"Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, has made himself the hero of the day. Albanese conveniently has a press conference which [freed journo Julian] Assange didn't attend — to Assange's credit of course — and basically took all the credit for himself: 'my government worked tirelessly. We did this, I did that, I spoke to Biden, I did that'," the Australian independent journalist Aussie Cossack has stated.

"Australia would extradite Assange to the United States should he decide to speak up again," Cossack said.

"Albanese standing in front of the whole country, saying how he is fighting for Australians and protecting Australians and protecting free speech, protecting whistleblowers — it's all lies. It's all for the cameras. It's all for a press conference."

"Assange needs to know that there are many of us in this country, in Australia, who're ready to fight, stand shoulder to shoulder," the journalist stressed.

“The main thing is that the planned EU defense line should be built with spikes facing inward,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on the leaders of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland calling for fully-fledged EU support for “a defense infrastructure system” to be created along the bloc’s border with Russia and Belarus.

"The scale and costs of this joint endeavor require dedicated EU action to support it both politically and financially," the letter added. The estimated cost of the defensive line’s construction along the 700 km EU border with Russia and Belarus is about €2.5 billion ($2.67 billion).