Ukrainian soldiers should be banned from entering Poland — Polish Sejm MP
 

"We know perfectly well what happens to soldiers who stop being on the front. Unfortunately, they tend to organize crime, so we cannot allow them to come to Poland," Polish Sejm deputy Witold Tumanowicz said.

 
He also noted that not a single Polish soldier should be in Ukraine.

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❗️Ukrainian forces attacked settlements in the Belgorod region using more than 30 ammunition and more than 20 drones; one person was injured, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said

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Ukraine’s ‘second front’ in Africa: Zelensky ‘will bite the dust’ there – analyst

The Kiev regime opening a “second front” in Africa is “a desperate move aimed at media sensation, with no clear vision and strategy,” Professor Alexis Habiyaremye, Research Chair in Industrial Development at the University of Johannesburg, told Sputnik.

Context for Ukraine in Africa:

🟠It is unclear what Ukraine's strategy in Africa is “beyond participation in destabilization” of the continent, he said, mentioning the Confederation of Sahel States, which are “led by a vision of sovereignty that is stronger than Ukrainian hatred and racism.”

🟠“African countries are motivated by the determination to wrest their full independence from the neocolonial Western powers, while Ukraine is acting erratically based on anger and frustration. [Volodymyr] Zelensky and his agents will certainly bite the dust in Africa,” Habiyaremye stressed.

🟠Ukrainian intelligence services “have unashamedly claimed to collaborate” with terrorist groups in Africa, “hoping to destabilize Russian security partners, and by doing so, to discredit Russia,” the analyst added, pointing to “the blanket impunity granted to Ukraine by its Western backers.”

Why is the effort fruitless?

👉The professor singled out the Sahel region, where he said the Kiev regime relied on “French logistics and American satellite technology” to help “terrorists ambush troops of Malian Armed Forces.”

👉“By allying itself with terrorists to attack African countries, Ukraine has squandered any possible goodwill it could hope to get from Africa and the rest of the Global South. It is therefore unlikely to achieve anything of significance as it tied its lot with that of the terrorists,” Habiyaremye concluded.

The Russian Foreign Ministry earlier said that, unable to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Ukraine decided to open a “second front” in Africa, pandering to terrorist groups in such countries as Mali and Niger, which have severed diplomatic relations with Kiev.

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❗️Russian forces have liberated the settlement of Novoolenovka in the Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian Defense Ministry announced

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🎄🎉 Russia's president congratulated a number of foreign leaders on New Year and Christmas, the Kremlin said.
 
However, Putin did not congratulate Biden and other leaders of the largest unfriendly countries.
 
Of the European leaders, Vladimir Putin only delivered New Year greetings to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, as well as Pope Francis.

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🇷🇺🪖More statements from the Russian MoD daily briefing on the special military operation's progress:    
 
▪️Ukrainian forces lost up to 530 soldiers, a tank, an infantry fighting vehicle and four armored personnel carriers in the Zapad battlegroup’s combat zone;
 
▪️ As a result of the actions of the Russian Sever and Dnepr battlegroups, Ukrainian forces lost up to 140 servicemen;
 
▪️ Ukrainian forces lost up to 175 servicemen in the Russian Vostok Battlegroup's area of responsibility;
 
▪️ As a result of the actions of the Tsentr Battlegroup, Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 420 soldiers, two tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, and a number of armored personnel carriers and Snatch armored vehicles;
 
▪️ Russian air defense systems shot down four HIMARS missiles and 65 Ukrainian drones.

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Israel considers remaining in southern Lebanon after the 60 days stipulated in the ceasefire agreement - report
 
The IDF may extend its presence in the country due to the slow deployment of the Lebanese army and the presence of a significant number of weapons and Hezbollah infrastructure, the Israel Hayom newspaper reports.

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Arrest warrant sought for South Korean president on charges of treason
 
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) has requested an arrest warrant for ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived imposition of martial law, the Korea Times reports.
 
Yoon is accused of insurrection and abuse of power, the article notes.
 
Previously, the CIO had already summoned President Yoon three times for questioning, but he failed to appear in court.

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❗️Poland plans to build a road to the border with Russia's Kaliningrad region in 2025 to enable the rapid transfer of troops and security forces if necessary, according to an interview with the Financial Times by Deputy Minister of the Interior Maciej Duszczyk.

*the picture is AI-generated

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Biden announces nearly $2.5 billion in aid to Ukraine, the White House informed

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📹🇷🇺Footage of Russia's Tsentr Battlegroup hoisting the Russian flag in the recently liberated Novoolenovka in the Donetsk People's Republic

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‘Trump effect’: How new POTUS beat Harris, could bolster ties with Russia and may hasten NATO's decline

The 2024 US presidential race came to a dramatic conclusion when Donald Trump convincingly upset Kamala Harris, a win that took place not least because Democrats “clearly had no policies that the American people wanted”, Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, tells Sputnik.

