🤡 France and EU to finalize solution on Ukraine financing using frozen Russian assets – Macron

President Emmanuel Macron said a coordinated EU solution on Russian assets will be agreed “in the coming days” to secure funding and “give Ukraine visibility and maintain this pressure,” Reuters reported.

Macron also announced that the so-called Coalition of the Willing will establish a new working group on security guarantees for Ukraine, led by France and the UK, with close involvement from Türkiye and — for the first time — the United States.

💬 “Over the next few days, we will finalise each party’s contributions and finalise these security guarantees,” Macron said, calling them essential for negotiating a “credible peace” and for “maintaining pressure on Russia.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier emphasized that there is no legal way to seize frozen Russian assets. He called such actions “deception and theft,” adding that “it seems the old instincts of colonizers and pirates have been awakened in the Europeans.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❌ ‘Fake’ — Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev slams Bloomberg report

Russian Special Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev has rejected a Bloomberg publication claiming to show a trannoscript of an Oct. 29 phone call between him and Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, calling it “Fake” on X.

Bloomberg claimed the alleged call discussed ways of dealing with the US on the Ukraine peace plan — a claim Dmitriev dismissed as false.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 ‘It’s moving in one direction’ — Trump on Russian forces’ advance

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, President Donald Trump said the situation in Ukraine is “just moving in one direction,” adding that territory discussed in peace talks “might be gotten by Russia anyway” in the coming months.

💬 “Look, the way it’s going, if you look, it’s just moving in one direction. So eventually that’s land that over the next couple of months might be gotten by Russia anyway,” Trump emphasized.

Trump said negotiations are ongoing and described the territorial issue as “a long, complicated process.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 'I don’t have a deadline' on Ukraine deal – Trump

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, President Donald Trump said he has no fixed deadline for reaching a settlement on the Ukraine conflict, adding that he expects progress “in the very near future.”

Trump said talks are continuing and confirmed that US envoy Steve Witkoff is set to travel to Moscow for further discussions.

On the substance of the peace plan, Trump described a halt to fighting and that Russia “don’t take any more land” as concessions being discussed within the framework of the US proposal.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇻🇪 'I might talk to him. We’ll see' – Trump on possible talks with Maduro

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, President Donald Trump said he may speak with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, noting that discussions are underway among staff.

💬 “If we can save lives, if we can do things the easy way, that's fine. And if we have to do it the hard way, that's fine, too,” Trump said when asked why he would consider talking to Maduro.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇨🇳 Trump expects to be 'pleasantly surprised' by Xi on trade

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, President Donald Trump said he recently discussed trade and US farm product purchases with Chinese President Xi Jinping and said he expects to be “pleasantly surprised” by Beijing’s actions.

Trump added that he has a “great relationship” with Xi and confirmed plans to visit China in April.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💸 $1.2B to fight MOLD and change mattresses – Hegseth boasts proudly

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced that $1.2 billion is being poured into fixing barracks where, by his own list, troops live amid:

🔹 clogged showers and sewage overflows

🔹 brown tap water and months-long hot water outages

🔹 mold growth, broken windows, gas leaks

🔹 fire alarms that don’t work and “non-existent heating”

All this required a special “barracks task force” and a Pentagon briefing – just to buy new locks, cameras, furniture and mattresses for 81 barracks and 15,000 soldiers.

While Washington celebrates finally dealing with mold and rusty pipes, Russia is busy developing strategic systems like the Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle and Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile – different levels of “readiness,” to put it mildly.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸📉 US warns Ukraine it cannot keep supplying weapons at required levels — reports

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll privately warned Ukrainian officials in Kiev last week that Washington will not be able to sustain weapons and air-defense deliveries at the scale needed to protect the country’s infrastructure, NBC News reported, citing sources familiar with the meeting.

❌ The American delegation told the Kiev regime that the US defense industry “could not keep supplying Ukraine with the weapons and air defenses at the rate needed,” the outlet said.

Driscoll also delivered a bleak battlefield assessment, saying Ukraine faced a “dire” situation and risked “imminent defeat” against Russian forces unless it moved toward a negotiated settlement, NBC News reported.

NBC says this message was delivered as part of Washington’s push to advance its evolving peace proposal.

⌛ Meanwhile, Russia is awaiting the draft version of the plan the US comes up with after talks with Europe and Ukraine, and will reply based on whether its “spirit and letter” matches the understanding reached by Presidents Putin and Trump in Alaska, Foreign Minister Lavrov said earlier.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤡 Zelensky’s political capital ‘badly drained’ – media

Volodymyr Zelensky’s popularity and battlefield morale are “at a particularly low point now,” The Spectator writes.

Zelensky is under pressure both from Ukraine’s corruption scandal and on the battlefield, as the town of Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk)—which is already encircled—is set to finally “fall to Russian forces,” according to the magazine.

The Spectator points out the success of Russia’s strategy in Ukraine, which includes several key tasks, such as:

🔸 Holding the front line to make “grinding progress”

🔸 Breaking the link between Ukraine and its Western allies

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨🇮🇳🇷🇺 India enters the Top 10 global maritime powers, while Russia holds strong at 3rd

A new IMEMO RAS index shows the top 10 global powers control nearly 60% of the world’s maritime power.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 Witkoff to travel to Russia next week – Russian presidential aide

A preliminary agreement has been reached for US presidential Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to come to Moscow next week, Yuri Ushakov said.

“He and several other members of the US administration involved in Ukraine-related matters [will come to Russia],” Ushakov added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨🇷🇺🇰🇬 President Putin arrives for key talks in Kyrgyzstan

Vladimir Putin has arrived at the Yntymak Ordo Residence in Kyrgyzstan, where he will now hold official negotiations with President Sadyr Japarov.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 ‘It’s moving in one direction’ — Trump on Russian forces’ advance

🔸 US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow – Trump

🔸 'I don’t have a deadline' on Ukraine deal – Trump

🔸 US warns Ukraine it cannot keep supplying weapons at required levels — reports

🔸 $1.2B to fight MOLD and change mattresses – Hegseth boasts proudly

🔸 France and EU to finalize solution on Ukraine financing using frozen Russian assets – Macron

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt