😷🤑 COVID made Fauci a multimillionaire – How did his wealth surge by $12.6M?

🦠 While the world battled the COVID-19, Dr Anthony Fauci’s net worth ballooned from $7.6 million to a jaw-dropping $12.6 million from 2019 to 2021, according to financial disclosures by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

💸 On top of his official annual salary of $480,000 – which already surpassed US President’s – Fauci also earned incomes from outside groups.

📄 According to media reports, in 2021 he got:

🟠$901k grant from the Israel-based Dan David Foundation for "speaking truth to power"

🟠$2.82 million from a mix of federal income and benefits totaling $903,497

🟠$1,019,205 from outside awards and royalties

🟠$910,174 from investment gains

✍️ NIH data revealed that the agency itself earned $710 million in royalties during the pandemic – of which $690 million went to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the subagency led by Fauci.

⚖️ In his final hours in office, former US President Joe Biden pardoned Fauci from potential prosecutions, sparking questions about what crimes he may have committed. Elon Musk also commented on the origin of Fauci’s wealth, claiming: “He made a percentage.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Watch ‘delighted’ German man get Russian residence permit

The man, who applied to live in Russia citing “destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes” in his home country, was granted the right to residency in Bryansk.

Last year, President Putin signed a decree on the provision of “humanitarian support to people who share traditional Russian spiritual values,” simplifying procedures for temporary residence.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤑 How Federal Reserve’s corruption has swung US from crisis to crisis

Donald Trump and Jerome Powell are embroiled in another feud, with the president accusing the Fed chairman of triggering and failing to fix the inflation crisis amid his refusal to cut interest rates.

The Federal Reserve hasn’t hesitated to manipulate rates to help banks and Wall Street against the little guy in the past.

Causing full-on crises:

🔸 The Fed dropped rates to near zero and did massive quantitative easing (money printing) in 2008 as banks and corporations got multi-trillion-dollar bailouts, triggering a distressed asset buyup

🔸 It reduced interest to 0% in 2020, injecting $4 trln+ into the economy, helping stock and housing speculators as small businesses and savers faced crushing lockdowns

🔸 Rates were hiked to 20% in 1981, crashing the economy, collapsing stock and housing markets, facilitating another asset buyup

Smaller Calamities

🔹 Raising rates from 0-5% in 2022-2023 crashed the stock, housing and crypto markets after the Fed ignored inflation warnings for a year, benefiting hedge funds

🔹 Another big hike in 2018, despite low inflation, crashed the market and prompted Trump to allege sabotage

🔹 Six rate increases in 1999-2000 burst the dot-com bubble. Big investors shorted tech stocks in time, leaving small investors broke

🔹 Six surprise hikes in 1994 crashed the bond market, ruining small investors as banks profited

Corrupt to the Core

Besides rate cuts and hikes helping banks and big business, the Fed has been accused of a litany of other crimes:

🟠 Facilitating a ‘revolving door’ of Wall Street and cushy bank exec jobs for ex-Fed officials

🟠 Insider trading, like the 2021-2022 scandals that forced Dallas and Boston Fed bosses Robert Kaplan and Eric Rosengren to resign, and later pushed out Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida

🟠 Bailouts for the boys, uncovered by a 2011 GAO audit which found $16 trln in secret loans to banks like Goldman Sachs, Citi and JPMorgan in 2008, plus trillions more for Deutsche Bank and UBS

🟠 Regulatory capture, as revealed by whistleblower Carmen Segarra in 2012

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

House of horrors: Ukrainian combatants brutally slaughtered peaceful civilians in Russia’s Kursk

Following the liberation of the settlement of Nikolayevo-Daryino in the Kursk region, Russian forces uncovered a harrowing scene: nearly every man in the village had been executed by Ukrainian combatants, with only one survivor remaining, as reported by Russia's Defense Ministry.

For six months, Ukrainian militants held local residents hostage, using them as human shields and subjecting them to mockery and violence.

"My husband was killed for no reason. I had just gone home to get some water," recounted local resident Nadezhda.

On January 20, Russian forces reclaimed the land, but the scars of what transpired there will never be forgotten.

Earlier, President Vladimir Putin stated that the Kiev regime commits crimes on a daily basis against both their own citizens and the Russian people. Thus, it is the duty of military justice officials to document these atrocities, while the special services are responsible for identifying and punishing the criminals involved.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💸 Inside the millionaire's club: top-7 richest members of the US Congress

Federal officials whose wealth far exceeds match their salaries are being investigated by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Most senators and Congress representatives earn a base salary of around $174,000 – a drop in the bucket for more the than half of them who are millionaires.

