The United States has committed more than $51.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Joe Biden administration, including more than $50.6 billion since the beginning of the special military operation, according to the Pentagon.

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Xi's European tour: China offers EU a way out of economic crisis

Xi Jinping's European tour provided an alternative path for the EU to boost its growth by strengthening economic development agreements with Beijing and reopening trans-Eurasian trade corridors, according to geopolitical analyst Come Carpentier de Gourdon.

"Hungary can become, together with Serbia (which has just entered into a wide-ranging partnership with the People's Republic of China) and other Balkan and Visegrad nations a trailblazer in that direction," Carpentier de Gourdon tells Sputnik.

Chairman Xi visited France, Serbia, and Hungary during his five-day tour of Europe, with a focus on trade, investments, and promoting a new multipolar vision of global politics.

Xi's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen coincided with a looming trade war between the EU and China as well as the bloc's attempts to force Beijing to exert pressure on Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine.

The chairman's visits to Serbia and Hungary offered a new vision of Chinese-European collaboration. Serbia became the first European country to ink an agreement on a "shared future" with China and signaled readiness to enhance mutual trade in yuan, whereas Hungary is slated to emerge a new electrical cars and battery hub due to cooperation with China.

"China sees Hungary, a transportation hub in the heart of Eastern Europe, as an important partner," Carpentier de Gourdon explains. During a joint press conference with Xi on May 9, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban announced that China was investing 6,400 billion forints (€16.5bn) in Hungary to boost its technological and industrial rise.

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Israel's permanent representative to the UN brought a shredder to the podium of the General Assembly and shredded the symbolic “UN Charter” in it.

This, he said, is what members of the General Assembly are doing by giving Palestine additional rights in the UN. The UN Secretariat called the diplomat's gesture a "theatrical effect."

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Ukrainian army had opened fire on the town of Rovenki. The oil depot was destroyed, and houses around it were damaged, the head of the Lugansk People's Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, said.

One person was killed and 6 people, who are employees of the oil depot and local residents, with injuries were taken to hospital, according to preliminary data.

Firefighters immediately went to the scene.

Now the main task is to prevent the fire from spreading to residential houses, stated Pasechnik.

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The death toll from the shelling of an oil depot in Rovenki has risen to 3, the health minister of the Lugansk People's Republic said

Palestinian leader welcomes new UNGA resolution

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has welcomed a UN General Assembly resolution expanding the rights of Palestine in the organization and recommending that the Security Council grant it member status, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Earlier in the day, the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution recognizing Palestine as qualified to join the world organization in a 143-9 vote with 25 abstentions.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, accused the UN General Assembly of encouraging terrorism in response to the resolution on Palestine.

"The political theater called the UN has adopted an artificial decision, detached from reality, which only encourages terrorism. Israel seeks peace, and peace will only be achieved through direct negotiation between the parties," he was quoted as saying by the Israeli Foreign Ministry on X.

Katz also described the vote as "a reward for Hamas terrorists," arguing it harmed Israel's efforts to release the hostages still held by the Palestinian movement and made the ceasefire prospects in the Gaza Strip even more distant.

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Israel's use of US weapon may breach humanitarian law obligations

Israel's military forces have potentially violated international humanitarian law in Gaza, however, the US does not possess information that US weapons were used in such instances, according to the Biden Administration’s National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) report.

"Nevertheless, given Israel’s significant reliance on US-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm," the report said.

However, the report noted that it lacked “complete information” on the use of its weapons in these actions.

"Although we have gained insight into Israel’s procedures and rules, we do not have complete information on how these processes are implemented. Israel has not shared complete information to verify whether U.S. defense articles covered under NSM-20 were specifically used in actions that have been alleged as violations of IHL or IHRL in Gaza, or in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the period of the report," the report added.

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Russian air defenses shot down several targets near the city of Belgorod, eight civilians were injured, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

“Our air defense system worked over Belgorod and the Belgorod Region - several air targets approaching the city were shot down. According to preliminary information, eight civilians were injured,” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

The governor added that three people with fragmentation wounds were taken to the regional clinical hospital, two were hospitalized to city hospital No. 2, and the three remaining injured received medical care on the spot.

Gladkov said more than 40 private households were damaged in the Belgorod Region as a result of the Ukrainian attack.

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Russia's electronic warfare created problems for US-made precision weaponry in Ukraine, Business Insider reported.

Russian electronic warfare decreases the effectiveness of such weaponry as the HIMARS-fired Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) and air-launched Joint Direct Attack Munitions, it said.

