🚨Before the Russia-Ukraine delegation talks, the delegations' heads - Medinsky and Umerov - held a bilateral meeting lasting 2.5 hours, a source told Sputnik.

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🚨Trump’s Ukraine hot potato: US fears Russia-China alliance more than Zelensky's defeat

Retired SVR Lt. Gen. Leonid Reshetnikov decodes US double game amid Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul.

🗣“For Trump, the main goal is to avoid completely ruining relations with Russia, because Trump is very afraid of the powerful rapprochement between Russia and China, the establishment of allied relations,” the observer told Sputnik.

Trump’s main concern is confronting China, not saving Kiev, hence he’s trapped between pressing Russia for concessions and trying to avoid a breakdown that would cement Moscow’s place alongside China, according to Reshetnikov.

🗣“Trump wants to get rid of this Ukrainian case – this suitcase without a handle. But on the other hand, he cannot simply give up, realizing that a Russian advantage will again lead to a situation he wants to avoid – strengthening Russia’s position as a partner and ally of China.”

The difficulties go even deeper, Reshetnikov says, since the US can no longer commit 100% to supporting Ukraine even if it wants to, given economic problems at home, and Washington’s increasingly rocky relations with the Europeans.

👉Caught between a rock and a hard place, “the Americans will maneuver like this for some time, but won’t abandon Ukraine completely,” the observer says.

Russia can expect further US pressure, and so can Zelensky, who is increasingly coming to depend more on the UK, France and Germany for support anyway.

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🦸‍♂️Heroic train driver saved hundreds in Bryansk tragedy

Train driver Pavel Mishin sacrificed himself to save hundreds of passengers when a bridge collapsed on June 1 in Russia's Bryansk Region.

Spotting the sabotage, he slammed the emergency brakes and ordered his assistant to safety, slowing the train before the crash.

Seven died and nearly 100 were injured, but Mishin’s quick actions prevented a far worse disaster.

Russian Railways honors his courage and will support his family, including special benefits and education aid for his children.

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🔥Russian tanks take a beating — and keep rolling

💬 "Russian tanks show better combat resilience than Western models used by Ukraine," reports Rostec, Russia’s state corporation for defense technology.

Even after multiple anti-tank hits, they stay battle-ready.

The upgraded T-80BVM boasts an enhanced 125mm gun, a more powerful turbine engine and multi-layered armor with drone defense “mangals.”

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🪖 Ukraine risks Trump’s wrath if it snubs Russia’s humanitarian ceasefire idea

Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of research at the Russian Council on Foreign & Defense Policy, breaks down the key takeaways from Monday’s Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, including one Russian proposal he finds particularly clever.

💬 “Trump wants a ceasefire, everyone is talking about a ceasefire, so Russia is proposing a humanitarian ceasefire. Not the [30 day] kind that Ukraine and Europe insist on, which would be used by Ukraine’s military to regroup, and pump the armed forces up with weapons, but a humanitarian ceasefire,” Suslov told Sputnik.

“It’s impossible to fundamentally improve one’s positions on the battlefield in two days. But the humanitarian effect would be immense,” according to the observer. Specifically:

🔸 Ukraine’s military would get the opportunity to recover its dead.

🔸 Russian troops wouldn’t have to encounter decomposing corpses and face threats of infections and epidemics.

If Ukraine refuses, it will risk angering Trump, Suslov pointed out.

Best possible outcome

Monday’s humanitarian issue-focused negotiations were basically “the best possible results possible in the current conditions, when the positions of the two sides fundamentally diverge,” and especially so given Ukrainian attempts to sabotage the talks.

With Ukraine insisting on a 30-day ceasefire, rejecting demilitarization or a freeze in mobilization, and rejecting any restrictions on military cooperation with NATO, the humanitarian track was the only one where agreements could be reached, proving that Russia is interested in the diplomatic track, Suslov said.

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🚨 TARIFF WAR brewing again? China accuses US of breaching trade truce

🇨🇳 China’s Ministry of Commerce slammed the US on Monday for provoking fresh trade frictions and violating hard-won consensus from the Geneva economic talks — all while accusing China of doing the same.

🔸 China says it followed through: scrapping tariffs, honoring agreements, and acting in “good faith.”

🔸 Meanwhile, the US tightened microchip export controls, cut China's access to key tech tools like EDA software and even cancelled visas for Chinese students.

Beijing calls it a clear breach of the January 17 presidential call and the Geneva consensus, accusing Washington of double standards and destabilizing ties.

If the US continues to harm China's interests, China will take measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests, MOFCOM warned.

