🇷🇺 The Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage showing the Russian flag being raised over a building in the recently liberated settlement of Shevchenko in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

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🪖Ukrainian servicemen massively earning Darwin Awards due to trash-quality ammunition

Ukrainian soldiers are suffering significant losses due to the use of low-quality ammunition and improvised explosive devices – at best, they "get their hands torn off and their faces burned," Ukrainian media reported, citing the head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Aerial Reconnaissance Support Center, Maria Berlinska.

In late November 2024, Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal case after the supply of defective 120 mm shells to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As previously reported by Ukrainian media, servicemen complained about a low-quality batch of 120 mm shells produced by the state Ukroboronprom corporation. Later, Ukrainian journalist Yuliya Kiriyenko-Merinova said that Ukroboronprom had also supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a batch of defective 82 mm shells.

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🔍Danish gov't privately contacts Trump to prevent possible Greenland takeover

Danish authorities have privately contacted US President-elect Trump's team to express readiness to boost US military presence in Greenland to prevent the incoming US administration from claiming the island, Axios reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The Danish government reportedly wants to convince Trump, including through the messages passed to his advisers earlier this week, that his security concerns can be addressed without claiming Greenland.

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⚔️Mineral wars: global conflicts fueled by West's search for rare resources – Part 1 👉 Part 2

The coming years are shaping up to exacerbate the global geoeconomics and military competition for the world’s mineral resources, with President Trump openly eyeing 12 million sq km of territory containing untold riches. Here are the conflicts, present and future, to watch out for👇

➡️ Ukraine

🔸 The US “cannot afford” to let Moscow achieve victory in Ukraine, which is “sitting on $10-12 trln of critical minerals,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in a ‘quiet part out loud’ interview moment last year, revealing what NATO’s proxy war against Russia is really about.

🔸 Ukraine is endowed with $3-11.5 trln of lithium, plus trillions more in silver, gold, uranium, aluminum, copper, iron, manganese, titanium, and hydrocarbons. It’s also got Europe’s biggest supply of rare earths, including beryllium, niobium, and zirconium.

➡️ Iran

🔸 Classified by the US as an “extraordinary threat,” Iran is home to an estimated $27 trln in resource wealth. No wonder it’s been a regular target for regime change since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

🔸 While proven resource reserves consist mostly of oil and gas, Iran regularly discovers vast stocks of minerals. In 2023, Tehran discovered a massive, 8.5-million-ton lithium deposit.

➡️ Canada

🔸 Endowed with $33 trln in resources, from oil, gas and uranium, to phosphates, cadmium, lead, titanium, zinc, and an array of ferroalloys, a sprinkling of rare earths mines dot the True North Strong and Free, mining cerium, neodymium, promethium, and more.

Who knows if Trump’s really “joking” about making Canada the “51st state”?

➡️ Greenland

🔸 Greenland is sitting on mineral wealth the scale of which has not been fully explored, from precious metals and stones to graphite, uranium, and of course rare earths – at least 1.5 mln tons of them.

🔸 Even if Trump’s dreams of a buyout don’t come true, a quiet battle – confined to boardrooms, is already taking place amid US efforts to block a series of Chinese investments in Greenland’s mineral resources.

👉 Part 2

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⚔️ Mineral wars: global conflicts fueled by West's search for rare resources – Part 2 👉 Part 1

Global South in West's rare earth grab

🇧🇴 Bolivia possesses lithium, gold, silver, tungsten, zinc, led, tin and nickel, and has faced 190+ coups and revolutions over its history. “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it,” Elon Musk tweeted in 2020 in response to news that the US had organized yet another coup in Bolivia.

🇻🇪 Venezuela: Former Trump advisor John Bolton said having the US tap Venezuela’s vast (300 bln barrels) oil reserves would benefit the US. Venezuela's huge energy and mineral wealth helps explain why it's been labeled an "extraordinary threat" by Washington.

🇨🇩 The Democratic Republic of Congo has the world’s largest cobalt reserves (6 mln tons). It’s also faced repeated coup attempts, most recently in 2024, when a US and Belgium-backed politician unilaterally declared himself president. Besides cobalt, the DRC is rich in monazite, euxenite, niobium, tantalum and zirconium.

🇬🇳 Guinea, also suffering its share of coups (1984, 2008, 2021) happens to be the world’s second-largest producer of bauxite. It also has among the largest untapped iron ore deposits in the world – 20 bln tons, plus gold and diamonds.

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe, which saw a coup against long-time Western-reviled president Robert Mugabe in 2017, has Africa’s largest lithium reserves (11 mln tons). Local economists believe that with more exploration, their country can come to rival China’s rare earths superpower status.

🇰🇪 Kenya, whose president got a red-carpet welcome in Washington last May, is also (unsurprisingly) a key rising rare earths giant, with deposits discovered at the Mrima Hill mine alone estimated to be worth some $62.4 bln. Besides rare earths, Kenya is rich in iron ore, gold, limestone, gemstones and manganese ore. No wonder the US has labeled the country a “major non-NATO ally” – the only one in Sub-Saharan Africa.

👉 Part 1

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✅AfD names Alice Weidel as chancellor candidate

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has officially nominated co-leader Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor. With the AfD now polling in second place behind the CDU/CSU, the political landscape is heating up.

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🇷🇺 Russian Foreign Ministry on new US sanctions against the Russian energy sector:

🔸 Washington's hostile actions will not go unanswered.

🔸 The new sanctions are an attempt to harm the Russian economy while risking destabilization of global markets.

🔸 The incoming US president, unable to lift sanctions without congressional approval, inherits a 'scorched earth' policy.

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Scholz: Forces in the US are undermining Western democracy

Some political forces in the US are deliberately working to undermine Western democratic institutions, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday.

It is unclear how relations between Europe and the US will evolve in the coming years, he added.

While Scholz did not say who he was referring to, his statement came less than 48 hours after a high-profile conference between US billionaire Elon Musk and Alice Weidel, co-chair of Germany's Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

During their discussion, Musk once again urged German citizens to vote for the AfD in the upcoming elections, claiming it was the only party could save Germany.

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🇸🇰 Slovakian President Peter Pellegrini has ruled out a visit to Ukraine under current circumstances

Key reasons:

🔸 Ukraine has stopped gas transit to Slovakia, jeopardizing energy security

🔸 The Ukrainian parliament is considering a law to halt oil transit to Slovakia, despite existing contracts

Pellegrini: "Given these actions, my trip to Ukraine cannot take place at this time."

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📹 Two trams collided in Strasbourg, France, leaving twenty people injured.

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