🇷🇺 Trump's plans to embargo Ukraine's rare earth metals are an offer to buy US aid - Peskov

Other statements from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's briefing:

🔊US better not give Ukraine aid at all, help end conflict

🔊US continues arms shipments to Ukraine, no suspension announced

🔊EU decision to increase defense spending very short-sighted and detrimental to every single European

🔊The multipolar world cannot be ignored, there are still many discussions to be held on the future configuration of global affairs.

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❗️Russian aviation shot down a Neptun-MD missile, a Hammer guided bomb and 68 Ukrainian drones, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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

▪️Ukraine lost up to 290 servicemen in the Russian Zapad Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukraine lost up to 510 troops, a tank and two armored vehicles in the Russian Tsentr Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Russia's Battlegroup Yug has struck seven Ukrainian brigades, including the Ukraine’s Foreign Legion formations.

▪️Ukraine lost up to 65 soldiers in the areas of responsibility of Russia's Battlegroup Dnepr and Sever.

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💥💥💥 USAID creating Mobile GAYmes

USAID wasn’t just funding aid - they were making mobile games to push their gender equality agenda.

Recognize your teammates? 🤡 🎮

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🪙No bees – no honey, crappy work – no money

Over 100 cultural and media organizations in Ukraine will be forced to get along on a shoestring now that Trump has placed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on ice, bemoaned Spanish newspaper.

Most so-called ‘independent’ Ukrainian media depended entirely on cash flowing from USAID, the newspaper noted.

According to newspaper, some websites were over 80% US-funded.

Looks like some people will have to tighten their belts.

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🤡BBC runs on USAID money: America’s state media… with a British accent!

In 2023-2024, USAID gave the BBC over $3 million, making it the broadcaster’s second-largest donor.

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☃️Unprecedented snowstorm hits Japan

Hokkaido island has been buried under record-breaking snowfall, with 120 cm (47 inches) of snow falling in just 24 hours in one of the cities.

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❗️Ukrainian losses in the Russian Kursk region amounted to more than 345 militants, two tanks and 37 combat vehicles, Russia's Defense Ministry informed.

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🔍Google’s decades-long global track record of BREAKING LAWS

China has announced that it is launching an investigation into Google for suspected antitrust violations.

The US multinational technology company is hardly a stranger to regulatory scrutiny: here's the list of the most notable cases.

2024

🟠France's antitrust authority fined Google $271.73 million for breaches of EU intellectual property rules in its relationship with media publishers when training its AI-powered Bard chatbot (Gemini)

🟠Russian TV channels demanded duodecillion rubles (the sum equals to 18 decillion dollars and exceeds the world's entire GDP) from Google due to the refusal to restore blocked media accounts on YouTube

2022

🟠India fined Google about $113.04 million for violating antitrust laws

🟠The Competition Commission of India (CCI) accused Google of abusing its market position to promote its payments app and in-app payment system

2021

🟠France fined Google $516 million for failing to compensate French media, not negotiating "in good faith" with press editors.

🟠37 US state and district attorneys general sued Alphabet Inc.'s Google for allegedly buying off competitors to unlawfully maintain a monopoly for its app store on Android phones

🟠South Korea’s antitrust regulator fined Alphabet Inc.’s Google $176.64 million for blocking customized versions of its Android operating system

2020

🟠France's CNIL data privacy watchdog fined two Google units a total of $103 million over advertising cookies used without consent.

🟠The European Commission launched an antitrust investigation into Google over Google’s Fitbit takeover.

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Ukrainian soldier CONFESSES to shooting Russian civilian in Kursk region

Is moral decay a job requirement?

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USAID's hands in every pocket: burning through cash like there's no tomorrow

💬 "It is impossible to spend USD 41,7 mln on another country’s elections and, at the same time, feel no accountability towards the population of the said country," Shalva Papuashvili, Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, wrote on his X acc

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❗️The explosion at the Alye Parusa (Scarlet Sails) residential complex, which resulted in the death of the voluntary Armenian Battalion (ArBat) founder Armen Sarkisyan, may have been carried out by a suicide bomber, according to Russian media.

