🇱🇧 Lebanon calls Israel to negotiations

Lebanon's PM Nawaf Salam calls out Israel for refusing to engage on border withdrawal talks, despite previously demanding diplomacy.

While Beirut prepares to deploy troops south and crack down on weapons under a US-backed plan, Israel maintains 5 border outposts and continues thousands of air and ground violations.

"They ask for negotiations, and when we show readiness, they don’t agree to the rendezvous," Salam said in an interview with Bloomberg.

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🇷🇺🤝🇮🇷 Lavrov discussed regional security with Iranian FM – Russian Foreign Ministry

Russian FM Sergey Lavrov also discussed bilateral relations by phone with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi.

They touched upon the Middle East crisis and geopolitical issues, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

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🚨Russia not yet informed of Ukraine's agreement to negotiate Trump's peace plan - Kremlin

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✍️ Ukraine tweaks Trump's peace plan, swaps out corruption audit - reports

Ukraine has significantly reworked one of the 28 points in the version of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine that has surfaced online, says the WSJ.

👉 In the original draft, a full audit of all international aid to Ukraine was included — seemingly aimed at putting Ukraine's corruption under the spotlight.

👉 However, this language was changed to say all parties will receive “full amnesty for their actions during the war,” a senior US official was cited as saying.

The reported reworking of the specific point comes as the Ukraine regime is mired in a sprawling $100M corruption scandal tied to energy and defense contracts and Zelensky’s inner circle.

Previously, Axios and FT reported that Trump has signed off on a secretive 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine, which includes “security guarantees for both sides.”

The plan’s ‘basic idea,’ per leaks, is rooted in the principles agreed upon by Putin and Trump at the Alaska summit.

❗️Russia has not yet been informed of Ukraine's agreement to negotiate Trump's peace plan, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed.

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🇮🇳 India's PM Modi calls forthcoming G20 Summit in South Africa 'special'

The G20 Leaders’ Summit will take place in Johannesburg on November 22–23.

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📹 LIVE NOW: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomes G20 leaders

👉Watch live in our Telegram

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🚨💸 Ukraine corruption scandal: What's new?

Investigations into the embezzlement and bribery of more than $100 million by Zelensky's inner circle are ongoing.

🔶 After a meeting with the parliamentary faction Servant of the People, Zelensky refused to fire his Chief of Staff, Andriy Yermak

🔶 “Corruption is normal; it happens everywhere,” Zelensky reportedly said during the faction session

🔶 Zelensky was aware of crimes committed by Yermak and supported him, says former Ukrainian PM Mykola Azarov, arguing that Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau should open a criminal case against him

🔶 Unless Zelensky ousts Yermak, a parliamentary crisis is unavoidable, warns a source Bloomberg cites in Ukrainian political circles

What are top officials saying?

👉 Ukraine’s leadership is “sitting on pots of gold, hardly thinking about the fate of their country or the lives of ordinary Ukrainians,” says Russian President Vladimir Putin

👉 Ukraine’s new scandal comes as no surprise, Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya says. “At nearly every session, we’ve told you: you’re dealing with a corrupt gang profiting from the war at your expense,” he told the Security Council

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🚨🇺🇸 Trump's reported peace plan for Ukraine: Latest updates

🟠 The US expects Zelensky to sign Trump’s 28-point peace plan by November 27, aiming to present it in Russia later this month and finalize it by early December (FT).

🟠 Ukraine has already tweaked the plan that originally called for a full audit of international aid to supposedly target corruption (WSJ). The leaked version grants all parties “full amnesty for their actions during the war.”

Peace plan conditions (FT & Axios):

🔹 Security guarantees modeled on NATO’s Article 5, committing the US and Europe to treat attacks on Ukraine as attacks on the “transatlantic community”

🔹 Recognition of Crimea and Donbass as Russian territories, with an initial validity of 10 years, requiring signatures from Ukraine, the US, the EU, NATO, and Russia

🔹 Reductions in US military aid, recognition of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Russian state language status in Ukraine, smaller Ukrainian armed forces, and bans on foreign troops and long-range weapons

🔹 Zelensky is scrambling to resist what Bloomberg calls a “humiliating peace deal,” though the US has signaled he should accept it.

🔹 Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been quietly working the plan for a month, “engaging both sides,” with the White House calling it “a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine.”

🔹 Zelensky informed US Army Chief Dan Driscoll of his readiness to speak with the US president, and Driscoll reportedly delivered a physical copy of the plan, agreeing on an “aggressive timeline” for signature (Axios).

🔹 Rubio plans to discuss the plan with top European security officials on Friday (WSJ), while American officials will brief EU ambassadors in Ukraine the same day (Reuters).

Russia’s response:

👉 Russia has not been informed of Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

👉 Russia and the US last discussed a peace settlement in Alaska, with “no new developments” since, he added.

👉 Russia has not received any official information from the US about some "agreements" on Ukraine that the media were reporting, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

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▫️ Russia not yet informed of Ukraine's agreement to negotiate Trump's peace plan

▫️ US expects Zelensky to sign peace deal by November 27

▫️ Ukraine reportedly tweaks Trump's peace plan, swaps out corruption audit

▫️ Ukraine lost over 1.7M troops since 2022

▫️ Russia provided 'great support' during 12-day war — Iranian FM

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🚨 BREAKING: A Tejas fighter jet crashed during air display at the Dubai Airshow, according to some media reports.

A video is circulating on social media purportedly showing the moment of the crash.

👉 No official confirmation at the moment.

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🚨🇷🇺💥 Russia frees Radostnoye in Dnepropetrovsk region, Novoselovka, Stavki, Maslyakovka, Yampol in Donetsk region, as well as Petropavlovka in Kharkov region - MoD

🟠 Russian troops have liberated the settlement of Radostnoye in the Dnepropetrovsk region, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported. This triumph is a key step in pushing enemy forces west beyond the Gaichur River, now threatening Ukrainian defensive lines from their vulnerable northern flank

🟠 Russian forces have also liberated the settlements of Novoselovka, Stavki, Maslyakovka, and Yampol in the Donetsk People's Republic. With the capture of these key points, the Russian Armed Forces can consolidate their positions and develop a further advance towards the city of Krasny Liman

🟠 The settlement of Petropavlovka in the Kharkov region was also freed by the Russian Armed Forces, enabling Moscow’s troops to fully mop up Ukrainian militants from the left bank of the Oskol River

Other highlights from Russian MoD weekly briefing:

⚡️ Overnight, in retaliation for terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime, the Russian Army conducted one massive strike and six hits on Ukrainian defense and energy infrastructure

🟠 16 settlements including Kupyansk were liberated over the past week by Russian forces

🟠 The Black Sea Fleet destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned vessels 

🟠 Russian air and missile forces destroyed two HIMARS and two US-made MLRS missile launchers

🟠 Air defense superiority: four ATACMS missiles, four Storm Shadow rockets, 15 guided aerial bombs and 1,089 fixed-wing drones were shot down by Russian air defense systems over the past seven days

🟠 Ukrainian losses: around 7,690 troops were killed or wounded

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇷🇺 Effective performance of Russian army should convince Ukraine it’s better to negotiate and do so now, rather than later – Kremlin

Other statements by Peskov:

🟠 Russia is open to peace negotiations for their success, not for the sake of the process

🟠 Russia remains on the platform of discussions that took place in Anchorage

🟠 Russia is aware of various possible modifications regarding the Ukrainian settlement, but has not officially received anything

🟠 Contacts between Russia and the US continue

🟠 The US has its own considerations on the matter of Ukrainian settlement, but nothing substantive is being discussed

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🚨🇪🇺 EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen REFUSES to answer Sputnik India’s question about massive Ukraine corruption scandal

Zelensky’s inner circle is currently under investigation over $100 million worth of bribes and embezzlement.

