❗️The Russian Armed Forces struck the infrastructure of military airfields and Ukrainian energy facilities, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

🇷🇺🪖More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry's daily briefing on the special military operation's progress:

◻️ Ukrainian losses reached a total of 770 militants in Battlegroup Yug's area of responsibility.

▫️ Russia's Battlegroup Tsentr has improved its tactical position. The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces totaled up to 420 soldiers and two Swedish-made Viking armored personnel carriers.

◻️ Russia's Battlegroup Zapad repelled one counterattack, enemy lost up to 440 militants.

◻️ Ukrainian losses reached a total of 125 troops in Battlegroup Vostok's area of responsibility.

◻️ Russian Air defenses hit two HIMARS missiles and shot down 67 Ukrainian drones.

◻️ Enemy losses in Russia’s Battlegroup Dnepr combat zone came to 75 militants.

◻️ Enemy losses in Russia’s Battlegroup Sever combat zone came to 35 servicemen.

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📑What promises has Trump made on Ukraine?

Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to settle the Ukraine conflict even before taking office if reelected.

“This is a war that never should have started […] the money that we’re spending on this war, and we shouldn’t be spending, it should have never happened… I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelensky as president-elect before I take office on January 20. I’ll have that war settled,” Trump said during his presidential debate with Joe Biden in June 2024.

1️⃣Peace deal in 24 hours

🔸 "I will say this […] I would have a peace deal negotiated within 24 hours, you could make a peace deal for both right now, 24 hours, that deal is waiting to be done," Trump said at a rally in January 2023.

🔸 "Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency… I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled," Trump said during a rally in Philadelphia in June 2024.

🔸 Trump claimed during an interview with Fox News in early March that if he had still been president, the Ukraine crisis would not have spiraled, as he “could have negotiated." "At worst, I could've made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas [in Ukraine] that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could've worked a deal."

🔸 At a North Carolina rally in September 2024, Trump described Ukraine as “demolished,” and argued that “Any deal – the worst deal – would’ve been better than what we have now… If they made a bad deal, it would’ve been much better.”

2️⃣First two calls to Putin, Zelensky

🔸 “You have Ukraine and Russia, and that's… out of control. I met with President Zelensky, and I got along very well with President Putin," Trump said in Milwaukee in October. "I think I would like to be able to solve, well… if I get elected, I'm going to work on that immediately. It's going to be my first two phone calls."

🔸 Trump claimed he would “get people in a room, knock heads and get it done… That would mean saying things to Putin and saying things to Zelensky that they’re not going to want to hear, and getting them into a room, and getting it done.”

3️⃣No US boots in Ukraine

🔸 Trump vowed to not put US troops on the ground in Ukraine if he returns to the White House during an interview on the podcast All-In in June 2024. “I would guarantee it. I wouldn't do it. No.” He added that “for 20 years, I heard that NATO, if Ukraine goes into NATO, it's a real problem for Russia. I've heard that for a long time. And I think that's really why this war started.”

🔸 "We're giving away so much equipment, we don't have ammunition for ourselves right now," Trump said during CNN's town hall event in May 2023.

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❗️Ukrainian forces lost more than 300 soldiers in Russia's Kursk region in one day, and more than 30 800 militants during the entire period of military operations in this region, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

◻️ Russia's Battlegroup Sever repelled seven counterattacks in the Kursk region, enemy lost up to 60 militants.

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📹 Joe Biden should appoint Kamala Harris to the US Supreme Court — CNN Pundit.

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Pentagon refuses Zelensky's request for priority delivery of ATACMS - Report

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has denied Zelensky’s demand to prioritize Ukraine for ATACMS missile deliveries over other buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported, quoting two unnamed US sources and an advisor to the Ukrainian government.

Austin told Zelensky that breaking long-standing agreements with other customers would be “a lot to ask”, the newspaper said.

The report also read that the US would provide Ukraine with over 500 interceptors for the Patriot and NASAMS systems, as part of the last aid package before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. The supplies will be delivered in coming weeks, the report added.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the Pentagon had a limited supply of air-launched munitions, which it could provide to arm the new Ukrainian F-16 fighter jets.

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📹 Liberal TikToker threatens to make Trump’s life a “living hell.”

How worried should Trump be on a scale of 1-10?

