❗️Ukrainian forces have struck the Svatovo gas distribution station in the Lugansk People’s Republic using drones, LuganskGaz says.

Ukraine has been repeatedly violating the moratorium on energy strikes which was agreed upon earlier this month.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🪖Greece DIALS UP Defense, rolls out multi-billion plan for military REVAMP

NATO member Greece is aggressively ramping up its militarization efforts, with arms spending already nearing 3% of its GDP – almost double the EU average.

The country’s ambitious $26.99 billion defense upgrade, set to stretch until 2036, will fund new submarines, cutting-edge drones, a communications satellite and the "Achilles Shield" – a state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-drone system, according to sources quoted by Reuters.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Kirill Dmitriev, Special Envoy of the Russian President for investment and economic cooperation will meet with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, today at the White House, a CBS News journalist reports, citing sources.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔥Russian operators adjust UAVs IN SECONDS to combat Ukrainian FPV drones

In a remarkable display of adaptability, operators of the Russian armed forces from the 40th Separate Guards Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet have shown their ability to quickly reconfigure unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to counter threats from Ukrainian Armed Forces’ first-person view (FPV) drones.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Chagos Islands: Indian Ocean archipelago at the center of a SUPERPOWER COMPETITION for maritime supremacy

The US has signed off on Britain’s transfer of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, pending agreement on the terms of a 99-year lease on the Diego Garcia UK-US military base.

The Chagos Archipelago, split from Mauritius in 1965 and turned into a UK overseas territory, symbolizes British imperialism in the modern era, with 2,300-3,500 locals expelled to make way for the Diego Garcia base.

Strategic significance

🔸 The islands are situated smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, giving their owner unobstructed access to Africa and the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and Australasia, and four of nine of the world’s maritime chokepoints.

🔸 The US has spent up to $10B building and upgrading Diego Garcia since the 1970s, with its deep-water harbor facilities able to station, refuel, and resupply warships of any size, including carriers, and its 3,600+ meter-long primary runway accommodating all aircraft types, including strategic bombers.

🔸 Diego Garcia was used in the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars, Somalia, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and the 2011 bombing of Libya.

🔸 It’s also a satellite, electronic and over-the-horizon radar reconnaissance stronghold, communicating with US SSBNs in the Indian Ocean.

Indispensable tool of empire

🔹 The Chagos Islands allow the US to monitor and wage operations against China, adversaries in the Middle East, rising nations in Africa and Asia, and India, whose warm ties with Washington aren’t a historical guarantee.

🔹 The UNGA adopted a resolution in 2019 demanding Britain’s unconditional withdrawal from the islands, with Russia, China, India and 113 others in favor and only six (Australia, Hungary, Israel, Maldives, UK and US) opposed.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Markets JITTERY as Trump’s 'Liberation Day' tariffs loom

European stocks took a nosedive today, with Bayer of Germany leading the decline, dropping 4.7%, followed closely by France’s Sanofi, which fell 3.3%. The Stoxx 600 healthcare index suffered a significant setback, plummeting 2.5% to its lowest level since December.

In broader market movements, London's FTSE 100 slipped 48 points (0.55%) to settle at 8,587. Meanwhile, Germany's DAX fell 1%, and France's CAC experienced a modest decline of 0.

In contrast, gold, often viewed as a safe haven in turbulent times, traded 0.2% higher at $3,116.2 an ounce after reaching a record high of $3,148.8 an ounce on Tuesday.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹Special military bikes: Meet Russian assault transport from motorcycles to buggies

Transport on the front line provides great assistance to assault companies. It allows faster movement and escape from enemy drones.

Here's what Russian soldiers use:

▪️Here's how the Española Brigade’s motorcycle assaults entered Chasov Yar last summer.

▪️The Fagot anti-tank missile system crew, riding a quad bike, destroys enemy equipment and manpower. Zaporozhye, November 2024.

▪️That's how Russian soldiers move across the battlefield – on small but fast buggies.

▪️Gasoline for refueling, including for motorbikes, is delivered to the front line by the fuel service. Thanks to their work nobody runs dry.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Ukrainian barrier units shoot prisoners who try to flee – PoW

Ukrainian Armed Forces are reportedly sending prisoners to the front lines, with ‘barrier units’ tasked with shooting any who attempt to retreat, a Ukrainian prisoner of war told Sputnik.

While the captured soldier did not personally witness the events, he heard first-hand accounts from fellow troops who were sent reinforcements directly from Ukrainian prisons.

The "motivational troops," as he calls them, are part of a strategy aimed at preventing retreat, often at the expense of the prisoners' lives.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚔️ Houthis ‘have essentially eliminated’ a US carrier strike group from East Asia ‘without having to fire a shot’ – report

With the redeployment of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to the Middle East, Yemen’s Houthi fighters are “tying up” two US carrier strike groups, undermining American plans against China in the Indo-Pacific, US defense news and analysis site 19fortyfive has grumbled.

🗣 The deployment “means that the Navy has actually pondered the unthinkable – that the Truman or the Vinson could be hit by a Houthi missile,” the outlet said.

💬 “In the Middle East, an op-ended shooting war with the Houthis would be disastrous. It is limited in scope now, but a carrier hit would raise the stakes to Vietnam War or even World War Two-like combat posture,” the website predicted.

💬 “The stubborn Houthis have the missiles to make the Americans stay out of range,” presenting an unprecedented threat to US military power primed to take on defenseless countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The outlet warned that even if the US sought to “eliminate” every fighter in the event of a successful carrier attack, it “would take a land warfare force of Marines, and there is no way this administration will ever have boots on the ground in the Middle East again.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📉 Slump in US-Russia trade spark potential for new strategic partnerships

While trade between the US and Russia has reached its lowest point since 1992, a new shift opens doors for potential strategies and growth in future economic cooperation. At the same time, Russia-China trade continues to grow, with the trade volume in 2024 rising by 1.9% compared to 2023 – reaching a new record high of $244.81 billion.