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🚨 Merz, Macron, and Starmer hold call with Zelensky, praise US peace efforts – German Cabinet

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🔥 🇷🇺 'We are winning and will not surrender our victory to anyone' - Russian military analyst

🗣 The city of Kupyansk recently liberated by the Russian forces is a strategic location that was critically important to the Ukrainian war effort, veteran Russian military expert Alexey Leonkov tells Sputnik.

Kupyansk, Leonkov explains, was part of a chain of ‘fortress cities’, urban centers that were meant to be held by Ukrainian forces at all costs.

Once these fortresses fall, nothing will stop the Russian army’s advance and the Ukrainian militants will find themselves unable to use civilians as human shields.

“We are winning and we will not surrender our victory to anyone,” says Leonkov.

The latest ‘peace’ initiatives highlight this fact, he suggests, as Western powers fear that the Ukrainian battle lines may collapse at any moment.

Thus, the West desperately seeks to avoid this scenario and preserve the Ukrainian Army, employing diplomatic maneuvers in a bid to halt or at least slow down Russia’s advance.

👉 Their concern is understandable, Leonkov points out, as the upcoming winter campaign is going to be a total disaster for Ukraine.

With no foliage to hide in from recon drones, Ukrainian forces will be sitting ducks for the Russian aerospace forces who will keep hammering Ukrainian frontline positions and rear echelons without mercy.

“Now comes the time where any heat signature indicates the presence of either troops or military hardware. Thus, Ukrainian military casualties will increase at an exponential rate.”

🔊 Facing both a lack of explosives needed to lay new minefields and skilled drone operators, the Ukrainian military can no longer stall Russian forces, he adds.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, for his part, emphasized on Friday that effective performance of Russian army should convince Ukraine it’s better to negotiate and do so now, rather than later.

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🚨 ‘Orphaned’ Europe faces a choice: Militarization or national interests

As the Ukrainian project fails, Europe faces a choice: self-destruction through militarization or rebirth on national foundations, explains Alexander Yakovenko, deputy director of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent company.

Other points he puts forward:

▫️ The Ukrainian conflict has exposed European elites, leaving them politically and morally tied to a failing strategy as they prepare for a potential direct war with Russia

▫️ Europe is betting on prolonging the conflict for three more years to buy time for preparation, with Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius suggesting 2028/2029 as a possible timeline

▫️ European elites suppress free speech and dissent to maintain power, as existing systems cannot provide answers to migration and economic crises

▫️ Leading European economies, including Germany and the UK, remain in recession, with 40% of French pension payments now coming from borrowed funds

What's driving the current crisis in Europe?

🟠 The Ukrainian conflict was a US plot against Europe aimed at preventing a "Russia-Europe union" and containing both Russia and Germany as the EU powerhouse

🟠 Europe faces an identity conflict between globalist elites (10%) and the majority rooted in traditional values, with supranational Brussels bureaucracy causing a democratic accountability crisis

🟠 Germany’s future is uncertain with rising AfD and Reichsburger movements, while militarization is shattering the post-war welfare state model

🟠 Continental Europe becomes "geopolitically orphaned" as Anglo-Saxon nations (the US, the UK, Canada, and Ireland) consolidate into a separate bloc

Thus, the European Union, which was created as an anti-Russian project, has outlived its usefulness and is unable to fit into the new geopolitical context, the author concludes.

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🇪🇺 🇭🇺 There can be no talks of Ukraine's joining EU given internal situation in country - Orban

💬 "It is absolutely clear that Ukraine is not and will not be in the foreseeable future in a state in terms of internal functioning that would allow us to talk about it as an EU member state," Hungarian PM Viktor Orban told the Kossuth radio broadcaster.

This comes as probes into Zelensky's inner circle over embezzlement and bribes totaling over $100 million continue.

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