🔥 Trump’s criticism of Ukraine’s undemocratic nature is ‘reality check’ for Zelensky - analyst

President Trump’s demands that Ukraine “be realistic” in talks and calls on Zelensky to hold presidential election are designed “to publicly dismantle the previous administration’s legacy,” contrasting realism with “Biden’s blank-check idealism,” geopolitical analyst Marco Marsili told Sputnik.

It signals “that the era of unconditional support is definitely over,” the Ca Foscari University of Venice and ISCTE-Instituto Universitario de Lisboa researcher explained.

💬 “Trump is applying maximum pressure when Kiev’s negotiating position is at its weakest, forcing a reality check upon a leadership that has, until now, operated on the promise of indefinite Western support,” Marsili said.

Commenting on Zelensky’s claims that Ukraine could hold a vote in 90 days if the US and Europe helped “ensure security,” Marsili said the sentiment looks like a “logical, yet likely futile, stalling tactic.”

The idea that free and fair elections in a chaos-ridden country under martial law is “a fiction,” the observer explained. Still, the US's "ultimate lever of influence" in the form of "weaponized" financial and military aid means that future assistance could be conditioned on "forcing" Zelensky to hold a vote.

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🚨🇷🇺Russian Armed Forces are acting in line with the objectives of the special military operation, Russian General Staff head Valery Gerasimov reported to Vladimir Putin

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🚨🚨Seversk liberated — Russian General Staff head Valery Gerasimov to Vladimir Putin

The city of Seversk is a key point to establish full control over the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics' shared border.

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🚨 Chief of the General Staff reports to Putin on progress of the special military operation

📍 In his report to President Vladimir Putin, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, provided updates on the ongoing Special Military Operation (SMO). The key developments include:

🟠 Seversk liberated

🟠 Russian forces liberated the settlements of Kucherovka and Kurilovka

🟠 The primary efforts of the Sever Battlegroup are focused on deepening the security zone in the Sumy and Kharkov regions

🟠 The Zapad Battlegroup continues combat operations on the left bank of the Oskol River

🟠 The Yug Battlegroup group is advancing with fighting in the settlement of Konstantinovka, where 45% of the buildings are now under Russian control

🟠 Street battles continue as part of the liberation of Gulyaipole in the Zaporozhye region

🟠 Russian forces are operating in accordance with the objectives of the Special Military Operation

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🇷🇺💪 Vladimir Putin thanks Russian Servicemen for the liberation of Seversk

The president emphasized that this achievement was made possible through the coordinated efforts of the unit commanders.

The success in Seversk underscores the professionalism and teamwork of the Russian military leadership.

📍 The liberation of Seversk in north-west Donetsk, the gateway to the city of Kramatorsk, effectively means the end of the offensive to liberate the Donbass.

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🚨🇷🇺 Russian Defense Ministry releases footage from the liberated Seversk

Local residents greet Russian soldiers and express their gratitude for the city's liberation.

📍The liberation of Seversk in north-west Donetsk, the gateway to the city of Kramatorsk, effectively means the end of the offensive to liberate the Donbass.

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🚨 Konstantinovka: The fall of Ukrainian final shield in Donbass

📍 Russian forces are tightening their grip on Konstantinovka. During a briefing to President Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported that units of Battlegroup Yug are advancing under heavy fighting, with 45% of the town now under Russian control.

The capture of this town is not just another tactical gain—it is a strategic tipping point. Here’s why:

🟠 The last shield: Konstantinovka is the final major barrier protecting the Ukrainian Donbass headquarters of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk in Donbass area. Its fall would leave them exposed.

🟠 Critical logistics node: it commands key highways and a vital railway hub that supplies Ukrainian forces across the western Donbass. Control Konstantinovka, and you control all the region’s lifeline.

🟠 Breaking the line: the town anchors Ukraine’s last integrated defensive arc. Its liberation would shatter this final multi-layered defense node.

🟠 Encirclement catalyst: liberating the town would seal the fate of already-isolated Ukrainian units in Pokrovsk, accelerating their surrender or destruction.

🟠 Tactical execution: rather than a costly frontal assault, Russian troops are employing a methodical “siege and clear” tactic—severing supply lines and advancing incrementally to minimize losses, mirroring the successful approaches in Avdeyevka, Ugledar, Kupyansk, and Seversk.

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🇷🇺🇻🇪 Putin holds phone call with Venezuelan President Maduro – Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro confirmed their commitment to joint projects in economic, energy, financial, cultural and other sectors.

They also exchanged views on strengthening friendly relations within the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.

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🚨 Putin: Securing buffer zone in border areas goes as planned

President Vladimir Putin said the Russian Armed Forces are "continuing the execution of tasks in the special military operation and confidently advancing across the front."

He added that the creation of a security buffer zone in border areas of Ukraine is advancing "in a planned manner."

