❗️🚢 Two tankers request assistance after incidents in Russia's Kerch Strait

The cargo vessel Volgoneft 212, with 13 crew members onboard, is in distress in the Kerch Strait and has requested assistance, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Crimea.

A tugboat, Merkuriy, has been dispatched from Kerch to aid the crew, and a Mi-8 helicopter from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations has also taken off with rescuers on board.

Another tanker, Volgoneft 239, has likewise sustained damage in the Kerch Strait. The vessel is carrying 14 crew members and a cargo of petroleum products, as reported by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Footage from social media.

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🪖❗️Ukrainian losses amounted to over 400 soldiers in Russia's Kursk region in one day, a tank was destroyed, and five Ukrainian soldiers surrendered, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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📹 The Russian Southern Transport Prosecutor's Office will check the implementation of legislation in the field of maritime safety after the shipwrecks in the Kerch Strait.

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Too busy to talk?

Hungarian FM Péter Szijjártó stated that Budapest has requested a phone call between PM Viktor Orbán and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, but the request was met with what he described as an "uncultured refusal," calling it "a fairly unprecedented case in diplomacy."

He added that Hungary, during its EU presidency, had done more than expected of a country its size and reaffirmed Budapest’s commitment to a peaceful resolution, pointing out that Russian forces continue to advance despite military aid to Ukraine.

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🇱🇧 Lebanese minister criticizes Israel's violations and Western bias in rebuilding efforts

"Israel respects no one; it violates the ceasefire, ignores international laws, and continues bombing and destroying across the south, even as the Lebanese army begins its deployment in the region," Lebanon’s Minister of Displaced Persons Essam Sharafeddine tells Sputnik.

On the issue of rebuilding Lebanon, the minister criticized Western priorities, claiming they focus on securing Israel's interests.

"The West wants agreements that guarantee Israel's control, while Israel itself seeks hegemony over the region and dominance over its oil resources," Sharafeddine says.

He also notes that Israel’s violations have exceeded 300 incidents, with international observers appearing more concerned with Israel’s interests than its actions.

Speaking about the situation with Lebanese refugees, Sharafeddine explains that most displaced people have already returned to their permanent residences.

"To date, residents of the southern region north of the Litani River, as well as 162,000 Lebanese who sought refuge in Syria at the start of the war, have returned home. We are now expecting the return of another 5,800 families from Iraq," he states.

Sharafeddine also criticizes ongoing Israeli strikes in Syria, including attacks on radar centers and weapon depots.

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Greater Israel: Fact, fiction, or regional power play?

The recent Israeli invasions of the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and now Syria have not only escalated regional tensions but also reignited debates about Israel’s territorial ambitions. How does this connect to the concept of Greater Israel and why is it being discussed more prominently now?

▪️Greater Israel is a concept that stems from the denoscription of the Land of Israel featured in the Torah, an ancient Jewish religious text.

▪️Based on its denoscription, the boundaries of the biblical Land of Israel – the land promised to the Jewish people by God, as per the Jewish religious texts – stretched from the Euphrates to the “river in Egypt” (commonly interpreted as a reference to the Nile).

▪️This region thus includes not just the modern-day Israel but also parts of the modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, not to mention the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

▪️In 1967, the Movement for Greater Israel was formed in Israel shortly after the latter seized the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War.

▪️The movement, which promotes the Greater Israel concept, called for keeping the captured land and settling it with Jewish settlers.

▪️Years later, Israel’s current Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich has insisted in an interview for the “In Israel: Ministers of Chaos” documentary (released in 2024) that “the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus.”

▪️In September 2024, The Jerusalem Post published an article noscriptd “Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory?” which prompted accusations of promoting Israeli expansionism and has since been deleted from the newspaper’s website.

▪️Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent declaration that the occupied Syrian Golan Heights would remain part of Israel "for eternity" also does little to dispel concerns about Israeli expansionist aspirations.

▪️In light of the circumstances described above, it is hardly surprising that a number of Greater Israel-related theories sprung up.

▪️One such theory claims that the two blue stripes on the Israeli flag are reference to the Nile and the Euphrates and symbolize Israel’s desire to expand in the space between these rivers. This accusation is rejected by Israel.

▪️In 1990, Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat claimed that the Israeli ten agorot coin design features the map of Greater Israel and thus serves as proof of Zionist expansionism. This claim is also rejected by Israel.

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❗️Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's government approves Golan Heights development plan, including strengthening settlements and doubling the population, according to his office.

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Killed in line of duty: Paying tribute to fallen Russian journalists

December 15 marks Russia’s Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty.

In this context, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized UNESCO for its “biased” draft report on the safety of journalists and impunity for their killers in 2022–2023, which excluded Russian reporters. Ultimately, the report was not approved.

Let’s recall some high-profile murders of Russian journalists that have occurred over the decade.

Heinous crimes of the Kiev regime:

▪️Killed by Kiev shelling in 2014: Sputnik photo correspondent Andrei Stenin (Ukrainian fire aimed at a refugee convoy), Channel One cameraman Anatoly Klyan (killed when a bus carrying soldiers’ mothers came under shelling), VGTRK correspondent Igor Kornelyuk and Rossiya TV channel sound engineer Anton Voloshin (both killed by mortar fire while reporting).