Precision systems (Excalibur and GMLRS) see "shockingly decreased accuracy because of jamming," the report said.

Russia has been conducting a special military operation in Ukraine since February 24, 2022. President Putin has said the operation aims to "protect people subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." According to the president, the ultimate goal of the operation is to liberate Donbas and create conditions that guarantee Russia's security.

Russia earlier sent a note to NATO because of arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian FM Sergey Lavrov has said any cargo that contains weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia.

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Scott Ritter: Ukrainian capacity to continue resistance will collapse this summer

With Russia liberating village after village and Ukraine seemingly unable to secure a defensive line ahead of the onslaught, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter predicts that the conflict will end this summer, in line with the timeline established by the Russian Ministry of Defense at the start of this year.

“They say that the Ukrainian capacity to continue cohesive resistance will collapse this summer - that’s the Russian assessment and I agree with it,” Ritter said, noting that Russia’s operations aren’t driven by “calendars” and they have already allocated the resources to continue the conflict until 2027 if necessary.

The decision of what happens to Ukraine now rests solely in the hands of Russia, Ritter argued, noting that they had “very favorable terms on the table” in March and April 2022.

“Nobody has a say in this but Russia, and Russia has made that very clear… this is a decisive defeat of NATO, the EU and the US. It’s as decisive as you can get without them being directly involved and they can’t become directly involved because that is a suicide pill.”

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The Zionist Project doomed itself by rejecting peace advocates

“There were a lot of good people in that movement who said that the Zionist movement would only be successful if they coexisted with the Palestinian populations who lived there, whereas others tried to promote this myth of an empty land and had no regard at all for the Palestinians and just wanted to drive them out. And that was the strain of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Kuzmarov told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.

As Jeremy Kuzmarov writes in Covert Action Magazine, the peaceful elements of Zionism were pushed aside and blacklisted by the militaristic wing of Zionism, inevitably leading to the very situation the peace advocates warned about.

“Ahad Ha'am, who actually helped revive the Hebrew language,” was one such leader. “He wrote a scathing report called 'The Truth About Palestine,' in the late 19th century. Already then, he was saying that the Jews were being cruel toward the Palestinians and that this was not right, and this would destroy the Zionist project, which should be rooted in humanity,” Kuzmarov explained, adding that Ha’am advocated for a binational state, also known as the one-state solution.

Kuzmarov also writes about Martin Buber, a philosopher who advocated that Israel’s main objective should be peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt as three other prominent “humanist Zionists” that have no living heirs with the possible exception of Noam Chomsky.

“I think they would say that Netanyahu is not a real Zionist. He's a barbarian and he's compromised the integrity of the Zionist project. And he threatens the security of the Jewish people.

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💥📹 The Zala drones of Russian paratroopers foiled Ukrainian troops' attempt to cross the Dnepr River

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The striking element of the missile used by the Ukrainian forces in the attack on an oil depot in the Lugansk People's Republic.

The attack on Rovenki might be carried out by ATACMS missiles, said the head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik.

He said that the death toll has increased to three, other eight victims are hospitalized.

"I am sure that this crime against the civilian population will not go unpunished!" the LPR head stressed.

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Kim Jong Un inspects test of new MLRS systems

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected the test of new 240mm MLRS systems that will be deployed by the end of 2024, North Korean state news agency KCNA reported.

"The updated multiple rocket launcher with high mobility and concentration of fire has an automatic fire combined control system and will be deployed to units of the Korean People’s Army as replacement equipment from 2024 to 2026," the statement said.

During the test, "the launched eight shells hit the target point, intensively proving the advantages and destructive power of the updated rocket launcher system and the controllable shells," they added.

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EU agrees on draft security guarantees for Ukraine with no EU troops on the ground

The European Union has agreed on a draft agreement to provide security guarantees to Kiev no later than July, Die Welt reports.

According to the newspaper, the organization assures Ukraine of immediate consultations in case of further attacks, excluding the direct participation of EU soldiers in the fight against Russia.

The EU agreed to the security draft mainly under pressure from the Ukrainian government, writes Die Welt, adding that these commitments do not have the same legal force as bilateral agreements on security guarantees.

Moreover, only seven EU member states have provided such guarantees: Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands and Latvia, the newspaper said, citing internal EU data.

Russia, commenting on the negotiations on "security guarantees" for Ukraine, stated that without the participation of Russia, the solution of such issues will be unilateral.

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Chasov Yar will of course be liberated, the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, told Sputnik

Pushilin stressed that he was optimistic about the advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the direction of Chasov Yar:

"Our fighters are already planning actions within the city."

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