China sounds ALARM over US Blackrock’s TAKEOVER bid of key Panama ports

The deal by the American conglomerate to buy the facilities from a Hong Kong company CK Hutchison will be reviewed, Chinese antitrust regulator SAMR stated on its website.

Chinese state media has already labelled the potential deal a THREAT to national security.

The planned sale is part of a $22.8 billion deal whereby CK Hutchison had agreed to sell its 80% stake in subsidiaries managing 43 ports across 23 countries to a consortium led by BlackRock and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the FT reported.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukrainian special operations forces master the art of ‘retreat’

In a stunning display of ‘strategic planning’, the elite 6th Regiment of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SDF) has reportedly escaped from the Guyevo settlement in Russia's Kursk region, leaving infantry units to fend for themselves.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces command has now perfected the art of pulling back their elite units, carefully avoiding direct confrontation with the advancing Russian army.

That is another chapter in the ongoing saga of Ukrainian forces withdrawing their top-tier units from the front lines—leaving less experienced troops to bear the brunt.

In December 2024 nearly a thousand soldiers from the Ukrainian 155th Mechanized Brigade reportedly deserted as soon as they arrived at their combat positions. More recently, in February of this year, the Ukrainian Armed Forces withdrew an elite Marine battalion from the Sudzha district of Kursk region after it lost more than half its troops.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔍 What to know about USIP, yet another USAID-style soft power tool dismantled by DOGE

Most of the US Institute of Peace’s 300 staff got pink slip emails Friday following drama involving DOGE and FBI agents and police storming the think tank’s extravagant $111M DC HQ after the White House accused “rogue bureaucrats” of trying to “hold agencies hostage.”

📍Haven for NEOCONS and REGIME CHANGE operators

🔸 Set up in 1984 and lavished with a $55M taxpayer-funded annual budget, USIP has been a haven for neocons, from War on Terror and Iraq architects Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle to Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan, since its inception.

🔸 After the 2018 death of Gene Sharp, who collaborated with the USIP, USIP praised the veteran regime change operator - whose work helped destabilize entire regions, as “a pioneer of people power.”

📍Meddling in Russia and Ukraine

🔸 In the 90s, USIP funded “training and capacity building” for political actors, media, NGOs and ‘civil society leaders’ in Russia, Ukraine and across Eastern Europe, and offered “policy guidance” to US diplomats in these countries.

🔸 Forced to curtail its activities in Russia in the 2000s, USIP focused its work on Ukraine in the runup to the 2005 and 2014 coups.

🔸 Once the conflict in the Donbass got underway in 2014, then-USIP chief Stephen Hadley urged the US to ramp up arms deliveries to Ukraine and send Russian troops home in “body bags.”

📍SOFT POWER operations and post-invasion nationbuilding

🔸 Besides Eastern Europe, USIP has run its soft power programs in countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East following the Arab Spring (Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Syria).

🔸 In countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, the USIP’s activities have included nationbuilding in the wake of the US invasions, from civil society grants to training of the US-backed puppet governments’ officials.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Zelensky plans surprise election to outmaneuver rivals — report

A Ukrainian presidential election could happen in July, following a full ceasefire which the US believes could be achieved by the end of April, according to British magazine The Economist.

A Ukrainian government source said Volodymyr Zelensky plans to catch his rivals off-guard by calling a snap election, in the hope that the short time-frame will stop them organizing an effective campaign.

The timing will depend on a vote in the Verkhovna Rada parliament – set for May 8 – on lifting martial law, the first step toward holding elections. Ukrainian law mandates a 60-day election campaign, meaning the earliest possible ballot would be in July.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

New US nukes in Europe to violate nonproliferation commitments amid phony Trump-Europe divorce

No amount of “demagoguery on the part of European leaders” about “distancing themselves” from the Washington will convince Russia that the US is going to fold up its nuclear umbrella over Europe, says veteran Russian military analyst Viktor Litovkin.

💬 “In fact, they would be quite happy if the US continued to hold the [nuclear] umbrella over them, and the US itself continues to do so, simply demanding that European countries pay significantly more for their security than they do today,” Litovkin said, citing an 85%-15% imbalance in favor of the US.