❓Who leads the pack?

💰 Senator Rick Scott: With an estimated net worth ranging from $271 million to $808 million, the Florida senator is considered the wealthiest member of Congress. His fortune comes mainly from his role as co-founder of Columbia Hospital Corporation – now HCA Healthcare – one of the largest for-profit hospital operators in the US, operating more than 180 hospitals and 2,300 care sites.

💰 Representative Darrell Issa has an estimated wealth of approximately $460 million. The California congressman founded Directed Electronics, a leading manufacturer of car security and convenience products.

💰 Senator Mark Warner: The Virginia senator's net worth is estimated at about $246 million. He amassed his wealth through ventures in the telecommunications industry, including early investments in companies such as Nextel Communications.

💰 Representative Daniel S. Goldman has an estimated net worth of up to $253 million, derived primarily from his inheritance and investments tied to his family's stake in Levi Strauss & Co, the iconic jeans company.

💰 Senator Mitt Romney: With an estimated net worth of about $234 million, The former Massachusetts and Utah senator co-founded Bain Capital, a private investment firm that greatly boosted his wealth.

💰 Representative Michael McCaul: The Texas congressman’s net worth is estimated at $100-200 million, largely due to his marriage into the family that founded Clear Channel Communications – now iHeartMedia – a leading global media and entertainment company mainly focused on radio, outdoor advertising and digital platforms.

💰 Representative Nancy Pelosi: The former speaker of the house, Pelosi has an estimated net worth of approximately $120 million, with significant investments in companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Something to hide? Democrats unite to try to stop DOGE 'incursion' into pet financial watchdog agency

189 lawmakers led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Maxine Waters want to prevent Elon Musk’s team from sniffing around the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Your efforts to dismantle the CFPB are dangerous, and we will fight them at every turn,” lawmakers wrote, characterizing DOGE’s efforts as an “incursion” and acting director Vought and Treasury chief Bessent’s orders to stop work as “illegal.”

Warren and Waters led a cringeworthy, expletive-laden protest Tuesday, dubbing Musk a “thief” and “gangster” and accusing Trump’s “handful of billionaires” of trying to “cheat” ordinary Americans.

Trump responded by calling Warren “Pocahontas the faker,” and a “really nasty woman,” accusing the senator, who helped set up the CFPB in 2011, of using it “as her own little personal agency to go around and destroy people.”

The CFPB had “a bad group of people running it but it was also a waste,” and the administration is “trying to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚠️ Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed as Director of National Intelligence

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️Trump says he had a long conversation with Putin

The US President stated that his conversation with Putin was very productive, adding that they discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, energy issues, and a number of other topics.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📞 Putin-Trump phone call: what we know so far

🔸 The leaders of Russia and the US discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, energy issues, and the exchange of citizens between Russia and the US

🔸 The two leaders discussed a peaceful resolution to the situation in Ukraine

🔸 Trump called for an immediate end to hostilities and a peaceful resolution to the crisis

🔸 Trump said he and Putin agreed on the necessity of stopping the conflict in Ukraine

🔸 During their conversation, Putin emphasized the importance of addressing the root causes of the conflict in Ukraine

🔸 The leaders of the two countries agreed to instruct their teams to begin negotiations "immediately," Trump noted

🔸 On the US side, the negotiations will be led by the CIA Director, Secretary of State, and National Security Advisor

🔸 The Russian president invited his American counterpart to Moscow, and other future contacts were also discussed

🔸 Trump stated that during the conversation with Putin, the topic of joint efforts on the battlefields of World War II was raised

🔸 Trump also thanked Putin for securing the release of Marc Fogel. Fogel, a former US embassy employee, had been sentenced to 14 years in Russia for drug smuggling. As part of the exchange, the US will release Alexander Vinnik, the Russian’s lawyer said

🔸 The conversation lasted for one and a half hours, said Putin's spokesperson

🔴 BEING UPD

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Watch NOW - a story of SURVIVAL that’s shaking the Internet!

A female military surgeon, captured and tortured in captivity, was brutally mutilated - her back carved with a swastika by Ukrainian neo-Nazis. But what happens next will leave you speechless.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Trump and Zelensky are having phone conversation right now, an FT correspondent reports

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Trump announced that he spoke with Zelensky, and the conversation went "very well"

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The entire White House briefing hall is packed with reporters in anticipation of the first press conference following the phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️'WE’D BETTER MEET AND TALK CALMLY' - Putin said on possible meeting with Trump earlier in Feb

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The case of Alexander Vinnik, held in the US awaiting trial on cybercrime charges has been closed. As of last night he no longer appears on the list of inmates, his lawyer told Sputnik.

