▪️Corruption hastened Ukraine's retreat more than ammo shortage

▪️Why Israel's plan for post-war Gaza won't fly

▪️US, France are fleeing to the last bastion of ‘Françafrique’

▪️US does not miss opportunity to blame Russia: now for Boeing troubles

▪️Last preparations for Orthodox Easter celebrations in the special op zone

▪️Russian forces destroyed a US-made Abrams tank

▪️Zelensky was put on Russia's wanted list

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The Palestinian movement Hamas has agreed to release 33 Israeli hostages as part of the first stage of a ceasefire deal with Israel, the al Hadath television channel reported, citing sources.

Hamas's delegation arrived in Cairo Saturday to negotiate through Egyptian mediators a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of the captives. The group reported it was traveling to Cairo “in order to reach an agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza.”

“Hamas agrees to release 33 Israeli hostages in the ‘first stage’ [of the agreement]. This position is different from the previous one... At the beginning of the talks, Hamas claimed to have 20 hostages, and it seems to have been able to find the remaining civilians,” the source told the media outlet.

Previously, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel gave Hamas a week to accept a ceasefire proposal in the Gaza Strip, otherwise threatening to launch a military operation in Rafah.

CNN, citing sources, released details of a new proposal to Hamas, prepared by mediators from Egypt. According to the US news outlet the new proposal was drafted with Israel's input. The first phase of the agreement includes the release of 20-33 hostages over several weeks in exchange for a pause in hostilities and the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The length of the cease-fire will depend on the number of hostages that can be released.

The second phase would involve “restoring sustained calm” in the Gaza Strip. According to a diplomatic source, the wording implies “a way to agree on a permanent ceasefire without having to call it that.” During this phase Hamas's remaining hostages, including captured IDF soldiers, and the bodies of the dead will be exchanged for more Palestinian prisoners. Israel, meanwhile, has not abandoned plans to achieve all of its stated objectives of its Gaza operation, including the complete elimination of Hamas.

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Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko lamented that the Kiev regime has lost more energy infrastructure during the latest strikes on Ukraine's energy system than it was able to restore after past strikes.

The minister noted that some facilities were completely destroyed, casting doubt on the possibility of their restoration.

“We did it, and they destroyed it ... Unfortunately, they destroyed even more than we restored,” Galushchenko told a Ukrainian TV channel, answering a question about the timeframe for restoring the damaged and destroyed facilities.

Strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure have been carried out by Russia since October 10, 2022, two days after the first attack on the Crimean Bridge by the Kiev regime.

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The Kiev regime may request the dispatch of European troops to Ukraine if its own forces are insufficient, said Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada parliament, to French media.

Previously, French President Emmanuel Macron said he did not rule out the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine if Kiev requested them.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived for the Easter service at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where he traditionally commemorates the main Orthodox holiday.

The midnight mass is led by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin is also attending the Easter service.

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Cold War consequences: US scrambles for rare-earth magnets produced in China

A 2018 law passed during the height of former US President Donald Trump’s trade war with China is causing major headaches for America’s defense industry.

The dictate prohibits the use of so-called rare-earth magnets made in China in US military equipment. The powerful magnets are used in everything from drones and nuclear submarines to F-35 jets and missile-guidance systems.

But the vast majority of them are produced in China, and still more contain parts mined or processed in the country. Trump’s law would ban the use of all such magnets by the US defense industry by 2027, leaving arms manufacturers with an insufficient global supply to meet current needs.

The inability of the US and allied countries to achieve self-sufficiency in production of the magnets is a case study of the effects of decades of Western neoliberal economic policy. Globalization and outsourcing allowed companies to ship thousands of jobs overseas to countries with lower pay, breaking the back of the US labor movement.

Meanwhile, Chinese state-run enterprises built the foundations of the country’s modern-day dominance in heavy industry. One such company formed part of an investment group that acquired Magnequench, a magnet producer formerly owned by US automaker General Motors. The US government approved the deal.

The added expense of Western production of the magnets could force the US military to settle for fewer jets, submarines, and weapons systems than it would like to purchase.

