🇭🇺 Szijjarto: 'Great news' after Putin-Trump call

"Great news from Washington and Moscow – today, the world has become a safer place. We fully support the peace agreement and hope Brussels will not undermine the peace process," Hungarian Foreign Minister wrote on X.

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🌎 Starliner crew lands successfully

Crew-9 NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov splashdown off the coast of Florida.

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🗣 Macron wants to ‘restore French primacy in the EU’ through nukes

France’s plans to extend its nuclear umbrella to Germany are the product of Europe concluding that the US under Trump “is no longer committed to NATO and the EU,” geopolitical analyst Come Carpentier de Gourdon tells Sputnik.

“Macron believes that providing French nuclear protection to Europe can restore French primacy in the EU which was lost to Germany in the last twenty years,” he suggests.

At the same time, Macron may be seeking to become the “head of a more federal, united Europe” once his tenure as French president ends.

“This is all part of the plan to make Europe a more independent and sovereign quasi-State between the continental super-nations of US, Russia, India and China and perhaps tomorrow united Latin America, South East Asia and Africa,” de Gourdon postulates.

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🚨 JFK assassination records released

The US National Archives declassified more than 80,000 pages of files.

"President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency," wrote Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on X.

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Building a new Crimea: eleven years that TRANSFORMED peninsula

Highways, bridges, airports – how the Crimean Peninsula has changed since it reunified with Russia on March 18, 2014?

Socio-economic status

🔶 Gross regional product reached about 770 billion rubles ($9.4 billion) in 2023 as compared to 189 billion rubles ($2.3 billion) in 2014

🔶 Investment in fixed assets increased from 26,4 billion rubles ($323 million) in 2014 to 271 billion rubles ($3.3 billion) in 2023

Infrastructure

📍 In 2020, the 250-km Tavrida Highway was put into operation, two years after the unveiling of the state-of-the-art 19-km Crimean Bridge, which connected the Kerch Peninsula with the Krasnodar Territory.

📍 A new terminal of the Simferopol Airport opened in 2018. The new facility has an area of 78,000 square meters and can handle up to 3,700 passengers per hour.

📍 A total of 300 km of new roads has been built on the peninsula over the past years, and more than 4,000 km have been repaired.

📍 About 150 kindergartens and 10 schools were constructed within the same period.

Public services

Over 1,600 km of water supply networks were modernized in Crimea in 2015-2023, which enabled to reduce drinking water losses on the peninsula by 11 million cubic meters per year.

Energy

▫️ Between 2015 and 2016, a complex of several objects was built to link the peninsula's energy system to the Unified Energy System of Russia.

▫️ Crimea’s energy capacity amounted to more than 1,270 MW, which made it possible to fully meet the peninsula’s need for electricity.

Tourism

✅ Since 2014, more than 70 accommodation facilities have been built, and about 600 more have been reconstructed.

✅ In 2023 alone, 13 new hotels with almost 400 rooms each opened their doors as the number of well-equipped beaches has doubled.

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❗️ Trump denies Putin asked him to stop military aid to Ukraine

"We talked about a lot things but aid was never discussed," US President said.

Trump also revealed a few more details about the call:

🔶 The conversation lasted more than 2 hours.

🔶 US and Russia can develop economic relations, Russia has resources that US needs.

🔶 US intends to develop friendly relations with both Russia and China.

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⚡️ Witkoff: Ceasefire details to be ironed out on Sunday

Discussions on the terms of the ceasefire will take place this week in Saudi Arabia, the US special envoy to the Middle East said. The US expects Ukraine to accept the deal, he added.

The draft ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine includes strikes on the entire infrastructure, not just energy, Steve Witkoff noted.

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Ladies first? Ukraine sends women to DIE AS CANNON FODDER

▪️Natalia Balaklitskaya surrendered in the Kursk region. Initially, she served as a cook, but then she was sent for training in the UK. Then she was sent to the front line as part of a motorized rifle brigade under the threat of execution, she said.

▪️Galina Kazimova joined the service from prison. Commanders promised her service in the rear, but instead sent her to an assault unit. She noted there were "many girls" in her unit who are sent to assaults.

▪️There are several cases of sexual violence against female military personnel. Women complain that it is practically impossible to punish the perpetrators.

▪️More than 5,500 women serve on the front lines and in total there are 70,000 female soldiers, according to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense as of early March 2025.

