⚡️Russia and Ukraine have exchanged 150 prisoners of war, the Russian Defense Ministry has reported.

The UAE provided humanitarian mediation efforts during the return of Russian soldiers from Ukrainian captivity.

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Musk calls Zelensky 'all-time champ' for 'one of the greatest money heists' of the United States
 
Musk reacted to a post by a user on X, who commented on the US allocation of $2.5 billion to Ukraine, saying that Zelensky "genuinely pulled off one of the greatest money heists of all time."
 

"All-time champ," Musk wrote.

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How the attempted Maidan 2.0 in Georgia fell flat

Month-long protests in Georgia and Western pressure on the ruling Georgian Dream party have come to nothing, with the new president being inaugurated on December 29 and protesters peacefully dispersing in Tbilisi.

How did it unfold?

🔶Former-President Salome Zurabishvili demanded new parliamentary elections, accusing the Georgian Dream party of rigging the October vote. The Georgian Central Election Commission (CEC) dismissed her claims as "baseless" and "politically motivated" on December 24.

🔶Zurabishvili is a pro-EU French-born politician aligned with the European Parliament (EP), which in late November called for the Georgian elections to be re-run under international supervision despite the fact that the elections had been held in the presence of international observers.

🔶The EP's stance led Georgian Dream to suspend EU accession talks until 2028, which the Western-backed opposition used to fuel protests.

🔶Four pro-Western opposition parties that have boycotted parliament since October organized a month-long protest in Tbilisi.

🔶Six MEPs from Poland, Lithuania, and France joined pro-EU protesters and met Zurabishvili on the eve of the Georgian presidential election, sparking accusations of external interference.

🔶On December 27, the US imposed sanctions on Georgian Dream's founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, accusing him of steering Georgia toward Russia and away from the West.

Did it affect the presidential vote?

🟠No. Georgian Dream candidate Mikheil Kavelashvili was elected by a 300-member College of Electors on December 14.

🟠The outgoing president refused to concede, sparking fears of nationwide protests and split power.

Did it help the opposition?

👉Kavelashvili's inauguration went ahead on December 29 as Zurabishvili left the palace despite earlier pledges to stay, declaring she was taking "legitimacy" with her.

👉After the inauguration, Kavelashvili reaffirmed Georgia’s commitment to EU membership and stronger US ties.

👉Tbilisi expressed readiness to reset relations with President-elect Donald Trump.

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📹 THROWBACK: US sanctions are hurting Europe, especially Germany, former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine said.

"What is the US action against the US? If you always shoot yourself in the knee, if you damage yourself, that's pretty stupid. And that means the US sanctions, for example, if you go through them, they benefit the USA, but they harm Europe, especially Germany," Oskar Lafontaine said.

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From cold showers to hot wheels: Western taxes fuel Ukraine’s luxury rides

While Europeans bundle up in the cold, hoard canned goods, and brave icy showers to "stand with Ukraine," Ukrainian officials are cruising around in their brand-new $650k Rolls-Royce Spectres, writes Irish journalist Chay Bowes.

Earlier, Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko reported on X that 13 of these luxury cars were snapped up this year, mostly by MPs and officials, though only three have official incomes.

Stories of corruption in Zelensky's administration are becoming legendary, with allegations of millions being skimmed monthly from state structures. But hey, don’t forget to send more aid – they might need matching yachts next!

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Airliner or flying health hazard? Unsavory facts about Boeing's 737-800

Aircraft giant Boeing made headlines last week when three incidents involving its 737-800 planes, one of the Boeing 737 Next Generation (737NG) variants, occurred in 24 hours in various corners of the globe.

While the terrible Jeju Air 737-800 crash in South Korea killed 179, a few hours earlier another KLM 737-800 skidded off a runway in Norway after suffering a hydraulic failure, while an Air Canada 737-800 suffered an apparent landing gear failure upon arrival in Halifax.

Though much of Boeing’s infamy stems from the disasters involving its 737 MAX airliners, the 737-800 has a dark history of its own, with this type of planes suffering over 20 incidents since the early 2000s and causing over 1,000 deaths.

Here’s a brief list of problems that have plagued the 737-800:

▪️In 2019 a series of inspections of 737NGs revealed fatigue cracks appearing in aircraft hulls, particularly in the fuselage-to-wing joints commonly referred to as “pickle forks.”

▪️Several 737NG aircraft experienced issues with their cargo doors. For example, a Royal Air Maroc 737-800 in 2019 had its cargo door open by itself during landing in Lagos.

▪️A China Eastern Airlines 737-800 in 2022 crashed with no survivors after suddenly descending midflight and hitting the ground at high speed, even though subsequent investigation found no apparent fault in either the aircraft or the crew.