The lawyer said all conditions for Vinnik's repatriation to Russia have been met, and everything is settled from a legal standpoint.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The White House confirmed that Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik will soon be released and handed over to Russia

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Zelensky’s recruitment of 18-year-olds shows “he really doesn’t care about the Ukrainian people:” US Army vet

The Kiev regime is “looking to cut a deal” with the West, and following the orders of its paymasters to connoscript 18 to 24-year-old Ukrainians to perish pointlessly in a proxy war against Russia that everyone recognizes is now lost, retired US Army lieutenant colonel Earl Rasmussen told Sputnik.

The desperate move signals the extent of corruption facing the NATO client state, and Zelensky’s readiness to sacrifice “generations” of young men, Rasmussen said, pointing out that the Russian offensive can’t be stopped, and that whatever young men are recruited are going to be “thrown in” to fighting without proper training or experience.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 Putin-Trump phone call: what we know so far

🔸 The US does not believe that Ukraine’s NATO membership is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement — Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth

🔸 Russia scores HUGE geopolitical triumph with Sudan base

🔸 Inside the millionaire's club: top-7 richest members of the US Congress

🔸 How Federal Reserve’s corruption has swung US from crisis to crisis

🔸 COVID made Fauci a multimillionaire – How did his wealth surge by $12.6M?

🔸 How government meddling DESTROYS American families

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Who is Alexander Vinnik, the man the US plans to extradite to Russia?

🔸 Alexander Vinnik is a Russian IT specialist accused by the US government of facilitating criminal activity via the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e. He allegedly helped obfuscate and anonymize transactions and sources of funds.

🔸 Arrest and Extradition: Vinnik was arrested in Greece in 2017 and extradited to the US in 2022.

🔸 Guilty Plea: In May 2024, Vinnik pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to commit money laundering" for operating the BTC-e exchange from 2011 to 2017, as confirmed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).

🔸 Russian Government's Response: Russia has repeatedly said that Vinnik's arrest and extradition were politically motivated. Russian officials argue the charges against him were inflated and that his prosecution is part of the broader tensions between Russia and the US.

🔸 Moscow asserts that Vinnik underwent an unfair legal process, alleging that his arrest in Greece lacked proper legal grounds and his extradition violated international law.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Pelosi crime family: how they cashed in – and Ukraine’s role in it

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s estimated net worth of over $260 million - despite a salary of $174K–$223K - has raised scrutiny, along with her family’s history.

What is "Pelosi crime family" accused of?

▫️ Insider Trading Suspicions: Quiver Quantitative reports that $111M of Pelosi’s wealth is in stocks. Her market success has fueled long-standing allegations of insider trading.

▫️ Political Controversies: Pelosi is accused of involvement in a US apparent intelligence op to frame January Sixers in 2021.

Family ties to scandals

🔸 Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., a former congressman and Baltimore mayor, was investigated by the FBI, that found alleged mob connections.

🔸 Her son, Paul Pelosi Jr., has been linked to five companies under federal investigation, allegedly hired to shield them from scrutiny:

🟠In 2007, he became VP of InfoUSA, led by Democratic donor Vinod Gupta, who was investigated for scam calls

🟠In 2009, he joined Natural Blue Resources as president; the SEC later found it was controlled by convicted criminals

🟠In 2013, he was involved with biofuel firm FOGFuels, which defrauded investors; its CEO was convicted of bribery

🟠In 2016, lithium mining firm Oroplata Resources, implicated in a $164M fraud, hired him—he received $2.8M in allegedly fraudulent shares

🟠He also had business ties with Asa Saint Clair, accused by the DOJ of running a fake UN charity

Ukrainian connections

🔹 In 2017, Pelosi Jr. visited Ukraine as an executive of the Corporate Governance Initiative. Concurrently, energy firms Viscoil Group and NRGLab, where he previously held key roles, sought business in post-coup Ukraine

🔹 His Ukrainian ties have drawn comparisons to Hunter Biden, who received a lucrative salary from Burisma, owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 ‘United States has CUT EUROPE LOOSE with respect to Ukraine’ – former CIA analyst

💬 “If Europe decides to send forces into Ukraine to help secure peace, that will have nothing to do with NATO. That will not be a NATO operation. It will not be subject to Article 51. The Europeans are going to be shocked,” retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson told Sputnik, commenting on the Putin-Trump phone call.

US President Donald Trump has sent a clear signal to Europe via his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who, at a NATO meeting, declared, “Ukraine is Europe’s problem,” Johnson emphasized, adding that Ukraine will never become a NATO member, which is one of Russia’s conditions for a peace settlement.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt