Russia, again no matter how you slice it, you have a unified population and political elite. One of the most popular Ukrainian journalists– now in exile– Diana Panchenko, put it very well when she said ‘A united collective West gave us a united collective Russia.’”

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Ukraine's attempt to launch a terrorist attack on facilities on Russian territory using an RM-70 Vampire multiple rocket launcher system was foiled at around 08.00 local time, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Air defense destroyed 10 missiles over the Russia's Belgorod region.

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▪️ Why France’s plan to send troops to Ukraine doomed to fail?

▪️ Election and polls show Russia is united while West fractures

▪️ Georgian Legion’s PoW told Sputnik about mercs from UK, Japan, Israel fighting in Ukraine

▪️ “Entire European continent within our military alliance.” How does US politics endanger all Europe?

▪️ Texas Constitutional Crisis: Round Two?

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"European countries are waking up to Russia’s danger, but the cost of building robust defenses able to withstand a potential U.S. pullback is so great that it threatens Europe’s post-Cold War social model," The Wall Street Journal reports in an article noscriptd “Russian Threat Forces Europe to Choose: Bolster Defense or Protect Social Spending.”

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Biden's point man makes surprise Ukraine visit with pitch to get stalled aid 'out the door'

Vague promises is what Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser brought with him on his recent surprise trip to the Ukrainian capital.

Jake Sullivan placated the Kiev regime with a rehash of Washington’s promises of commitment to supporting Ukraine. But there was a conspicuous absence of specific timeframes in his remarks. Sullivan exuded confidence that gridlock in Congress over supplementary aid to Ukraine would end, at some point. He ruled out any ‘Plan B’, saying:

“I’m confident that we will achieve Plan A... We will get a strong bipartisan vote in the House for an assistance package for Ukraine… It’s already taken too long." At the same time, he noted "I’m not going to make predictions about exactly when this will get done.”

Sullivan also put a damper on the Kiev regime’s hopes of getting their hands on American longer range ATACMs (Army Tactical Missile Systems).

“ATACMS, I am going to disappoint you, I have nothing to announce here publicly today on that issue,” Sullivan said.

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US military recruiting crisis: Military families are discouraging their children from enlisting

"The proportion of active-duty family respondents who were likely to recommend military service has dropped by nearly half from 2016, when it was 55% to just 32% in 2023. Furthermore, the proportion who were unlikely to recommend service has more than doubled from 15% in 2016 to 31% in 2023," a new report from Blue Star Families, a US veteran’s group, concluded.

"The military is in the midst of a well-publicized recruiting crisis, with a diminishing military end-strength as a result of missed recruiting targets, all while maintaining a consistently high operations tempo," it added.

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❗️ Turnout in the Russian presidential election amounted to 77.49%, the Central Election Commission has summed up the results

⚡️ Head of Russia’s Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova has announced the official voting results of the presidential election: Vladimir Putin won 87.28%, Nikolai Kharitonov - 4.31%, Vladislav Davankov - 3.85%, and Leonid Slutsky - 3.20%

🗳🇷🇺 Official voting results of the presidential election

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🇷🇺🇷🇸 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets with his Serbian counterpart in Moscow

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‘Don’t presume I’m not corrupt’: Joe Biden issues prescient warning from 1974

"You shouldn't presume I'm not corrupt.... in order to get elected, you have to go to those people that have money and they always want something," he said in an interview shortly after being elected to the US Senate for the first time.

Fifty years later, Biden’s family members are under investigation for using his political office to enrich themselves.

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❗️ Putin has addressed the Russian people following the Central Election Commission’s release of the official presidential election results, where Vladimir Putin was re-elected president of Russia