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The Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed two bases of Al-Tanf militants sheltering in the remote mountainous areas of Syria's Homs province, Yury Popov, the deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, reported.

"Russian air strikes destroyed two places of deployment of militants who left Al-Tanf zone and were hiding in hard-to-reach areas of the Amor mountain range in the Homs province," Popov said in a statement.

Over the past 24 hours, the Russian military recorded nine violations in the Al-Tanf area by two pairs of F-15 fighter jets, two Eurofighter Typhoons, two A-10 Thunderbolts, and a MC-12W reconnaissance aircraft, the statement read.

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the right to have good relations with Russia, DRC President Felix Tshisekedi said.

"In France, Israel was condemned for some actions in Gaza. Does this prevent France from maintaining its relations with Israel? Why do they want to judge us when it comes to Africans? One should not judge us. We have the right to the friends we want and we are friends to all those who want to be our friends … Russians want friendship with Africa, DR Congo, why should we refuse? There are no reasons for that," Tshisekedi told French broadcaster LCI.

Russia and China conduct relations with the DRC without “arrogance” and the desire to “read lectures,” the president said, noting that Moscow and Beijing behave better towards his country than Westerners.

Tshisekedi is also expected to visit a forum with the participation of Russia and African countries to take place in June. However, the president did not specify what forum he was talking about.

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Israeli-Hamas talks on ceasefire in the Gaza Strip being held with Egyptian mediators in Cairo ended inconclusively on Saturday with a new round to be held on Sunday, US media outlet CBS News claimed citing sources within the Palestinian movement.

Meanwhile, the Dubai-based al Hadath television network previously claimed Hamas had agreed to release 33 Israeli hostages in the first phase of a cease-fire deal.

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Professor’s arrest highlights brutal US police response to pro-Palestine protests

On the evening of April 30, Columbia University’s Gregory Pflugfelder became the latest of dozens of US college faculty members arrested amid a police crackdown on pro-Palestine campus protests.

“I certainly posed no danger to anybody,” he told USA Today. “I just stayed on my block, relatively well behaved,” he said. “Poorly located, unfortunately.”

News of Noelle McAfee’s detention at Emory University in Georgia had previously gone viral after the professor’s head was slammed against the pavement when she inquired about the arrest of one of her students. In Missouri, 65-year-old professor Steve Tamari was beaten by police while documenting their response to protests on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Video shows Tamari being slammed to the ground and his limp body carried away from the scene. Doctors told the professor, who suffered 9 broken ribs and a hand injury requiring surgery,that he was lucky to survive.

The incidents have shed light on accusations of widespread police brutality in officials’ response to pro-Palestine protests, which have swept across US college campuses.

A violent crackdown on protesters at UCLA’s campus capped off a week of state repression Wednesday, just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded action against the “horrific” and “antisemitic” demonstrations. Police were previously observed amicably conversing with pro-Israel demonstrators the day prior, just before the counterprotesters launched an hours-long violent attack on the encampment while the LAPD purportedly looked on.

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National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted that the recently approved supplemental aid to Ukraine will not be able to prevent Russia from making gains on the battlefield, Financial Times reported.

“Sullivan said that he still expects ‘Russian advances in the coming period’ on the battlefield, despite the new US funding package approved last month,” the newspaper reported, citing Sullivan’s statement.

At the same time, the advisor claimed that Ukraine intends to go on the offensive in 2025. The news outlet highlighted that Sullivan's words about an offensive operation demonstrate how the White House sees the conflict in Ukraine developing if Joe Biden wins the US presidential election.

“Any new offensive in 2025 by Ukraine would be dependent on more funding from Congress, and approval by the White House. But Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, has been sceptical of Ukraine aid and has vowed to try to end the conflict quickly and seek a negotiated settlement,” the newspaper emphasized.

Russia has repeatedly warned NATO countries that arms supplies to Ukraine would be considered legitimate targets. Moscow has accused NATO countries of "playing with fire" by arming Ukraine, emphasizing that such actions hinder the possibility of Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

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A British-Palestinian surgeon who described Gaza ‘massacre’ was blocked from EU entry

Professor Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a London plastic and reconstructive surgeon who spent 43 days in Gaza helping to treat those wounded in Palestine-Israel war, said he has been denied entry to France despite being scheduled to speak in the senate there later on Saturday.