▪️A Turkish Airlines 737-800 crashed during landing in Amsterdam due to a faulty radio altimeter providing erroneous data about the ground level which affected plane’s other systems and led to the disaster.

▪️In 2007, one of the engines of a China Airlines 737-800 caught fire shortly after the plane landed in Okinawa, with the apparent cause being a slat pylon bolt falling off and piercing a fuel tank.

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📹 Russian Defense Ministry shows a video of soldiers returned from Ukrainian captivity.

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Suspected fraudster, adulterer and personality cult founder? True colors of Ukraine’s celebrity pastor

Sunday Adelaja, a Nigerian celebrity pastor who established a massive evangelical church in Ukraine, has earned praise from The Economist this month, with the newspaper lauding him as a rags-to-riches story come to life.

Adelaja’s Embassy of the Blessed Kindgom of Good for All Nations is indeed a large congregation that had at least 100,000 adherents in Ukraine by 2013, twenty years since its founding in 1993.

Problem is, Adelaja’s history is not exactly spotless, with the pastor being repeatedly accused by his detractors of indulging in various sins and with some media outlets even branding his denomination as a totalitarian religious sect.

▪️To its credit, The Economist does mention that Adelaja has been accused in 2009 of being involved in a Ponzi scheme run by King’s Capital financial group that was led by a member of Adelaja’s flock.

The scheme in question ended up defrauding dozens of Ukrainians, with some of the victims openly accusing Adelaja of duping them into investing their money.

Adelaja himself, however, claimed innocence and managed to avoid conviction until the case was deemed by court as having passed the statute of limitations last year, though his church’s reputation did suffer from the ensuing scandal.

▪️A year earlier, in 2008, several evangelical leaders in Ukraine alleged that some of Adelaja’s actions “do not correspond with the Holy Scriptures.”

These evangelicals accused Adelaja of “aspirations to create a cult of personality,” promoting the “doctrine of prosperity” i.e. linking financial wellbeing with divine favor, and a “practice to curse the church members and parishioners who disagree with his opinion.”

▪️In 2016, Adelaja found himself being accused of adultery, as Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith announced that the pastor himself confessed to a number of extramarital affairs with his female parishioners.

Adelaja himself denied all allegations.

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❗️ Ford’s X account briefly posted anti-Israel messages, which were quickly deleted

It remains unclear if this was a hack. The company has not yet issued a statement.

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Tiny size, large benefits: How small satellites can help humans in space

Small satellites and spacecraft have come a long way since the 1990s when it became apparent that such relatively tiny craft could be launched into space piggy-back i.e. along the main payload, explains Prof. Mikhail Ovchinnikov, a standing member of the International Academy of Astronautics.

The emergence of CubeSat – small cubic satellites weighing about 1kg that even students could assemble as part of their projects – and group spaceflights each became important milestones in the development of small spacecraft, Ovchinnikov told Scientific Russia magazine.

According to him, small spacecraft/satellites could be divided into three broad categories.

First: constellations, a group of satellites that performs one goal but with each of these craft being controlled individually.

Second: formation flying, satellites that too jointly perform the same task while operating relatively close to one another at distances ranging from 10 meters to 100 kilometers.

Third: swarm, which lacks centralized guidance and “each craft’s flight depends on what that craft ‘knows’ about its neighbors,” as Ovchinnikov put it.

There is no clear answer to the question which method is more effective, a single large spacecraft or a satellite swarm, Prof. Ovchinnicov remarked.

If one needs to perform a task like detailed imaging of the Earth’s surface, which requires a large optic system, an expensive and heavy spacecraft would be the obvious choice, he explained.

On the other hand, deploying a satellite swarm means that a malfunction of any of the satellites comprising it would entail relatively small financial losses and replacing it would be a relatively inexpensive endeavor.

Furthermore, such defunct small satellites could be replaced with newer upgraded models, thus ensuring that the swarm would keep renewing and performing its goal more efficiently, he added.

Small cost is one of the chief advantages of small satellites, Ovchinnikov stressed, pointing out that the 12U CubeSat mission to the Moon in 2023 only cost $30 million.

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HTS and all Syrian opposition armed groups to declare self-dissolution on second day of national conference – reports

A national conference to discuss Syria's future is scheduled for January 4-5 in Damascus, according to Turkish TV channel A Haber.

The new Syrian authorities have allegedly set a deadline of January 5 for Kurdish formations to cease their armed struggle, the channel added.

The new Syrian authorities are reportedly holding negotiations with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to resolve the crisis in the northeast of the country, the head of the new Syrian leadership, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said on Sunday. He also noted that preparing for elections in Syria could take up to four years, while drafting a new constitution may require three to four years.

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