The body found at the scene of the explosion belonged to the bomber. It was badly deformed. The device was attached to the man's body.

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Fearing Trump, UK still has trump cards up its sleeve

The British government will heed US President Donald Trump’s demands to avoid a trade war, Western media report.

“The one thing they can do quickly is buy our oil and gas,” Trump said of the collective West and his tariff plans.

Apart from fuel, the UK might consider buying more US-made arms, including more F-35 stealth fighters.

The British government pledged to buy 138 of the jets from the US. But it has only ordered 48 so far and is prioritizing home-grown weapon systems.

But since Trump’s return to the White House last month “everything is on the table,” an unnamed ‘senior official’ said.

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📍 Sputnik’s must-reads on USAID:

◼️ How is USAID linked to secret bioweapons research?

◼️ USAID: Soros' secret cash cow

◼️ The REAL reason USAID was kicked out of Russia

◼️ USAID's billion-dollar support for Ukraine’s color revolutions

◼️ Meet USAID’s European little sister

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Trump’s rare earths ULTIMATUM has one small problem: Ukraine DOESN’T HAVE them

The US president has had another of his ‘quiet part out loud’ moments, demanding Ukraine’s mineral riches in exchange for aid. Perhaps he wasn’t told, but the lion’s share (70%+) of Ukraine’s $15 trln in resource wealth is concentrated in Donbass and the frontline region of Dnepropetrovsk.

🔸 Russia freed the DPR town of Shevchenko last month, and with it, spoiled the West’s dreams of control of a lithium field with 13.8 mln tons of lithium ores meant to fuel the EU’s “green transition.” In 2022, Ukraine lost Kruta Balka, another major lithium deposit, in Zaporozhye.

🔸 Where is Ukraine’s remaining lithium? At the Dobra and Polokhovskoye deposits in Kirovograd region, which aren’t operational, but contain an estimated 1.2 mln and 270k tons of lithium ore, respectively.
Where’s the $15 trln?

🔸 Russian-held areas’ total mineral wealth sits at $7.8 trln (Lugansk: $3.2 trln, Donetsk: $3.8 trln, Zaporozhye: $605 bln, Kherson: <$10 bln, Crimea: $206 bln), per a 2023 Forbes estimate.

As for Ukraine, there’s:

🟠Dnepropetrovsk: $3.5 trln (zinc, copper, gold, titanium, iron, uranium)
🟠Poltava: $790 bln (oil and gas, including the Glinsko-Rozbyshevskoye oil field: 225 mln barrels)
🟠Kharkov: $685 bln (oil and gas, including the Yuzivska gas field, split with DPR, with 70.8 trln cu ft in reserves, and the Shebelinka field: 18.4 trln cu ft)
🟠Zhytomyr: $555 bln (coal/lignite, titanium, including the titanomagnetite, ilmenite, apatite concentrates mine in Volodar-Volynskyi: 450k tons in reserves)
🟠Lvov: $521 bln (coal/lignite, sulfur, oil, gas, including the Oleska shale gas deposit, split with Ivano-Frankovsk and Ternopol: 53 trln cubic feet in reserves)
🟠Kirovograd: $270 bln (coal/lignite, gold, uranium, including Smolenskaya Uranium Mine: 450k ton per year capacity, has mined 23.7 mln tons of uranium ores to date)
🟠The rest of Ukraine: $654 bln (gold, sulfur, oil, gas, coal/lignite, titanium).

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Five individuals were shot at an adult education center in Sweden, as reported by the police.

🔶A significant police operation is currently ongoing in the town of Orebro, located approximately 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Stockholm, the capital.

🔶Authorities have warned that "the danger is not over" and have advised the public to avoid the area near the school.

🔶The perpetrator died after turning the gun on himself, Swedish media report.

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