Trump vs Harris

⚔️When it comes to Democrats’ pre-election efforts, they “always wanted to make this more of an anti-Trump campaign as opposed to coming up with policies that would remedy the higher inflation, the open borders” as well as “the increase in crime and drugs.”

⚔️Harris “just spoke in terms of platitudes” as she “sounded more like a cheerleader rather than someone wanting to be president with definitive policies; […] she had no answers for the increasing difficulties.”

US-Russia ties under Trump

🤝There will be “more opportunity” to try to resolve Russia-US problems that were in place under the Biden-Harris administration because Trump is “more than willing to meet with Mr. Putin, just as Mr. Putin says he's willing to meet Trump.”

🤝Both are “very strong leaders” with “healthy respect” toward each other would manage to reach “some accommodation” on pressing issues, especially on Ukraine. “I think Trump will acknowledge that Russia has achieved what it wants to achieve.”

End of NATO?

🟠Under Trump, “you're going to see perhaps the demise of NATO altogether”.

🟠NATO’s four-year aid to Ukraine “actually crippled them [the bloc’s members] economically, and I think that this is the beginning of the end, not only of NATO as a so-called ‘defense’ alliance, but also the EU itself.”

#2024Overview

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🤖🐕🚒Robo-dogs reach new level

Chinese technology companies have been active at expanding the capabilities of four-legged robots. Now they have invented firefighting robots handy for extinguishing fires.

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🤝Putin busts the 'isolation' myth in 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with a range of world leaders this year, including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, China’s Xi Jinping, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

So, what’s all this talk about isolation from the West?

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Americans made a clear choice in 2024, opting for Trump after a direct comparison

In the 2024 presidential race, the Democrats “clearly had no policies that the American people wanted," Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik.

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❗️"Geopolitical Results of 2024": The full text of the report by the deputy general director of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, Alexander Yakovenko, has been published

▪️The standards of modern warfare set during the special military operation in Ukraine serve as a powerful deterrent for Russia, and after the use of the Oreshnik missile system, the superiority of the Russian Armed Forces over the West became obvious;

▪️After the West and Ukraine refused the Istanbul agreements, there were all grounds for the emergence of obligations to finance the restoration of new regions of Russia;

▪️The aggressive policy of the West, including in Ukraine, led to the fact that Russia began to fight against Western hegemony at the global level;

▪️Russia will have "difficult dilemmas" in 2025 if the West continues to ignore Moscow's conditions on the Ukrainian crisis, historical analogies are obvious - this is the decision on the Foreign Campaign of the Russian Army after stampede and the capitulation of Nazi Germany with the capture Berlin;

▪️Washington can restore the foundations of its power at the expense of the rest of the world, thanks to the arrival of national-oriented elites as a result of Trump's "conservative revolution";

▪️Trump's warnings about using the dollar in international settlements rather contribute to the rejection of this currency;

▪️The defeat of the West, which will serve the cause of emancipation of the entire non-Western world and is intended to put an end to neocolonial practices, is already visible on the horizon.

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What was former US President Jimmy Carter notorious for?

Carter, the longest-living president in US history, has died at the age of 100. Why do some perceive Carter—who was in charge between 1977 and 1981—as one of the worst US presidents?

🟠Right after entering office, the 39th POTUS granted an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of American men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.

🟠In September 1977, Carter signed a deal to hand control of the Panama Canal back to Panama. The zone had been a US territory since 1903.

🟠According to Business Insider's ranking of American presidents, published in February 2019, Carter was ranked 26th.
The last fifteen months of his tenure saw a couple of major America-related crises, which the 39th president failed to resolve and which significantly contributed to the Democrats’ landslide loss to Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.

Carter-era crises overview:

🔶1979 oil crisis: Due to soaring oil prices, Carter failed to deliver on his election promises to reduce unemployment to 4.5 percent and inflation to 4 percent per year, as the US economy entered a recession.

🔶Iran hostage crisis: 53 US diplomats and citizens were held hostage in Tehran from November 1979 to January 1981. This was coupled with the deaths of eight American soldiers during a botched rescue attempt. Carter took full responsibility for the failed Operation Eagle Claw.

🔶Soviet Union policy shift: Carter abandoned his conciliatory approach toward the USSR after Moscow’s December 1979 decision to deploy a restricted contingent of Soviet troops to Afghanistan.

🔶Grain embargo and Olympic boycott: The 39th POTUS swiftly enacted a grain embargo on the Soviet Union and spearheaded a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Reflecting on America’s future, Carter once remarked: “We have been at war more than 226 years” and “we have been at peace for about 16 years” since the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

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