📊 Check out #sputnikinfographic for details

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Ukrainian troops dressed as civilians try to cross to Russian side

Russian forces liberating settlements in the special operation zone always pay close attention to adult men, a sniper from the 40th Marine Brigade told Sputnik. Those without documents get special checks.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇳 Germany's FM and IAEA Head eye top UN roles: do they have what it takes?

The German government reportedly plans to nominate Annalena Baerbock for UN General Assembly chair. Rafael Grossi is “seriously considering” running for the post of UN Secretary-General.

🤡 Baerbock

A track record mired in diplomatic fails that include:

🔸 Claiming Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” during a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in 2023.

🔸 Saying Russia’s President Vladimir Putin needs to change “360 degrees” for Ukraine to be safe

🔸 Offering to help Ukraine “as long as it needs,” regardless of the concerns of Germany’s voters

😁 Baerbock's speech fails:

🔹 Confusing “Ostukraine” (Eastern Ukraine), with “OstCocaine.”

🔹 Instead of saying "beacon of hope" accidentally saying "Speck der Hoffnung" ("bacon of hope") during a 2023 speech in South Africa.

🤡 Grossi

◾️ Outrageously overstepped authority by saying IAEA’s experts will remain at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant “until the conflict comes to a new phase… a frozen conflict,” said the Russian Foreign Ministry.

◾️ Lacked the courage to acknowledge that Ukraine is the sole source of security threats to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), said Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky.

◾️ Underplayed risks of depleted uranium supplied to Ukraine by the US and the UK, claimed the munitions had no significant radiological consequences from the standpoint of ‘nuclear safety.’
Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly pushed for UN reform, calling for more representation from Asia, Africa, and Latin America in key UN bodies.

The image is AI generated

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Rescuers in Myanmar have pulled a man ALIVE from the rubble five days after a devastating earthquake struck the region.

The death toll from the quake has now surpassed 3,000, China’s state media Xinhua reported.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

De-MOCK-racy in action: who besides Le Pen has been targeted for challenging Euro commissars’ diktat?

A Paris court has barred Marine Le Pen from seeking political office for five years, leaving her unable to challenge Emmanuel Macron in the 2027 French presidential elections.

💬 “If political leaders or magistrates decide who can run and for whom the French people can vote, we’re no longer a democracy,” Le Pen said at a press conference after the decision.

Who else have the ‘magistrates’ gone after?

🇷🇴 Calin Georgescu

Populist politician questioning Romania’s membership in NATO and the EU, stripped of the right to take part in presidential elections canceled after he won 23% of the vote in the first round – more than any establishment candidate. The reason? Claims of ‘Russian meddling’ and irregularities in campaign financing.

🇲🇩 Evgenia Gutsul

Head of Moldova’s Gagauzian autonomy, arrested last week by prosecutors’ request. The charges? Corruption and illegal financing claims related to the now-banned Sor Party, which sought better ties with Russia amid Chisinau’s drift toward the EU. Gutsul dismissed the ‘fabricated’ allegations, calling authorities’ actions a politically-motivated attempt to crush the interests of the Gagauz people.

🇧🇦 Milorad Dodik

President of Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb autonomy. A Bosnian court issued an international arrest warrant against him last week on the charge that he ‘attacked the constitutional order’. Dodik has fought a years-long political battle with Sarajevo over its efforts to join the EU and NATO, and sought an independence vote on peaceful separation amid attacks on Serb interests.

🇬🇪Mikheil Kavelashvili

Georgia’s president since December 2024, Kavelashvili has been dragged through the mud by Brussels, with the EU refusing to recognize his legitimacy, and backing outgoing president Salome Zourabichvili instead. The reasons? Kavelashvili’s suspension of EU accession talks, critique of Brussels’ diktat, and calls for an independent foreign policy, including better relations with Russia.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📉 UK’s new foreign influence scheme aims to divert Britons’ attention from economic troubles: Russian embassy

The Embassy called the scheme “another discriminatory barrier to the long-term restoration of Russian-British relations…erected out of thin air,” and accused the Starmer government of squandering the chance to abandon “the Tories’ failed confrontational course” against Russia.

London may be hoping the measure will distract ordinary Britons from “depressing” news, like cuts to social benefits and rising electricity costs, the Embassy suggested.

The UK announced a two-tier Foreign Influence Registration Scheme April 1 requiring anyone alleged to be working with or for a foreign state to register, on penalty of up to five years in prison.

The scheme can target everything from as “the transfer of funds from an individual abroad to an individual in the UK or vice versa” to a social media post aimed at individuals in the UK, “even if it is posted by an individual overseas.”

Russia and Iran have been placed in the scheme’s “enhanced tier” of threats.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asked whether the measure would require British vets who got medals from Russia for participation in the WWII Arctic convoys to register and hand them in, and whether the UK’s National Space Center would now be listed as a Russian Aerospace Forces base due to past Russian-British cooperation in space.

She also wondered aloud whether the traditional Muscovy hat worn by the swordbearer of the Lord Mayor of the City of London would result in them being labeled “agents of the Kremlin.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Israeli jets strike scientific research center in Damascus – reports

Israeli attacks also targeted the outskirts of the city of Hama, local media said. Considerable destruction was reported in the aftermath of the Damascus attack.

The research center in Damascus is believed to be the Barzah Scientific Research Facility, or Institute 2000. The center, alleged by the US to connected to Syria’s chemical weapons program, was targeted in joint US, French and British strikes in 2018.

OPCW inspections of the facility in 2017 found no evidence of prohibited chemicals, or any violations by Syria of its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt