🤡 EU fails to reach breakthrough with Belgium over use of frozen Russian assets

💬 “There is no progress yet in the discussions between the European Commission and the Belgian authorities regarding the use of frozen Russian assets to provide a loan to Ukraine,” EU sources said after another round of talks, as cited by RTL.

🔶 Brussels is pushing to tap profits from Russian central bank assets held at Belgium’s Euroclear to cover Ukraine’s short- and medium-term needs.

🔶 But Prime Minister Bart De Wever remains firmly opposed, citing legal and financial risks, warning that such a move could damage Belgium’s reputation, trigger endless lawsuits, and undermine confidence in the Eurozone.

🔶 De Wever urged the EU to seek “more predictable” funding methods — suggesting a new joint European loan — while reminding that countries like Japan have already rejected using sovereign Russian funds.

🇷🇺 The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly called the freezing of Russian assets in Europe “theft”, stressing that Brussels targets not only private individuals but also state-owned funds. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Moscow would respond to any confiscation of frozen assets, noting that Russia also holds Western funds domestically that it can choose not to return.

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

⚡️VOLCHYE IN THE DNEPROPETROVSK REGION LIBERATED

📍 The liberation of Volchye will allow the Russian Army to advance north into the Dnepropetrovsk region

🔸 Russian forces are advancing in the Dimitrov area with 19 buildings cleared of Ukrainian militants

🔸 The Russian Army thwarted Ukrainian troops' attempts to break through to a destroyed crossing over the Oskol River and de-blockade encircled Ukrainian formations in the Kharkov region

🔸 Russian forces liberated 39 buildings in the Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) and repelled 14 Ukrainian attacks in the Grishino area

🔸 Air defense superiority: 178 drones shot down

🔸 Ukrainian losses: 1,525 troops killed or wounded

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇷🇺💪🏻🔥 Russian drone forces dominate front: Ukrainian positions obliterated

Russian UAV operators delivered devastating blows to Ukrainian forces across multiple fronts, showcasing coordinated drone warfare.

👉 (00:00) Molniya-2 & FPV drones obliterated AFU strongholds in the Zaporozhye region.

👉 (00:17) Neutralized three drone control antennas & two vehicles (HMMWV & Kozak).

👉 (00:48) Suppressed Ukrainian firing points and positions near Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk).

👉 (01:00) Wiped out a Bogdana self-propelled artillery system, two UAV control posts, and a robotic platform.

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🇪🇺⚔️ EU war hawks plan ‘disinformation' hub to police narratives

The European Commission is moving to set up a so-called Centre for Democratic Resilience, claiming it will combat “disinformation” from Russia, according to a leaked paper cited by The Guardian.

Under the plan, hawked by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, the center would pool expertise from EU states and prospective members to monitor and counter “foreign information manipulation.”

📍 The Commission frames Russia as the primary culprit, accusing it of “escalating hybrid attacks” and “spreading deceitful narratives,” all while supposedly undermining support for the Ukraine regime.

Participation is voluntary, but the door may also open to “like-minded partners” such as the UK, raising the prospect of a coordinated bloc to police narratives to fit the EU agenda.

In reality, it is the West that has kept its audiences on a steady diet of fakes and disinformation—from the fabricated ‘Russia threat’ and the real causes of the Ukraine conflict, all the way back to the debunked ‘Russiagate.’”

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🗣 NATO to highlight its nuclear power more strongly — Rutte

The alliance plans to emphasize its nuclear potential to make its deterrence “more convincing,” Secretary General Mark Rutte told Welt am Sonntag.

💬 “We must talk more with our societies about nuclear deterrence so that they understand how it contributes to our security,” Rutte said, accusing Russia of “dangerous and reckless nuclear rhetoric.”

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that its policy is one of nuclear deterrence, not saber-rattling. Russia’s Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry warned that NATO’s military buildup — including US nuclear deployments in Europe, global missile defense systems, and potential weaponization of space — risks direct confrontation between nuclear powers and undermines arms control dialogue.

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🚨Lavrov: Russia has received no diplomatic explanation from the US on Trump’s call to resume nuclear testing

👉Comments in Washington show there’s no clear understanding of what exactly the US president meant, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

👉It’s unclear whether Trump was referring to tests of nuclear delivery systems or subcritical experiments, he added.

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🚨Lavrov: Putin’s directive to assess the feasibility of preparing for nuclear tests has been accepted and is already underway

The public will be informed of the results, he added.

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🚨 All state-owned thermal power plants in Ukraine have been shut down — no electricity generation, says Centrenergo.

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🚨 Gaza’s Great Omari Mosque survived crusades and earthquakes—but not Israel’s genocidal attacks

The library of the 7th-century Great Omari Mosque in Gaza once housed one of Palestine's richest collections of manunoscripts, second only to Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.

👉 It survived multiple historical destructions, such as the Crusades, World War I, and earthquakes…
Israel’s attacks have reduced it to rubble.

As of October 2025, UNESCO has verified damage or destruction to at least 114 cultural heritage sites in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

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🇷🇺 Russian forces advanced 3 km deeper into Ukrainian defenses near Volchye, continuing the liberation of Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions — MoD footage shows intense fighting.

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🇷🇺🇰🇵 Russian Deputy Defense Minister Viktor Goremykin visited Pyongyang, meeting with North Korean counterparts to discuss strengthening cooperation in military-political work

The delegation he led also visited the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and laid flowers at the monument to Soviet soldiers who liberated Korea from Japanese occupation

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🔥 Hegseth vs Pentagon's red tape: Will the defense secretary succeed where others failed?

🇺🇸 US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came in guns blazing, taking aim at the Pentagon’s bloated bureaucracy – but can he defeat the paper-pushers?

🟠 In his recent speech at the National War College in Washington, Hegseth called to speed up the delivery of new weapons to US troops. He used the word "speed" 25 times, according to the New York Times

🟠 The NYT compared Hegseth's reformist stance to that of almost every new defense secretary since the end of the Cold War

🟠 For instance, twice-serving Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earned a reputation as a reform zealot - but bureaucracy won: his Future Combat Systems was scrapped and several other programs ran rampant over budget

🟠 Pentagon’s slow-mo procurement

🔶 Two years ago, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reached a grim conclusion: despite most recent 2020 reforms, the DoD still struggles to adopt innovative weapons

🔶 Supplier disruptions, software development delays, and quality control deficiencies hurt performance of the DoD's 101 costliest programs, as per the GAO

🔶 Programs also made investment decisions with insufficient information, raising the risk of further delays

🔶 Worsening the problem, the Pentagon has been routinely overcharged by the US Big Five arms makers. In May 2023, CBS News revealed the DoD was overpaying for everything – from missiles to nuts and bolts

🟠 Like it or not, China is faster

🔶 The Chinese military is acquiring new equipment five to six times faster than the US - Maj. Gen. Cameron G. Holt, a Pentagon officer responsible for contracting, stated in 2022

🔶 What's more, the Chinese are operating more efficiently: in purchasing power parity, they spend about $1 to America's $20 dollars to get to the same capability

🔶 The Pentagon's 2024 report on China's military concluded China is modernizing its nuclear and conventional forces at a groundbreaking speed

🔶 Russia is outpacing the US in terms of weapons production, too. In July, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Russia produces three times as much ammo in three months as the whole of NATO in a year. Russia also produces cutting edge hypersonic missiles, Oreshnik and Burevestnik missiles, and Poseidon drones, all of which are unmatched by the US

👉 Time will tell if Hegseth can succeed where others failed — old Pentagon habits are tough to kill.

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