As for the new B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs, which began arriving in Europe in January, their presence signals the US and NATO’s readiness to continue to ignore its treaty obligations, Litovkin said, citing their deployment as a “gross violation” of US commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

💬 “It’s not only about the deployment of nuclear weapons on foreign territory at six bases across five countries (Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Turkiye), but the fact that the US has trained pilots from these countries to use these bombs, outfitted their planes with equipment for using these bombs,” and facilitated their operation from Baltic bases right next door to Russia, Litovkin said.

💬 “The first article [of the NPT, ed.] states that a nuclear power may not, directly or indirectly, under any pretext, familiarize other countries that do not possess nuclear weapons with the operation, storage or production of nuclear weapons,” the military analyst pointed out.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Trump says he’s ‘NOT JOKING’ about possibility of a third term, says ‘there are methods’ for doing it.

“A lot of people want me to do it. But I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration,” Trump told NBC News Sunday.

“I’m focused on the current,” he added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 Never-before-seen video of Putin boarding Russia’s newest nuclear sub

The footage, showing the Russian president and his press secretary Dmitry Peskov boarding the fourth-generation nuclear-powered submarine cruiser Arkhangelsk, was shared by journalist Pavel Zarubin.

To get on board, they had to descend several vertical ladders, with one ladder measuring 5 meters and another 3 meters.

Despite the challenge, President Putin effortlessly made his way in and out of the submarine.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

US HAND in West’s proxy war in Ukraine REVEALED

The depth of US involvement in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has been laid bare by a New York Times investigation.

The report found:

1️⃣Secret US Ops in Germany:

🔸 As part of an operation called Task Force Dragon, the US army garrison at Germany’s Wiesbaden military base fed Ukraine targeting coordinates on Russian units, equipment and infrastructure for strikes.

🔸 US and NATO intelligence officers used satellite imagery, radio transmissions and intercepted communications to locate Russian positions.

2️⃣Task Force Dragon vetted and oversaw practically every HIMARS strike by Ukraine.

3️⃣Shifting Red Lines

🔸 The Biden administration ordederd a dozen US military advisers to Kiev, later expanding it to about three dozen.

🔸 Military advisers were then sent to Ukrainian command posts.

🔸 The US Navy was ordered to share targeting information for Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian warships near Crimea in 2022.

🔸 The CIA joined the covert operations to help Ukrainian drones strike Russian vessels in the port of Sevastopol.

🔸 US and Ukrainian military officers jointly planned ‘Operation Lunar Hail’ to launch attacks across Russian Crimea using Western-supplied drones in January 2024.

Bonus: Counteroffensive flop

Political rows within Ukraine, rivalries between Zelensky, then-armed forces chief, General Valery Zaluzhny and Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky in part fueled the 2023 failed counteroffensive.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🧐 Are they hoping he’ll die from cringe? Anti-Musk protesters caught using SUPER LAME noscripted chants 🤦‍♂️

DOGE administrator and Tesla owner Elon Musk has retweeted an “interesting” image featuring a list of chants for protesters to shout as they protest him and his car company.

🎶 “Hey hey, ho ho, President Musk has got to go,” says one chant, a play on an old classic probably repurposed hundreds of times since the 60s, when it was actually associated with something positive (opposition to the Vietnam War).

🎤 “The people united, Will never be defeated,” another chant, originating in Chile in the 1970s in opposition to the Pinochet coup, says. This relates to Musk how, exactly?

The existence of a ‘simplified chant sheet’ highlights what Musk and his supporters allege to be centralized coordination of the anti-Tesla campaign, with an investigation publicized last week revealing that George Soros had invested over $7.5 million into groups targeting the Trump ally’s car company.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Top Trump ally says president is working to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s economy

💬 “President Trump is going to ensure that his maximum pressure campaign on Iran continues to absolutely, abysmally obliterate the Iranian economy and put peace first, peace in the Middle East first,” Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has announced.

Trump “is absolutely committed to ensuring Iran never gets nuclear weapons capability,” Stefanik, whose candidacy as US UN ambassador was pulled by Trump last week amid the stalling of her nomination, told Fox News.

Trump threatened Sunday that “if they [Iran] don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” adding “it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.” Trump went on to say however that US and Iranian officials were “talking.”

💬 “We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday. “They must prove that they can build trust.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🪖 European ground troops in Ukraine idea a no-go, allies still considering naval, air deployment - reports

European powers intend to send a “military team” to Kiev in the coming weeks to determine how many personnel would be needed and where they might be stationed, with a large ground troop deployment deemed unworkable.