▪️Killed in Ukrainian drone strikes in 2023-2024: VGTRK correspondent Boris Maksudov, Izvestia daily correspondent Semyon Yeremin, NTV cameraman Valery Kozhin, NEWS.ru correspondent Nikita Tsitsagi.

▪️Killed in the Ukraine conflict zone in 2022-2023: Sputnik war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev, Russian National Guard press service employee Sergey Postnov, chief editor of Tavria broadcaster Oleg Klokov.

▪️Assassinated in targeted pro-Kiev terrorist attacks outside Ukraine in 2022-2023: journalist Darya Dugina (killed in a car bombing orchestrated by Ukrainian special services in the Moscow region), war correspondent and blogger Vladlen Tatarsky (killed by an improvised explosive device in St. Petersburg).

The day in memory of journalists who died while performing their professional duties was established in Russia in 1991 following the murder of Russian television correspondents Viktor Nogin and cameraman Gennady Kurennoy, who covered the war in former Yugoslavia in September of that year.

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📹 Ukrainian restaurateur Evgeniy Klopotenko staged a culinary show at the ancient Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Orthodox monastery, the Ukrainian publication Apostrophe reports.

Believers criticized the chef's actions on social networks. The Ukraine Orthodox Church considers the incident as disregard for religious tradition and holy places.

"The Church should remain a place for prayer", "the atheists mock the holy place", "fear God" - wrote netizens.

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🇷🇺🇸🇾 The work of the Russian Embassy in Syria's Damascus continues, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Earlier, Russia has evacuated some personnel from its foreign missions in Damascus, the ministry added.

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🇩🇪 Germany's Social Democratic Party to which Chancellor Olaf Scholz belongs intends to include a refusal to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles in its election program, the Funke media group reports, citing a document.

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🧄😱 Space nukes, spy balloons and garlic: The art of American scaremongering

Republican Congressman Jefferson Van Drew has claimed on Fox News that alleged drone sightings over New Jersey were part of an Iranian plot involving a "mothership" off the US east coast, citing unnamed "high sources" despite a lack of evidence.

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, meanwhile, has stated that no evidence of foreign interference in drone activity over the country has been found, but the investigation continues. If only that was the only instance of scaremongering the American people were subjected to by their own authorities.

🔻Not just vampires are afraid of it

This December, the people of the United States learned of the existence of a terrible threat to their national security in the form of… garlic from China.

In a letter to the US commerce secretary, Senator Rick Scott claimed that garlic in China may be grown in unsanitary conditions and that its impact on the US security thus warrants an investigation.

🔻Weather balloons and the art of blowing things out of proportion

When a wayward weather balloon from China strayed into the US airspace by accident in February 2023, the Biden administration was quick to scream bloody murder and claim that the balloon was part of Beijing’s spy program.

The Pentagon did later admit that the balloon did not collect intelligence while flying over the US territory.

🔻Nuclear scare, now in spaaaaaace!

Iran, China – this list of bogus threats to the US would not be complete without Russia, would it?

In February this year, US media sounded the alarm over Russia’s alleged plans to deploy some kind of nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space, with the only proof of these plans essentially being “trust me bro” from the Biden administration.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin himself refuted these allegations during an address to parliament, branding them baseless.

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💥 ❗️Israeli attack on school kills 20 people in Khan Yunis

A UNRWA school housing displaced people was targeted by Israeli forces in Khan Yunis today. The Palestinian News Agency reports that 20 people were killed, including children.

📹 Video taken from social media.

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Legacy of US war kills 140 Afghans in 2024

Unexploded mines in Afghanistan have claimed the lives of 137 people and injured another 333 people, including children, in 2024, the country's Directorate for Mine Action Coordination, Nooruddin Rustamkhil, said.

"Since the start of 2024, nearly 240 incidents have occurred nationwide, resulting in a total of 470 victims. Among them, 386 are children who have either been martyred or injured," he said.

Afghanistan leads the world in the number of deminers working in the country, with 2,235 deminers clearing its land of unexploded ordnance and mines, according to James Cowan, head of the international mine clearance charity HALO Trust.

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Mike Waltz: DoD is focused on bombers, not drones

The drone issue points to gaps in the authority of US departments, Donald Trump's national security adviser pick, Michael Waltz, said in an interview on CBS.

"I can tell you from the Defense Department standpoint, they're focused on bombers and cruise missiles. And it's pointing to gaps in our capabilities and our ability to clamp down on what's going on here," Mike added.

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Syria's al-Julani and UN envoy discuss refugees, revision of UN Security Council resolution

The leader of the armed opposition in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, discussed with the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, the adaptation of the 2015 UN resolution on Syria to the "realities on the ground" and the creation of conditions for the return of Syrian refugees, the high command of the Syrian armed opposition said.

"The importance of revising Resolution 2254 was discussed in connection with changes in the political sphere, which made it necessary to update the resolution in accordance with the new realities. The leader also stressed the importance of creating safe conditions for the return of refugees," the statement says.

According to the leader of the armed opposition, it is important to ensure the territorial integrity of Syria and achieve the restoration of the country's economy, the high command noted.

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