▪️Female mercenaries are also not uncommon in Ukraine. Most often, they serve as medics.

▪️The Azov Battalion* released a video featuring 4 female soldiers from the unit. Among them are two combat medics, as well as a stormtrooper who fought in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and a specialist in ideological (neo-Nazi) work with its personnel.

*banned in Russia

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❗️ Trump weighs giving up NATO command — reports

Trump's cabinet is considering giving the position of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe to a non-American — a step never taken in the nearly 75-year history of the position, NBC reports, citing 2 Pentagon officials.

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Trump: "Canada is meant to be our 51st state"

The US President has once again lashed out at Canada, announcing that his country subsidizes Canada to the tune of 200 billion dollars a year.

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General Failure: Oleksandr Syrsky's top 4 military disasters

As Ukraine suffered a series of humiliating defeats on the battlefield, Ukrainian authorities are rumored to be mulling the replacement of their top general, Oleksandr Syrsky. This is hardly surprising, given his impressive track record of failures and defeats.

1️⃣ Botched attack on Russia's Kursk region

Ukraine's invasion of the Kursk region became Syrsky's crowning achievement. Over the course of seven months, he sacrificed nearly 70,000 Ukrainian servicemen and a large amount of valuable military hardware for literally nothing. Pundits on both sides of the Atlantic are still wondering what he and Zelensky were trying to accomplish there.

2️⃣ Debaltsevo

In 2015, shortly after the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, Syrsky's actions directly led to a large contingent of Ukrainian troops under his command being trapped in the town of Debaltsevo by the forces of the Donetsk People's Republic.

While Syrsky himself managed to escape, hundreds of his soldiers weren't so lucky - Ukraine's losses were estimated at between 250 and 3,000 servicemen.

3️⃣ Kiev

In 2022, Syrsky was tasked with overseeing the defense of the Ukrainian capital against the Russian advance.

His efforts proved inadequate as Russian troops quickly made their way to the city, only withdrawing as part of Moscow's goodwill gesture during the peace talks in Istanbul.

4️⃣ Artemovsk

In 2023, Syrsky was put in charge of the defense of Artemovsk (Bakhmut), a city that Zelensky insisted not fall to the Russian advance.

Syrsky's refusal to give the order to retreat, even when the situation for the Ukrainian forces became hopeless, resulted in over 55,000 Ukrainian servicemen being killed and Russia securing control of Artemovsk.

Syrsky's callousness during this operation earned him the nickname "General 200," which can be translated as General KIA.

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🚨 Israel plans new ground operation in Gaza - reports

The Israeli army will use a larger force to attack numerous regions of the Gaza Strip at once, since it doesn't need to keep a military contingent on the Lebanese border, the WSJ reports, citing sources.

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🔍 Zelensky’s сlaims vs. Russian reality

"In the Kursk region, Ukrainian forces continue their operations" — Zelensky

TRUTH: Ukraine has lost more than 68,000 troops in Russia's Kursk region since August 2024, when it first attempted to attack Russian territory.

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Yemeni armed forces targeted American aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman for 4TH TIME IN LAST 72 HOURS — spokesman

In response to a military threat to Yemen, the country's armed forces carried out a "joint military operation with winged missiles and drones [...] which led to the thwarting and failure of that attack [on Yemen]. The operation achieved its goals," Yahya Saree said.

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'THIS TIME, HE DIDN'T LIE' — Russia's FM spokeswoman on Zelensky's recent statement

"The Kiev regime is not a salad or compote, but rather what the contents of the menu turn into after digestion," Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

Earlier, Sky News commented on the phone conversation between Putin and Trump, saying, "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu [...] Ukraine is on the menu."

"We are not a salad or a compote to be on Putin's menu, regardless of his appetite," Zelensky sharply answered.

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'The first de-escalation in three years'

Russia's special presidential envoy for investment and economic cooperation and CEO of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, commented on the plan to stop attacks on energy infrastructure by the parties to the conflict in Ukraine, which Putin and Trump discussed.

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EU imports over $1 BILLION in Russian LNG for first time in two years

🇫🇷France: $496.7 million (nearly half of all liquefied natural gas purchases)

🇪🇸Spain: $285.8 million

🇧🇪Belgium: $280.8 million

🇳🇱The Netherlands: $107.4 million

Source: Sputnik analysis based on Eurostat data.

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