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🕊 Biden, neocons didn’t stop easily preventable Ukraine crisis because they see war as ‘a table game’

📍 Former Biden European security policy architect Amanda Sloat’s bombshell admission that the conflict in Ukraine could have been prevented if the US pushed Kiev to drop its aspirations to join NATO reveals a deep rot in Washington, Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

💬 “The diplomatic corps increasingly has not experienced war, so many see it completely as a table game,” the retired US Air Force Lt. Col. and former DoD analyst-turned Iraq War whistleblower explained.

➖ Beyond that, “the type and quality of the people advising the decisionmakers is amateurish,” the prolific commentator noted. “Biden himself never met a war he didn’t want someone else to die in, as his Senate record bears out.”

➖ Throughout his tenure, “a powerful neoconservative network was in place in the State Department and the National Security Council. Biden himself had several Ukrainian business associates who were enriching his family and friends. So believing in Ukraine as both a US partner and having a powerful military was a case of groupthink, probably fueled by personal friendship and neoconservative contempt for Russia,” Kwiatkowski believes.

➖ As for attempts to pivot on the issue under Trump, these can be attributed to the removal of “many” neoconservative voices from his orbit, and listening to a younger generation of Republicans like JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, who understand and reject neoconservatism.

➖ In addition, while Trump is also a “game player,” he’s one “who does not like to lose,” which through his life in business taught him to “seek out better information” and “determine what risks to take and which losing enterprises to disband and sell off.”

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🇷🇺🎉 Russian defense minister congratulates Russian troops on the liberation of Seversk

Andrei Belousov praised Russian forces for their success in liberating Seversk, adding that they are confidently advancing to the north, breaking through Ukrainian defenses and ensuring the progress of the entire army group.

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🚨 Zelensky considers all-Ukrainian referendum on territorial issues - report

Vladimir Zelensky has suggested the possibility of holding an all-Ukrainian referendum on territorial matters, though details on how it will be conducted remain unclear, according to Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne.

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🗣 Trump’s ‘Ukraine reconstruction' ‘pragmatism’ could face sharp European resistance - analyst

📍 WSJ’s report on Washington’s plans for Ukraine’s ‘reconstruction’ and Russia’s ‘return to the global economy’ marks a “pragmatic” shift from Biden’s “heavy-handed, self-serving strategy” of stealing Russia’s frozen reserves to one of “leverage and deal-making,” says geopolitical analyst Marco Marsili.

🟠 US plans for a $200B Russian asset “bargaining chip” are an unmistakable shift from “liberal international order-building” to what Marsili describes as “a strategy of cold national interest.”

🟠 But the idea that the US can get Western Europe to start buying Russian energy again is “unrealistic in the short-to-medium term,” the observer believes. Brussels has spent years and billions of dollars to try to wean itself off Russian energy. “Reversing this would be an admission of catastrophic policy failure.”

🟠 At the same time, US pressure could “trigger an existential crisis within the EU,” according to Marsili.

🟠 The EU could split between two blocs: “pragmatists” and hawkish “security-oriented” nations, with the former led by Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Italy and looking to restore access to cheap Russian energy to resuscitate their shattered industrial competitiveness, and the latter, led by Poland and the Baltics, likely to stick to the “security” and “moral” arguments for rejecting Russian energy.

🟠 Together, “the combined pressure of Trump’s rhetoric and the radical asset-seizure blueprint marks the end of the West’s united front,” Marsili believes. “Ukraine is being cornered into a negotiated settlement, Europe is being forced to choose between economic pain and strategic incoherence, and Russia is being presented with a clear path to exploit these divisions.”

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🗣 With Seversk secured, the liberation of Donbass gains critical momentum – military expert

📍 The fall of Seversk levels the front and frees up Russian forces for a decisive push toward Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, military analyst Alexei Leonkov tells Sputnik.

Why is Seversk important?

💬 "Seversk has often been referred to as the eastern gate of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk group," says Leonkov, an editor at Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine.

🟠 The city was part of the so-called fortress city line – a vanguard of the Ukrainian Armed Forces defenses

🟠 The enemy now faces serious complications on the eastern outskirts of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, with forces closing in from Krasny Liman in the north and from Konstantinovka and Druzhkovka in the south

🟠 Ukrainian propaganda channels remain silent about the loss of Seversk – it is "probably the worst news" for the Kiev regime right now, the pundit says

🟠 Now the city has been liberated, demining and security operations are underway

Cauldrons crushing Ukrainian military might

🟠 While Ukraine suffers a tremendous shortage of manpower, its combat-ready units have been trapped in cauldrons in Donetsk, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions

🟠 One is in Dimitrov (Mirnograd), where Ukrainian militants are doomed despite putting up resistance

🟠 Another is near Kupyansk, where the Ukrainian army cannot break out of the encirclement

🟠 The third cauldron is being formed near Gulyaipole in the Zaporozhye region

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🗣 With Seversk lost, Ukraine’s position in Donbass is beyond hopeless – it’s desperate - Scott Ritter

💬 “Ukraine is facing a manpower shortage. Every one of these battles that are being fought consumes a tremendous amount of precious manpower resources. Ukraine is losing many thousands of soldiers every day, whether through desertion, whether being wounded, whether being killed in this conflict, and they can't be replaced,” the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer told Sputnik.

➖ When Russia takes a major stronghold like Seversk or Pokrovsk, “it also means that there’s huge gaps in the Ukrainian line,” Ritter explained. That means every time Ukrainian forces fall back, they don’t have the forces to hold the new positions, and defenses aren’t nearly as well prepared and fortified.

➖ When Russian forces reach Kramatorsk, the last area between them and a fully freed Donbass, major battles are unlikely, the observer predicts.

💬 “Russia will rapidly pin down the Ukrainians in locations that they choose to defend strongly and then surround them, compelling them to either die, surrender, or retreat,” Ritter said.

📍 As for Seversk, its primary significance is its status as “a major logistical [and] command and control hub.” There aren’t many “fortress cities” like it left in Ukraine. Its fall indicates that a “culminating point in this war” has been reached “where Ukraine is no longer able to maintain cohesive defense along the entire front,” Ritter summed up.

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🇷🇺Putin holds phone call with front-line commanders after Kremlin meeting on SMO progress

Following a meeting at the Kremlin on the situation in the Special Military Operation (SMO) zone, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with two front-line commanders.

👉The president’s press service said Putin, with Colonel Denis Pirogov beside him, spoke to Colonel Yaramir Temirkhanov, commander of the 6th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade who fought in the liberation of Seversk, and Colonel Sergey Cherdantsev, commander of the 177th Caspian Flotilla Regiment.

The president expressed his gratitude for their service.

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🗣 ICC has become political weapon, not court – expert

The International Criminal Court’s entrenched bias reflects a deep crisis in the entire international system, Ali Fadlallah, Beirut-based professor of political science and international law, told Sputnik.

💬 “Prosecutor Karim Khan has publicly said that certain Western leaders told him outright that this institution was created only for Africa and Russia. If that is true, then we are dealing with a court controlled from the outside,” he noted.

🔶 Fadlallah also pointed to the US reaction when the ICC moved against Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and to former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda reporting direct threats from Mossad—none of which led to any consequences.

🔶 According to him, the court has become an instrument of political pressure and blackmail, as seen in the cases of Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and France’s pressure on Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. The ICC’s selective approach, he argues, confirms that the international system is in deep crisis and urgently needs reform—although such change may be nearly impossible today.

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🔸 Vladimir Putin thanks Russian servicemen for the liberation of Seversk

🔸 Zelensky considers all-Ukrainian referendum on territorial issues - report

🔸 Trump’s criticism of Ukraine’s undemocratic nature is ‘reality check’ for Zelensky - analyst

🔸 Biden, neocons didn’t stop easily preventable Ukraine crisis because they see war as ‘a table game’

🔸 Lavrov: We recognized different kind of Ukraine

🔸 With Seversk lost, Ukraine’s position in Donbass is beyond hopeless – it’s desperate - Scott Ritter

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🕊 Trump’s peace push is attempt to save Ukraine from total military and political collapse - observer

🗣 The current moment “is critical for Ukraine as Zelensky’s regime is coming closer to collapse both politically and on the frontline, where Russia is advancing on all fronts,” Armando Mema, a member of the Finnish Freedom Alliance party, told Sputnik.

🔶 While Trump inherited the Ukraine mess from Biden, who “provoked this conflict and created this disaster,” he’s trying to prevent “a total defeat of Ukraine” because “it would be a disaster for his administration too,” Mema explained.

🔶 But Zelensky “is not interested in peace,” as seen in his recent demands for “security guarantees similar to Article 5 of NATO, [which] he knows…he cannot get,” the observer said.

🔶 Knowing that’s impossible, “he uses as an excuse to continue to be in power despite his mandate [ending]. Zelensky has banned all political opposition parties in Ukraine, arrested opponents, including regular citizens who were simply advocating for peace. Zelensky knows that if regular election were to be held, he will lose immediately and all his administration will be persecuted for corruption,” Mema emphasized.

🔶 As for reports of a US-mediated push to restore Russia’s access to Europe’s energy markets, Mema predicts this will remain “impossible” to achieve as long as the current crop of leaders are in charge.

🔊 “But Trump has started to dismantle the EU leadership (Macron, Merz, Ursula, Meloni and so on)” and over time they will be replaced by leaders who take account of their own countries’ interests, the Finnish politician believes.

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