Xi Jinping arrived on a state visit to France, Chinese TV has reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron expects to discuss the Ukrainian conflict with his Chinese counterpart, according to European media.

The Chinese leader said that during his visit, he will also discuss relations between the two countries and important regional and international issues with Macron.

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EU naval mission has very few warships left to defend against Houthi attacks - media

Three months after the launch of its Operation Aspides, the EU has faced a shortage of warships to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea. After the withdrawal of the German frigate Hessen, there are only three warships left, making it impossible to continue the mission, Vasileios Gryparis, commander of the EU naval mission, said, as quoted by Der Spiegel.

It is also unlikely that the commander will receive additional ships soon. The Hessen is expected to be replaced with the frigate Hamburg, however, the warship will not arrive in the Red Sea until August, he added.

Last November, the Houthis vowed to attack any ships associated with Israel until it halts military actions in the besieged Gaza Strip. In this regard, on February 19, the EU launched Operation Aspides to secure navigation in the Red Sea amid ongoing attacks on civilian vessels. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc's mission would not participate in actions against the Houthis, but would only ensure the safety of navigation.

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Last resort? NATO secretly sets two ‘red lines’ to directly meddle in Ukraine conflict – report

NATO – “in a very confidential manner and without official communique - has established at least two red lines, beyond which there could be the alliance’s direct intervention in the conflict in Ukraine,” Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported on Sunday.

NATO reportedly views this measure as the bloc's "last resort" due to concerns over the potential collapse of Ukraine in light of Russia's ongoing and successful offensive in multiple front-line areas.

▪️The first red line purportedly pertains to alleged “direct or indirect interference of a third country” – such as Belarus - in the Ukraine conflict, a scenario that also stipulates the Russian army breaking through the Ukrainian military’s defensive lines near the Ukraine-Belarus border.

▪️The second red line is supposedly related to a possible “military provocation” against Poland or the Baltic countries, as well as military actions against Moldova.

In the event that these two red lines are crossed, NATO will ostensibly be ready to use about 100,000 troops stationed in Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states, Romania and Slovakia. On the other hand, NATO currently “does not have any operational plans” for sending a military contingent to Ukraine as the US-led bloc is dealing with “assessments of its possible actions in emergency situations,” according to the La Repubblica.

Russia has repeatedly stressed that NATO is already directly involved in the Ukraine conflict, given the bloc’s ongoing training of and arms supplies to the Ukrainian military – something that Moscow warns will only lead to prolonging the standoff.

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The United States suspended arms supplies to Israel last week, according to media reports citing Israeli officials.

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Hamas announced the end of the next round of negotiations, which took place in Cairo, and conveyed its response to the ceasefire proposal.

The movement reiterates its interest in reaching an agreement that would end Israeli aggression in Gaza and lead to an exchange of hostages, the statement said.

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Boots on the ground? French Foreign Legion dispatched to Ukraine, ex-DoD official claims

“France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine,” former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Stephen Bryen, has claimed in an article published by the Asia Times.

Bryen went on to write that the forces have been deployed “in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in the city of Slavyansk."

The French soldiers were reportedly drawn from the 3rd Infantry Regiment, one of the main components of France’s Foreign Legion. French authorities have not commented on the matter yet.

“These troops are being posted directly in a hot combat area and are intended to help the Ukrainians resist Russian advances in Donbass. The first 100 are artillery and surveillance specialists,” Bryen argued.

According to him, about 1,500 French Foreign Legion soldiers are scheduled to arrive in Ukraine in the foreseeable future. The ex-US deputy undersecretary of defense wondered in this regard “whether this crosses the Russian red line on NATO involvement in Ukraine” and if “the Russians will see this as initiating a wider war beyond Ukraine’s borders?”

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron once again did not rule out the possibility of NATO sending European troops to Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced Macron’s statement as “very dangerous”, with the statement also slammed by groups in France, Hungary Italy, the UK and Slovakia.

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Ukraine risks losing key Donbass city ‘before summer’

Having successfully repelled the massive Ukrainian counteroffensive last year, Russian forces have been hammering Kiev regime forces across the front line.

With the Ukrainian military suffering one defeat after another, things are looking pretty bleak for the Kiev regime.

As Russian troops continue to make gains after punching through the Ukrainian defenses at Avdeyevka, Kiev may soon lose its hold on a number of key cities, Newsweek claims.

According to the media outlet, the city of Chasov Yar in the Donetsk People’s Republic, currently under Kiev’s control, may fall to Russian forces “before summer.”

Chasov Yar has served as a “vital staging point for Ukrainian forces and sits on a hill with commanding views over the surrounding area,” the media outlet notes, adding that it also serves as a “gateway” to Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, two prominent cities that Russia needs to secure in order to finally drive the Kiev forces from Donbass.

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Britain's ruling Conservative Party has lost almost 500 local council seats and a number of regional mayorships.

The results of these elections are important ahead of the British parliamentary election scheduled for later this year, despite the prime minister still refusing to set a date.

The opposition Labour Party believes that PM Rishi Sunak is afraid to call a general election and is rather “clinging to power.”

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US uses Ukrainians as ‘cannon fodder’ to preserve ‘geopolitical advantage’

The hefty $61 billion military aid package for the Kiev regime recently approved by US lawmakers will only help “prolong death and destruction” in the Ukrainian conflict zone, argued Dr. Edward Lozansky, president and founder of the American University in Moscow.