Two diplomats familiar with the discussions told WaPo the Europeans are focusing on air patrols and/or naval deployments in the Black Sea given the lack of US interest or support for the ground troops idea.

Some countries have reportedly “balked at” the idea of sending troops without US assurances, and want access to US air defense, intelligence and heavy airlift capability support.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko warned earlier this month that talk of NATO “peacekeepers” in Ukraine was “absurd” and that Russia “absolutely [does] not care under which nameplate NATO contingents could be deployed.”

💬 “If they appear there with the consent of Ukraine, that means they are located in the conflict zone, with all the consequences for these contingents” that this entails, Grushko said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 US HAND in West’s proxy war in Ukraine REVEALED

🔸 What to know about USIP, yet another USAID-style soft power tool dismantled by DOGE

🔸 SCAPEGOAT for nature’s fury: Democrats, Liberal media spin Myanmar tragedy to BLAME Trump’s USAID cuts

🔸 New US nukes in Europe to violate nonproliferation commitments amid phony Trump-Europe divorce

🔸 Ukrainian special operations forces master the art of ‘retreat’

🔸 Pentagon’s playbook: Leaked memo names NEW POTENTIAL THREATS

🔸 China sounds ALARM over US Blackrock’s TAKEOVER bid of key Panama ports

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🕵️‍♂️🇺🇸 Musk invited to CIA’s Langley HQ to ‘discuss government efficiency’ - report

A CIA spokesman said in a statement that agency director John Ratcliffe has invited the DOGE chief to come have a talk on potential cost-cutting.

The meeting is reportedly set to take place this coming Monday. No further details about it have been provided.

The CIA has paid lip service to DOGE and the Trump administration’s government efficiency drive, laying off up to 80 new hires and probationary staff earlier this month.

Musk already met with National Security Agency chief Timothy Haugh in March to make sure that the NSA is “aligned” with the administration’s priorities.

The Trump administration has not spared the military-industrial complex and security state from cuts, with Pentagon chief Hegseth recently touting $800 MILLION in savings achieved through DOGE.

Trump had a famously adversarial relationship with the CIA and other intelligence agencies during his first term over their treatment of the now-debunked Russiagate collusion claims, and his approach toward Russia and North Korea diplomacy.

The image is AI-generated

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸 Is the US on the brink of a stagflationary crisis? 😰📉💸

Stagflation – persistent high inflation combined with slow growth and high unemployment, pummeled the US and other industrial economies in the 1970s, and is threatening to make a comeback today amid flatlining growth and a jump in consumer prices.

An Axios analysis attributes stagflation warning signs cited by economists this week as evidence that the Trump administration “inherited a shakier economy than it seemed” from Joe Biden, and may be making things worse with its “aggressive” tariff wars policies.

Realtime Q1 GDP estimates by the Atlanta Fed show the US on track to negative 0.5% growth for the first quarter of the year, with inflation averaging 4.1% in January-February.

A new University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index survey, meanwhile, noted expectations among two-thirds of Americans for unemployment to spike (the highest rating since 2009 and the nadir of the global financial crisis). The same survey found that inflation expectations are set to reach 4.9% during the coming year, and 3.9% over the next five years.

“There is nothing more uncomfortable than a stagflationary environment,” Chicago Fed chief Austan Goolsbee told CNBC last week. “Higher tariffs raise prices and reduce output – that is a stagflationary impulse.”

Forbes says the impulse might be tamed if reciprocal tariff threats result in negotiations and compromises on trade, which is the Trump administration's stated expectation.

The image is AI-generated

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Trump & Starmer speak, agree ‘on the need to keep up the collective PRESSURE on Putin’ – reports

💬 "They discussed the productive negotiations between their respective teams on a UK-US economic prosperity deal, agreeing that these will continue at pace this week,” Sky News reported, quoting the readout published by the British Foreign Office.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump unveiled a new 25% tariff on all imported cars, a move that could severely impact the UK’s largest export market. Signing an executive order on Wednesday, Trump announced that the tax would take effect on April 2nd, calling it “Liberation Day.” British carmakers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, Aston Martin, and Rolls-Royce are expected to be hit hardest by the tariffs.

📌 Subscribe to @SputnikInt