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Trump’s triumph sows sorrow for Soros: Here’s why Part 1 👉🏻 Part 2

Billionaire hedge fund shark-turned liberal “philanthropist” George Soros’ financial interests and political projects may be in trouble when Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office.

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Soros Fund Management plans to shut down its Hong Kong office as part of a surprise “administrative reorganization” after 14 years of operations.

Meanwhile, the campaign by the elder Soros and his son Alex to keep a Democrat in the White House has failed to pay dividends, despite the Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform’s transfer of $60 million to Future Forward, a pro-Democrat dark money super PAC. That’s on top of a $15 million donation by an Open Society Foundations subsidiary in 2023.

Along with money, the Soros family invested significant personal capital into the campaign against “MAGA-style Republicans” in 2024. In early 2023, Alex Soros announced a dramatic scaling back of the OSF’s operations in Western Europe to focus on Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans, and the United States, with the effort to stop Trump becoming a top priority.

George Soros first sounded the alarm over Trump’s “America First” foreign policy in 2016, when he pumped millions into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. After Trump won, Soros funded an anti-Trump “resistance movement,” manifesting itself in street protests, court challenges to his domestic agenda, secret lobbying of members of his administration, support for lawmakers promoting a neoliberal foreign policy, and even $1 million in cash spent on the infamous “Trump-Russia collusion” dossier.

During Trump’s first term, Soros lobbied tech giants to regulate social media, funded a campaign to support dozens, if not hundreds, of liberal prosecutors and judges, gubernatorial candidates, congressional hopefuls, and other state and local officials in 2018 and 2020.

👉🏻 Part 2

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'He’ll be in jail by election day': Why Soros is in trouble after campaign to stop Trump failed to pay off Part 2 👉🏻 Part 1

Soros and the OSF’s noticeable shift away from meddling abroad to interfering in US domestic politics earned the ire of Trump backers, who sought to declare him a “domestic terrorist,” strip him of his assets, and expel the Hungarian-born billionaire from the country.

When Joe Biden won in 2020, a Soros-linked think tank lobbied his administration to support policies favoring OSF principles in nearly two dozen different policy areas, and laid out $20 million to create “grass roots organizations” to sell Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

In 2022, Soros channeled $125 million into a “Democracy PAC” to support anti-MAGA candidates in the midterms.

In 2023, as criminal indictments began to come down on Trump, the former president immediately linked the political “witch hunt” against him to Soros and his “hand-picked and funded” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, to whose 2021 campaign Soros is known to have donated at least $1 million.

“I expect that Trump will be found guilty at least in some cases, and will be in jail by election day in November 2024,” Soros said in an August 2023 interview. “If I am right, he is unlikely to win the election. But if I am wrong, the US will face a constitutional crisis that is likely to bring on an economic crisis as well.”

Something seems to have gone terribly wrong in the billionaire’s calculations, with Soros’ ex-money manager, Stan Druckenmiller, warning in mid-October that the markets were “very convinced” that Trump would win.

👉🏻 Part 1

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🎥🎥 Sputnik is live as Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, editor-in-chief of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya Margarita Simonyan, and Mali's Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop take part in a session of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum’s First Ministerial Conference.

📹 Watch the livestream here or on the Sputnik's website

Trump will urge US oil companies to drill more, steer clear of global green energy initiatives – expert

Donald Trump’s goal is to get US oil companies to boost production as much as possible, international oil economist Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh told Sputnik.

"Trump’s position on fossil fuels and green energy is very well known. He favors more oil production at prices ranging from $65-$70 a barrel for the benefit of the United States’ economy. He also wants to make the US energy independent. Trump doesn’t support climate change goals. That is why he withdrew America from the Paris Treaty on climate change,” the pundit remarked.

While Trump is determined to encourage American oil companies to boost output to “depress oil prices and also undermine OPEC+’s production policies,” his ability to influence global energy prices “will to some extent be very limited,” the expert speculated.

“The reason is that American oil production, including shale oil, has virtually peaked, so we may not expect any more oil additions from American companies. The same logic applies to gas production, particularly because of rising domestic demand affecting the US LNG exports to Europe,” the economist explained.

Gas and LNG prices would rise significantly in 2025 due to rising demand. “Oil prices will also rise somewhat, but they will continue to face considerable pressure to depress them from market manipulation orchestrated by the US and in cahoots with the IEA and oil traders,” Salameh projected.

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