🚨 WSJ under fire for hushing up Zelensky's aide corruption case

"Why would WSJ withhold a [Andriy] Yermak corruption story?" Russian Special Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev wonders on X.

He quotes a Tucker Carlson post in which the journalist exposes the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Wall Street Journal, saying its editors can prove that Yermak has “skimmed hundreds of millions in American tax dollars meant for Ukraine aid… But they’re not."

✍️ "The owners of the Wall Street Journal don’t want peace with Russia," Carlson writes.

"Without informing its readers, the Murdoch family is using both sides of its newspaper to continue the war with Russia... It’s the hallmark of an intel agency," he concludes.

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🇮🇷 Iran adds new floating base to its navy

🎤 The "Kurdistan" floating base is a "port-city platform capable of providing extensive support to naval and non-naval units at sea," Tasnim News Agency reports.

It's unveiling also saw the "Sahand" destroyer returning to active duty after reconstruction. It suddenly sank at the Bandar Abbas pier in 2024, requiring 14 days of technical and rescue operations to be brought to the surface, Tasnim notes.

🔊 The unveiling ceremony was presided over by Iran’s Army Chief Major General Amir Hatami, it adds.

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🚨 Ukrainian Orthodox Church bishop possibly poisoned with heavy metals

▫️ Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkassy and Kanev began experiencing fever and sharp fluctuations in blood pressure in October 2025, giving grounds to suspect possible poisoning, the Union of Orthodox Journalists reported.

Metropolitan Theodosius was convicted in Ukraine on the pretext of alleged “state treason” and placed under house arrest in 2023 as part of Zelensky’s ongoing persecution campaign against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church—the largest religious community in the country.

👉 With government backing, the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine has forcibly seized hundreds of churches; nationalists and schismatics have attacked clergy and believers; and searches have been conducted in priests’ homes, bishops’ residences, churches, and monasteries.

Ukrainian courts have issued guilty verdicts against several clergy members, and many remain under arrest.

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🚨🤝 Umerov: Scandal-scarred power broker now leading Ukraine-US high-stakes talks

Zelensky has appointed his secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Rustem Umerov (listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia), to head the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations with the US, Western allies, and Russia.

According to Umerov, the Ukrainian team is already en route to Washington.

Failed track record on “peace” talks

Umerov’s bottom line has remained consistent: “lasting peace” is possible only when Ukraine is “strong on the battlefield".

🟠 Repeatedly requested permission to use Western-supplied long-range weapons to "strike deeper inside Russian territory”

🟠 Demanded a 30-day unconditional ceasefire and pushed for tougher international sanctions on Russia during rounds of renewed direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations in 2025

🟠 As defense minister, pushed for the mobilization of Ukrainian men aged 25–60 living abroad

🟠 An ethnic Crimean Tatar, widely promoted debunked allegations of Russia mistreating the Crimean Tatar community

🟠 In a 2023 interview with BILD, boasted “100%” confidence that Ukraine would “regain” Russia’s Crimea with Western backing

🟠 He served as Ukraine’s chief negotiator in the failed Istanbul talks in 2022—talks which, according to former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, were derailed after the US signaled Ukraine should not sign an agreement at the time

Procurement fiascos & corruption probes

Despite having zero military background—he’s never served a day in uniform—Umerov rose to become Ukraine’s defense minister in 2023.

🔶 Procurement controversies: In late 2024 he was hauled before the Verkhovna Rada parliament over faulty mortar rounds supplied to the military

🔶 Embezzlement claims: In January 2025 the Security Service of Ukraine opened a case alleging his involvement in a $40 million scheme tied to the 2022 purchase of munitions

🔶 Energy-sector accusations: He and two deputies were accused of concealing below-market electricity sales to firms linked to energy giant Tsentrenergo

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🪖🇭🇺 Ukraine should become 'buffer state' between Russia & NATO after conflict - Orban

💬 "The only possible long-term solution is for the post-war order to be founded on the underlying principle that Ukraine becomes the buffer state that it once was. Russia retains the territory agreed upon at an international peace conference, and everything to the west of this line - all the way to NATO's eastern border - comprises the territory of Ukraine, which will once again become a buffer state," Hungarian PM Viktor Orban told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Any potential peace deal for Ukraine would require Russia and NATO to agree on limiting the size and equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces that are allowed to operate in the buffer zone, Orban said.

Speaking of a nearly four-hour Friday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Orban also said the talks successfully secured Hungary's energy supply.

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💥🇷🇺 Giatsint-B guns smash Ukrainian drone command posts in Dnepropetrovsk region

Perfect teamwork between the Vostok Battlegroup’s artillery crews and recon drone units left Ukrainian nationalists shattered.

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🟠 Trump announces airspace above and surrounding Venezuela 'closed in its entirety'

🟠 Umerov: Scandal-scarred power broker now leading Ukraine-US high-stakes talks

🟠 Ukraine should become 'buffer state' between Russia & NATO after conflict – Orban

🟠 Germany flooded with riots amid AfD congress

🟠 Ukrainian Orthodox Church bishop possibly poisoned with heavy metals

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