“I am at Charles De Gaulle airport. They are preventing me from entering France. I am supposed to speak at the French Senate today,” Abu-Sitta posted on the social media platform X.

Abu-Sitta arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport on Saturday morning after a flight from London, and was informed by French authorities that Germany had placed a Schengen-wide ban on his entry to Europe. He had been invited by Green party parliamentarians to take part in a conference during which he would speak about Gaza including France and its responsibility regarding the application of international law there.

On Friday, Abu-Sitta told a Qatari news site that in Gaza, he experienced a “nightmare” including a scene in which he saw bodies and “body parts everywhere including a small arm, which clearly belonged to a child” following a missile strike outside of a hospital. He described the October 17th strike as the litmus test for “Israel’s full war on Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure”.

Abu-Sitta was also denied entrance to an event in Berlin in April. He was scheduled to speak at a Palestine Congress event but was barred entry and questioned for hours. The organizer of the event, Nadija Samour, said that there was “pressure from the federal government” to cancel at the time and that Germany was “actively and illicitly” trying to obstruct the event.

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Russian troops struck an ammunition warehouse belonging to the Ukrainian military in the area of Novaya Bavaria in Kharkov, Sergei Lebedev, the coordinator of the Nikolayev underground, told Sputnik.

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Hand of Soros: Georgian prime minister denounces US color revolution tactics

A major scandal emerged in 2016 over the disproven conspiracy theory that Russian “meddling” influenced the outcome of the US presidential election. But what adherents of the unfounded Russiagate narrative failed to acknowledge is that the United States is guilty of precisely the same type of political interference it accuses others of, and on a far larger scale.

Claims of such foreign meddling came to a head Friday when Georgia’s prime minister slammed US support for “violence” and “revolution attempts” amidst anti-government protests in the country’s capital of Tbilisi. PM Irakli Kobakhidze is promoting draft “Transparency of Foreign Influence” legislation forcing foreign-backed organizations and media outlets to disclose the sources of their funding.

The United States and European Union have criticized the proposed bill, even though similar laws exist in numerous Western countries. The US frequently opposes such legislation elsewhere because it threatens its “soft power,” represented by the funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in foreign countries to the tune of billions of dollars.

Investigation has uncovered that the US government agency USAID has poured $1.9 billion into political interference in Georgia alone. The annual budget for its ongoing projects amounts to some $70 million. Numerous opposition leaders and media outlets have been revealed to be on the United States’ payroll, with George Soros’ Civil Society Foundation also spending millions of dollars in the country.

US lawmakers have threatened to sanction the country if it moves forward with the planned transparency legislation.

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Sullivan reveals conditions of potential US defense deal with Saudi Arabia

The Biden administration will only sign a defense pact with Saudi Arabia if the kingdom agrees to normalize relations with Israel, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has made it clear in an interview with The Financial Times.

“The integrated vision is a bilateral understanding between the US and Saudi Arabia combined with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, combined with meaningful steps on behalf of the Palestinian people. All of that has to come together... you can’t disentangle one piece from the others,” Sullivan said.

Riyadh-Tel Aviv normalization is “the path that we [the US] believe could produce a more secure Israel and a more peaceful region,” he added.

The remarks come a few days after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington is “very close to reaching an agreement on the bilateral pieces of the package between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”

Riyadh, however, made it plain that it will not sign off on the deal unless there is calm in Gaza and a path to an independent Palestinian state, according to Miller.

Bloomberg News earlier reported that the US and Saudi Arabia are “nearing a historic pact” to offer the kingdom “security guarantees and lay out a possible pathway to diplomatic ties with Israel, if its government brings the war in Gaza to an end.”

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📹💥Russia’s Dnepr battlegroup destroyed a Ukrainian army strike drone dubbed “Warmate" in the sky over the Kherson region with a ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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