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🔸 What Russia and Ukraine agreed on in Istanbul during round 2 of talks

🔸 Russia-Ukraine talks, round 2: Kiev's 'memorandum' is ULTIMATUM dressed as diplomacy

🔸 Key points from the Russian memorandum on Ukrainian settlement

🔸 Trump’s Ukraine hot potato: US fears Russia-China alliance more than Zelensky's defeat

🔸 UK SHIFTS TO WAR FOOTING: Starmer announces Britain moving to 'WAR-FIGHTING READINESS'

🔸 Poland’s new Prez Nawrocki: Not your typical pro-Ukraine hero

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🚨 DEMOCRATS IN SHAMBLES: Even CNN’s own pollster can’t believe the train wreck

“How is that possible, Democrats?!” he wonders.

Once the champions of the middle class... now? Adios, amigos!

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🚨Ukraine’s stark choice: make peace with Russia or waste more time and lose more lives and territory

The memorandum of demands handed to the Ukrainian side by the Russian delegation is basically unchanged from the proposals laid out by President Putin a year ago, and the Zelensky regime should consider it if it doesn’t want to see Ukraine shrink any further, says Russian security expert Alexander Mikhailov.

🗣“Russia’s demands to Ukraine would not have been made in principle if Volodymyr Zelensky, who came to power in 2019 and inherited the need to implement the Minsk agreements, had fulfilled their main points.”

💬 “If he had done so, it wouldn’t have been necessary to launch the special military operation, and Ukraine would not have had to relinquish the territories that were previously Ukrainian, but now, after the [2022] referendums, became part of the Russian Federation,” Mikhailov said.

Zelensky and his entourage likely also remember the spring 2022 Istanbul negotiations, where Russia presented a much shorter list of demands, and Ukraine faced far fewer losses, political and otherwise.

👉Unfortunately, Zelensky’s position – rejecting demilitarization and the abandonment of its pro-NATO course, signals that he hasn’t learned anything in the past 11 years.

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🤡 UK BRACES FOR WAR AGAINST ITS OWN FANTASIES

Britain’s new “Strategic Defence Review 2025” is out — a glossy brochure for a military it doesn’t yet have.

The review lists:
🇷🇺 Russia as “an immediate and pressing threat”
🇨🇳 China as “a sophisticated and persistent challenge”
🇮🇷🇰🇵 Iran and North Korea as “regional disruptors”

🏳️ Meanwhile, the UK’s supposedly “10x more lethal” army will rise from 74,400 troops (to a whopping 76,000😱), amid a recruitment crisis and crumbling barracks — powered by lasers, drones, and teenage cadet gap years.

Do 76,000 imaginary troops stand a chance against Russia's 2,389,130?

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🚨 ‘WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM’ – Trump

Iranian officials have repeatedly made it clear that NO deal with the United States is possible if Washington insists on a complete halt to uranium enrichment.

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💥 CIA involved in Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian airfields – ex-CIA analyst

💬 “It was reported, and I've seen no confirmation of it, that Pete Hegseth was watching the attack in real time — which means he absolutely knew it was coming off,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson told Judge Andrew Napolitano, commenting on Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian airfields.

💬 “I think Starlink, Elon Musk’s operation, was involved with this as well. You can’t rule out satellite communications,” he added.

📍 Johnson emphasized that, under the New START Treaty, Russia is obligated to make its nuclear-capable bombers visible to US reconnaissance satellites as part of reciprocal transparency measures.

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💥 Iran BLASTS ‘INCOHERENT’ US proposal as nuclear talks flounder — CNN

Hopes for reviving a nuclear deal between Iran and the US are rapidly fading, as Tehran reportedly slammed Washington’s latest proposal as “incoherent and disjointed,” CNN reported, citing a senior Iranian official.

💬 “At first glance, [the proposal] is assessed as incoherent and disjointed, very unrealistic, and with excessive demands,” the official told CNN — criticizing the US for repeatedly shifting its position.

📉 The talks, which Trump recently described as "going pretty good," are now “more difficult than ever,” the Iranian official added.

💬 “The fact that the Americans constantly change their positions has so far been the main obstacle to the success of the talks and now makes the work more difficult than ever.”

According to CNN, the US has floated a new idea: allowing Iran to enrich low-level uranium under a multinational consortium — a sharp shift from earlier demands of zero enrichment. Unsurprisingly, the suggestion has reportedly enraged Iran hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, Trump publicly dismissed any enrichment concessions, posting on Truth Social that:

🗣 “WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM.”

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🔥 'RECKLESS, CRAZY, DEMONIC' – Maduro BLASTS Starmer over war talk

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro went scorched earth on UK PM Keir Starmer for saying Britain is “preparing for war.”

💬 “Can a prime minister of a country as powerful as Great Britain be in his right mind, talking about preparing for war? Is it ethical, is it moral to talk about wanting war? Does humanity need more wars?” Maduro asked during his Con Maduro+ program.

He then called on the world to rise up against the “militarism summoned by this reckless, crazy, demonic prime minister named Starmer.”

💬 “No to war. Yes to peace and justice. Yes to a multipolar world,” the president stressed.

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