⚡️The supply of oil from the US to China will decrease ALMOST TO ZERO due to Trump's tariffs, Bloomberg reports.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🤝🇺🇸Russia, United States exchange prisoners in UAE

The swap took place in Abu Dhabi on April 10 in a sign of continuing confidence building, the WSJ reported.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe and a senior Russian intelligence official led the talks for the swap, according to a CIA source, highlighting the growing communication between the intelligence agencies of both countries.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out 11 attacks on Russian energy infrastructure facilities, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

The strikes targeted facilities in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, the Zaporozhye, Kursk, Kherson, Bryansk, Belgorod regions, and in Krasnodar Krai.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Russian troops liberated the settlement of Zhuravka in the Sumy region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

✅The prisoner exchange with the United States took place at Abu Dhabi airport, facilitated by the UAE, Russia's FSB confirmed

The agency reported that Russian citizen Artur Petrov, detained in Cyprus at the request of the US, was exchanged for Ksenia Karelin, who had been convicted of treason.

Ksenia Karelin, transferred to the US as part of the exchange, was pardoned by a presidential decree in April, the FSB stated.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹The exchange between Russian citizen Artur Petrov and US citizen Ksenia Karelin.

Footage from Russia's FSB

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🍌 White House to journalists: Pronouns mean no press pass

“Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth, and therefore CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO WRITE AN HONEST STORY,” Karoline Leavitt told The Washington Post.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The EU will suspend the introduction of countermeasures against US tariffs for 90 days but will continue working on them, Ursula von der Leyen stated.

The EU will still implement countermeasures if the negotiations on this issue fail, she emphasized.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💬 From hunger to fear: elderly woman recounts brutal experience in Kursk region under Ukrainian forces

A woman who spent more than seven months under the Ukrainian occupation in the Kursk village of Martynovka told Sputnik that she had lost almost 30 kilograms.

"Not even a loaf of bread or bread crust; I didn’t eat anything, not even a gram. They [Ukrainians] only laughed at me," she said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Ukraine was not discussed at Russian-US talks in Istanbul – Kremlin

Other Kremlin statements:

🔸 European countries have not changed their policies on seized Russian assets; the trend is not very positive

🔸 Russia will never give up its rights to its assets and will take action to protect them abroad

🔸 Europeans are overstepping the bounds of democracy that they tried to teach other countries, including Russia

🔸 On Zelensky's claim that Russia is trying to draw China into the Ukraine conflict: Beijing has always taken a balanced position

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❓Could presidential frontrunner Lee Jae-myung bring STRATEGIC POLICY SHIFT for South Korea?

Lee Jae-myung is leading the race for president, according to a Gallup poll. Let's break down his position on major geopolitical issues:

🔍Ukraine
🟠Warned against South Korea being “dragged” into the Ukraine proxy war and told the WSJ that he “highly values” Donald Trump’s efforts to end the conflict.
🟠Applauded that “Trump would do whatever it takes to defend America, even if it means a TARIFF WAR with allies or engaging adversaries to end the Ukraine war. It’s a lesson we should learn from,” he presciently said in February.
🟠Triggered backlash after saying in 2022 that "In Ukraine, a novice politician of six months became president and declared [Ukraine's] accession to NATO, which provoked Russia and eventually led to a clash."

🔍Russia: Deepening confrontation between South Korea, the US, and Japan versus North Korea, China, and Russia is damaging the country’s economy.

🔍The US and China: Lee Jae-myung supports strong trade relations and military cooperation the US, while asserting that it is “not incompatible” with “strategic cooperative partnership” with China.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The Russia-US talks in Istanbul have concluded, reports a Sputnik correspondent.

The consultations lasted almost 6 hours.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨'When tigers fight, the Wise Monkey sits & observes'

🇷🇺 This was President Putin's response to US-China trade wars back in 2019

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📉Trump’s trade war pushes US shale oil industry to the edge

If prices don't recover in the next couple of months, "devastating events" could unfold in the Permian Basin – the world's most productive oilfield and the backbone of the US oil industry – Latigo Petroleum president Kirk Edwards told the Financial Times.

Many Texas producers could be left below the break-even point after prices fell 12% following Trump's tariff announcement, executives said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹Ukrainian youth pressed into military service

A captured Ukrainian soldier said was assured he would serve in a non-frontline unit, but after signing the contract he was shocked to learn he was being sent on a combat mission instead, the PoW revealed to Sputnik.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian strikes OBLITERATE Ukraine’s top artillery munitions plants: the details

💬 “Our main national munitions production site has been wiped out,” an officer from the Ukrainian Army’s 104th Brigade revealed to Le Monde this week in an exposé on Russian drone and missile operations against strategic targets in Shostka, Sumy region.

The Zvezda and Impulse factories were targeted repeatedly in 2024, including a massive attack by 13 ballistic missiles on December 31, the officer said.

Here’s what we know about these critical factories:

Zvezda

1️⃣Produced charges for 122, 125, 130, and 152 mm artillery rounds, 125 mm tank gun rounds, 23 and 30 mm autocannon munitions, hunting smoke, nitrocellulose (pyroxylin) powder, electrical insulating materials, special varnishes for aviation and electronics, solvents, and adhesives.

2️⃣Also handled repair, disassembly, and disposal of military equipment.

3️⃣Zvezda is the oldest gunpowder and munitions plant in Ukraine, established in 1771.

Impulse

🔸 Manufactured detonator caps, electronic detonators, detonating cords, non-electric detonation devices, components for MLRS missiles, cartridges, electric igniters, and industrial explosives for mining, construction, and metallurgy.

🔸 The only factory of its kind in Ukraine, founded in 1848. According to the local museum of history, just five other countries—Russia, China, the US, France, and the UK—possess similar technological capabilities.

The twin plants’ destruction is bad news for Ukraine’s war effort, which already relies on NATO deliveries for over 80% of its military needs, and faces ever-present threats of a cutoff in US aid as Trump pushes for a peace deal.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹Russian paratroopers ANNIHILATE 3 Ukrainian battalions in Sumy region

The Ukrainian 67th Brigade's month-long offensive crumbled when it clashed with Russia's 83rd Guards Airborne Brigade.

Heavy losses for Ukraine: infantry, armored vehicles, tanks, artillery, and UAVs wiped out.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt