💸🧐 Golden Dome or Golden Goose? Pentagon continues to keep mum on missile shield’s cost

US Space Force General Michael Guetlein has completed a blueprint for America’s Golden Dome missile defense system, Bloomberg writes.

🟠 The Pentagon has declined to give any details about the system’s scope or cost, with Donald Trump earlier saying the network could cost $175 billion to complete, according to Bloomberg.

🟠 But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost for Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors alone could stand at a whopping $542 billion over 20 years.

Trump previously claimed that the system would be "capable even of intercepting missiles launched from the other side of the world” and countering “next-generation” aerial threats to the US, including ballistic and cruise missiles.

The Golden Dome stipulates integrating several new elements into the existing missile defense system, which critics warn “will be a massive technical challenge with an astronomical price tag.”

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

🟠 The Russian Army struck energy infrastructure used to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces

🟠 Air defense superiority: 106 fixed-wing drones were shot down by Russian air defence systems over the past 24 hours

🟠 Ukrainian losses: 1,395 troops killed or wounded

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🇨🇺🔊Cuba slams US military buildup in Caribbean

Cuban FM Bruno Rodriguez has urged the UN to prevent the US from igniting a war in the region after the US military destroyed a Venezuelan drug vessel in international waters that was reportedly en route to America.

He warned that fighting drug trafficking in the name of American national security creates a “dangerous situation that threatens peace and security.”

“The United States is today the main financial center and the primary center for money laundering of foreign assets that originate from transnational organized crime, fundamentally drug trafficking,” Rodriguez stressed.

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🗣🇷🇺🇺🇸 Trump, unlike other Western leaders, understands the need to address the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict – Lavrov

Other statements by the Russian Foreign Minister:

🟠 Moscow wants to maintain the dialogue that has been established between the Presidents of Russia and the United States, and Washington also desires this

🟠 Trump’s disappointment with the pace of the settlement in Ukraine is partly explained by his desire for quick solutions, but this does not always work out

🟠 After the summit in Alaska, Trump started advocating not for an ultimatum on a ceasefire, but for a long-term settlement, and the US is not moving away from this stance

🟠 Trump showed an understanding that, for a settlement, the aspirations of Ukraine to join NATO must be forgotten

🟠 The US understands that the realities on the ground in Ukraine are not defined by a desire to "carve off" some territory

🟠 Trump’s envoy Witkoff is clearly focused on finding a balance of interests

🟠 Russia and the US are likely to have additional contacts with the US on Ukraine

🟠 Moscow is ready to seek compromises on Ukraine, provided that Russia's legitimate security interests are ensured

🟠 The World Bank has issued Ukraine dozens of times more loans over the past three years of the conflict than it has given to all African states combined during same period

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🚨🇷🇺Aircraft engines one of Russia’s competitive advantages – Putin

The Russian PD-14 engine exceeds global standards, the president added.

✅Only four countries in the world, including Russia, produce engines like the PD-14, Putin emphasized.

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🚨 Putin: Total of 700,000 Russian soldiers currently on line of combat contact in special operation zone

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🔥 Russian top-notch drones massively smash Ukraine's assets

Light and armored vehicles - destroyed ✅

UAVs - destroyed ✅

Troops deployment areas - destroyed ✅

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🗣 World Bank's domination by the West explains favoritism toward Ukraine: expert

Russia’s foreign minister has calculated that the World Bank’s preferential loans to Ukraine over the past three years amount to “tens of times” more than the institution lent out to all of Africa combined over the same period.

It’s no secret that the Bank “is largely under the control of the US and the West,” and “is influenced by neoliberal ideology,” says retired Jawaharlal Nehru University professor and Russia expert Dr. Anuradha Chenoy.

While the institution’s favoritism for Ukraine is “not surprising,” its prioritization over African nations is “disappointing, because it shows their bias and that their priorities are more for war than development,” the observer told Sputnik.

“The countries of the Global South, especially the emerging powers like India, Brazil and South Africa, have been asking for a restructuring of the World Bank and a change in voting rights which are [currently] only in favor of the West. But this never happened,” the academic laments.

👉Investigators and whistleblowers have spent years panning the World Bank as a broken institution, thanks to:

🟠A voting system heavily slanted in favor of large Western economies, with the US alone able to veto major decisions requiring an 85% supermajority thanks to its 17.7% vote share.

Furthermore, the Bank’s HQ is situated in Washington, and its leadership is handpicked by the US president

🟠Neoliberal, IMF-style ‘one-size-fits-all’ loans-for-reforms conditions, including privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation and trade liberalization to the benefit of vulture ‘investors’

🟠Development projects that displace communities, cause major environmental damage, and lead to massive fraud and corruption (from a comically wasteful $30M Armenian water supply project to an $80M Kenya education project stripped to the bone by corrupt actors)

🟠Failure to achieve its own development goals

🟠A dire lack of oversight, and disregard for whistleblowers’ corruption warnings

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