According to him, Washington’s efforts to provoke, prolong and fund the Ukrainian conflict were “never meant to promote democracy, but rather to use Ukrainians as cannon fodder to preserve the geopolitical advantage of the hegemon” i.e. the United States.

“Of course, there is an additional incentive to make money for the military-industrial complex, and all those with whom it shares its huge profits, including many members of Congress, think-tanks, and lobbyists,” Lozansky wrote in an article published in American Thinker.

To add insult to injury, the military aid bill is not going to change the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict, he argues, quoting Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, as saying that it “will only prolong the agony of Ukraine and Europe.”

As the bill “also raises the stakes, and pushes the world one step further towards a cataclysm the likes of which we have never seen,” Sakwa thus suggests that “now is the time to start de-escalating, and to outline what it would take to start a diplomatic process of some sort.”

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Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the possibility of negotiations between the West, Ukraine and Russia, said that “there is no one to talk to yet,” given that no Western or Ukrainian politicians are ready for a serious conversation and are only “playing” at a parody of negotiations in the form of a meeting in Switzerland.

“We are seriously open to negotiations based on realities,” Lavrov told Bosnian TV, emphasizing that the Russian Federation will not participate in any events that in one way or another promote the “Zelensky formula.”

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▪️Russian troops have taken full control of the settlement of Ocheretino

▪️Time to cough up the money: Western bondholders pressure Ukraine to resume debt payments

▪️Boots on the ground? French Foreign Legion dispatched to Ukraine, ex-DoD official claims

▪️Is a power-sharing deal between Israel and Arab states for postwar Gaza feasible?

▪️Sullivan reveals conditions of potential US defense deal with Saudi Arabia

▪️Globalists view Australia as ‘guinea pig’ for new online censorship regime

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The Israel Defense Forces said it struck a compound of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) facilities in central Gaza because it reportedly housed a Hamas command and control center used to attack the IDF, a statement published on the social media platform X read.

“A Hamas command and control center located in central Gaza at an active UNRWA location was precisely struck by IAF fighter jets. The location served as a staging ground for multiple attacks on IDF troops and humanitarian aid distribution efforts as well as a weapons supply facility for Hamas terrorists. Hamas intentionally positioned the command and control position in this location to jeopardize Gazan civilians taking refuge there,” the IDF statement said.

Previously, Israel made unconfirmed allegations that 12 out of the agency's 13,000 Gaza personnel were involved in the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel. Tel Aviv also demanded that UNRWA be disbanded and its responsibilities and staff transferred to a new body in exchange for allowing more aid into the Gaza Strip.

A number of Western countries suspended their funding to UNRWA amid Israel’s accusations which emerged as the ICJ ordered Tel Aviv to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." Reports later emerged that IDF members tortured UNRWA workers to extract testimony of alleged Hamas infiltration of the organization.

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US senator criticizes uniparty for borrowing money to finance war in Ukraine (Part 1)

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized both of the United States’ major political parties in comments expressing concern over bipartisan spending on the US proxy war in Ukraine.

“My primary reason for opposing sending money to Ukraine is that we don’t have any money,” said the libertarian-leaning lawmaker. “The money has to be borrowed… So basically we owe China a trillion dollars, they bought a trillion dollars worth of our debt.”

Observers have long warned of the consequences of US deficit spending, which ballooned in the 1980s and has continued ever since. The US has traditionally financed its debt by selling treasury bonds to foreign countries, with China becoming one of the largest holders. But in 2008 the US government found itself without sufficient buyers as it responded to the financial turmoil of the Great Recession, spending billions of dollars to bail out the country’s banking system.

The Federal Reserve responded to the dilemma by itself buying US Treasuries, with the government printing money to allow the private bank to do so. The strategy has raised significant concerns over the Fed’s “vast expanded powers.”

Meanwhile, US dollar hegemony has been challenged as central banks begin diversifying their holdings as a hedge against US sanctions and other retaliatory measures, while foreign countries gradually pursue trade denominated in their own currencies. “[Dedollarization] means the demise of American power, because American power is based on the ability to pay bills by printing money,” noted US economist Paul Craig Roberts, who warned of the threat of catastrophic inflation.

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Sen. Rand Paul insisted US lawmakers should stop funding Kiev’s increasingly quixotic war against Russia, and instead push the country to seek a negotiated settlement to the conflict (Part 2)

“That's the one thing [NATO membership] that, actually, Ukraine… could negotiate,” said the legislator. “If they were willing to negotiate that they would be a neutral country and not allied with the… Russians and not allied with the West but be open to trade with both… that could be negotiated for withdrawal of troops.”

The United States intervened to scuttle at least two opportunities to negotiate an end to the war in the Donbass, while also working to undermine the implementation of the so-called Minsk accords in the years prior. Neoconservative commentators have openly promoted the conflict as a way to weaken Russia, with Moscow becoming “bogged down” in fighting in a strategy reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan decades ago.

But Russia has actually grown more resilient in the years since launching its special military operation, becoming more independent from the West, increasing its industrial capacity and rapidly expanding its economy. Meanwhile, dollar hegemony has been threatened by the United States’ punitive measures against Moscow, Washington has descended deeper into debt and the NATO military alliance has been revealed to be a paper tiger.

These trends suggest it is not Russia that is becoming “bogged down” in endless global conflict, but rather the United States.

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