Dispatching troops to Israel, US sets stage for direct participation in Middle East war (Part 1 👉 Part 2)

The US and its European client states are doubling down on their support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the waning days of the Biden administration, setting the stage for Western militaries to directly participate in Israeli atrocities or even a broader violent conflagration.

“In November 2023 a US military official revealed that American special forces were stationed in Israel and actively helping the Israelis,’” noted journalist Matt Kennard for Declassified UK.

While US military personnel have assisted Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip covertly over the last year, the Biden administration signaled an open commitment of US troops to the country today in a statement released by the Pentagon.

“At the direction of the President, [US Defense] Secretary [Lloyd] Austin authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel," said press secretary Patrick S. Ryder.

It is thought that some 100 US troops would be dispatched to Israel to operate the THAAD system. Observers warn the open commitment of personnel could serve as a casus belli to send troops to fight with Israel if a US service member is injured or killed in a strike on an Israeli military target.

The official death toll in Gaza stands at almost 43,000, but a study in the respected British medical journal The Lancet claimed it will ultimately approach 200,000 as Palestinians cope with mass hunger, malnutrition and lack of medical care.

👉 Follow the link for more details

UK Prime Minister and suspected intelligence asset Keir Starmer doubles down on UK support for Israel (Part 2 👉 Part 1)

A series of events in recent days has demonstrated NATO countries’ deepening commitment to Israel as new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer leads the way.

“US special forces flights to Israel from a British airbase have doubled in frequency since Keir Starmer took over from Rishi Sunak as prime minister,” reported the website Declassified UK.

“It has… previously been revealed that the US is using Akrotiri to deliver weapons to Israel,” the investigative reporting outlet continued, referring to the UK’s large airbase in Cyprus. “The UK government has long refused to give any details of US use of British territory to support the Israeli assault on Gaza.”

Starmer has been heavily criticized for alleged weaponization of claims of antisemitism during his tenure as leader of the UK Labour Party. After previously signaling cooperation with former leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, Starmer ultimately expelled Corbyn from Labour and purged pro-Corbyn candidates and party members. A damning report released in 2022 revealed that a manufactured antisemitism crisis within the party was used to undermine Corbyn, a prominent anti-imperialist and supporter of the Palestinian cause.

The former Czechoslovak government concluded Starmer was a likely Western intelligence asset in an internal report in the 1980s. Former CIA director Mike Pompeo suggested in 2019 that the US would work to prevent Corbyn’s election as British prime minister, paving the way for Starmer to fill the role instead. The arch Zionist and likely intelligence asset’s approval rating as prime minister now stands at only 26% according to recent polling.

👉 Follow the link for more details

US entities made efforts to interfere in 2022 Hungarian elections – Szijjarto

US-based entities made serious efforts to interfere in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections, spending millions of dollars on this, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

"All I know is during our election campaign back in 2022, there were very serious attempts to interfere into our elections. From the other side of the ocean — very, very heavily, let's put it that way," Szijjarto said.

According to the minister, very powerful interference was carried out, with millions of dollars being spent by American entities to remove the current Hungarian government.

Despite these very large investments in the opposition, the Fidesz party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban won by a large margin, he recalled.

Szijjarto pointed out that the funds were invested in the Hungarian opposition, in opposition media.

Earlier, the Magyar Nemzet newspaper, citing a preliminary report from the Hungarian State Audit Office, reported that the coalition of six opposition parties in the parliamentary elections in Hungary in April 2022 had received at least 4.6 million euros from abroad.

"This still has been going on," he highlighted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Szijjarto not ruling out 'neighboring country's' interference in 2022 elections in Hungary

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview with RIA Novosti he did not rule out that a "neighboring country" could have participated in interference in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections.

"I am not quite sure that the country [Ukraine] led by the president you have mentioned was not part of it [interference in the 2022 elections in Hungary]," Szijjarto emphasized.

In late March 2022, Szijjarto stated that then-Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had called the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest to discuss the possibility of influencing the election results.

"We can't exclude that. At that time, there were signs for that," the minister stressed in response to a clarifying question about whether he would rule out the possibility that a "neighboring country" could have played a role in interfering in the Hungarian elections.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇳 China launches ‘Joint Sword-2024B’ military drills around Taiwan

On Monday, China launched the "Joint Sword - 2024B" military exercise “in the Taiwan Strait and areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan Island,” according to Senior Captain Li Xi, spokesperson of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command.

“With vessels and aircraft approaching Taiwan Island in close proximity from different directions, troops of multiple services engage in joint drills, focusing on subjects of sea-air combat-readiness patrol, blockade on key ports and areas, assault on maritime and ground targets, as well as joint seizure of comprehensive superiority, so as to test the joint operations capabilities of the theater command's troops,” Li Xi said in a statement posted on the Chinese Defense Ministry’s website.

"The drill also serves as a stern warning to the separatist acts of 'Taiwan Independence' forces. It is a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding national sovereignty and national unity," the spokesperson emphasized.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🥴 Bill… oops Joe: Twin Grandpas?

Former US President Bill Clinton went to a McDonalds in Georgia while campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris, and the cashier thought he was Joe Biden.

“Are you Joe? Mr. Joe? ... Bill Clinton?! OMG!” the employee exclaimed.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Over 1,000 residents of Russia's Kursk region who were forcibly evacuated by Ukrainian armed forces are being sought by their relatives, Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova said.

The forcible removal of civilians is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention; the international community should give it a proper assessment, she stressed in an interview with Russian media. 

By now, more than 112,000 people have been evacuated from Russia’s Kursk region after Ukraine’s offensive, according to Moskalkova.

On the territory of 65 Russian regions, 960 temporary accommodation centers have been created. They now house more than 30 thousand people, including 7,500 children evacuated from the area bordering the attacked Kursk region, due to shelling by Ukraine.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 During the assault on the village of Ostrovskoye in the Donetsk People's Republic, the liberation of which the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Friday, Russia's Youg Battlegroup fighters "did not give the enemy an opportunity to entrench and fortify," the servicemen stated.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russia’s military success could deal crippling blow to Ukraine’s steel industry

Russia’s advance on the strategic city of Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) could cripple what remains of Ukraine’s steel industry, claims The Economist.

A key railway and highway junction, this city in the Ukrainian-occupied Donbass has been serving as a crucial supply and reinforcement hub for the Kiev regime’s frontline troops. However, there is another element adding to its vital importance.

To the city's southwest, lies the Krasnoarmeyskaya-Zapadnaya Mine №1 with estimated reserves of over 200 million tons of coal. This coal, used for smelting iron ore, is vital for keeping afloat the Kiev regime’s metallurgy sector.

The mine, which opened in 1990 and belongs to Metinvest, together with its associated plants and administrative buildings, employs 6,000 people. However, around 1,000 of them are serving in Ukraine’s armed forces, which still faces a critical personnel shortage.

The outlet added that Russia’s troops do not even need to take the mine “to throttle Ukraine’s remaining steel industry", since it would be enough to cut off its power supply and shell the main road that is used to deliver the coal westwards to the remaining steel plants.

The loss of this mine could strike a crushing blow to Ukraine’s economy and energy sector, already undermined by the West’s ongoing proxy war.

Fierce battles have been underway between the Russian and Ukrainian armies on the approaches to Pokrovsk, with commander of the Battlegroup Tsentr Col. Gen. Andrey Mordvichev reporting that 12 settlements in the Pokrovsk area were liberated from the enemy in September.

Western patrons of the Kiev regime have been sounding the alarm that once Russia seizes the strategic city, Ukraine’s Donbass defenses will be doomed.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt