🚨 Putin questions NATO chief’s understanding of US security strategy

Putin took a jab at NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, suggesting he read the new US National Security Strategy.

As NATO gears up for a potential war with Russia, Putin pointed out that the US — NATO’s main backer — doesn’t even consider Moscow a threat.

💬 "What’s going on here? You can read, right?"

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🚨 Drones are the backbone of modern warfare: Russia’s superiority in this field is tangible and vital

🔸 “Drones today play a key role along the entire line of contact, determining the success or failure of assault units in various situations,” National Defense magazine editor-in-chief Igor Korotchenko said, commenting on President Putin’s remarks at Friday’s year-end presser about Russia’s drone superiority.

🔸 “The battlefield has become completely transparent using FPV drones of various types; they play a critical role in the destruction of enemy personnel, weapons and military equipment in areas extending approximately 20-25 km in either direction of the front.”

Drones for attack, drones for defense

🔶 The number and types of drones Russia has at its disposal “have increased exponentially, enabling its forces to achieve superiority over the enemy and render virtually all attempts to counterattack Russian forces pointless,” Korotchenko told Sputnik.

🔶 Drones also play a key role in combat in densely populated areas, providing troops with tools for situational awareness, and allowing the destruction of certain targets and enemy troops

🔶 Korotchenko pointed to the creation of the Center for Unmanned Systems, and Rubicon, under the patronage of Defense Minister Belousov, to assist in training operators, develop drones and evaluate their combat performance

🔸 “Russia has learned the necessary lessons, and is rapidly advancing in the production and development of drones of all types, from FPV drones and quadcopters to long-range UAVs. Russia has also increased the production of loitering munitions,” the observer noted.

🔸 “The experience the Russian military has today represents a unique experience in waging modern high-tech warfare in completely new conditions, operational environments, and [taking account of] the changing nature of combat operations,” Korotchenko summed up.

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🇷🇺 Why Russia’s military added 400k volunteers in 2025, while Ukraine’s forces are bleeding out

“It’s a combination of two factors,” explains National Defense magazine editor-in-chief Igor Korotchenko: “a desire to fulfill one’s duty to one’s country, and the provision of very favorable conditions upon signing a contract. This is crucial.”

📍 This includes social benefits, like combat veteran status, support for families, competitive salaries, and “a whole grading system” of rewards for combat performance and the destruction of enemy equipment.

🗣 Put another way, “the material and financial conditions of contract service are very favorable, and competitive in market conditions,” Korotchenko tells Sputnik.

“As for the enemy…the number of deserters from Ukraine’s armed forces is growing. People are evading service, trying to avoid it for a variety of reasons. Some are going underground, some try to leave Ukraine, some are hiding. In short, this is why we have these mass roundups, where Ukrainians are rounded up, coerced into service, and sent off to be used as cannon fodder for the slaughter.”

“It’s clear there’s no motivation as such; people don’t want to fight and they’re trying to desert or surrender to the Russian army at any opportunity. Therefore, from a moral and psychological standpoint, the Russian army has the upper hand,” Korotchenko summed up.

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🇷🇺 Putin defends the 1990s Generation

Putin disagreed with the idea that the 1990s generation was lost to the country, highlighting that many of the 700,000 people currently on the battlefields in the special military operation zone are from that generation.

💬 "How are they showing their face and proving themselves?" Putin asked, recalling his own time in intelligence and emphasizing that a person reveals their true character in critical situations.

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🗣 EU and NATO block Ukraine peace to protect their fading relevance - ex-Pentagon analyst

📍 Russian President Vladimir Putin credited his US counterpart Donald Trump with making "serious and genuine efforts" to end the Ukraine conflict, but what's blocking a diplomatic breakthrough?

🔶 The EU and NATO leadership stands in the way of the peace solution, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon analyst, tells Sputnik.

🔶 They aren’t just reluctant to end the conflict—they see Ukraine as a chance to expand influence, prop up the two stagnant institutions, and justify NATO's raison d'être, according to the pundit.

💬 "This 'plan' was never more than a gamble, and they have lost. But losing means the loss of their political power, standing, and actual humiliation for them as public figures. That's the obstacle," she says.

🔊 She explains that "political survival of the current military and government leadership in Kiev, as well as London, Berlin, and Paris, depends on the continued war, with its cash flow to them and its political militarism."

➖ To that end, the EU and NATO are still ready to fight to the last Ukrainian, waste the vast landscape of Ukraine, and gamble Ukraine's future.

➖ While the US was part of this gamble with Biden administration neocons, it freed itself from European elite ideas, having elected Donald Trump, according to Kwiatkowski.

➖ The conflict will end when the reasons for it are dealt with in a moral and criminal sense, she says, stressing that there are signs that the US has started this process of re-evaluation through exposure of the Biden and Obama policy teams' culpability in this matter.

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🇷🇺 What will Russia look like in 200 years?

This is what Putin imagines 👆🏻

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🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin has wrapped up his extensive year-end press conference, which lasted over 4 hours

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

⚡️ Russian forces liberated four settlements over the past week

In response to attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure, the Russian Aerospace Forces conducted one massive and six group strikes with high-precision weapons against Ukraine militants

🔸 The Tsentr Battlegroup continued decimating Ukrainian forces in Dimitrov and mopping up militants from Rodinskoye, Svetloye, and Grishino in the Donetsk People's Republic

🔸 Air defense superiority: 1,689 drones were shot down

🔸 Ukrainian losses: 8,405 troops killed or wounded

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇷🇺 Putin's year-end marathon presser in 2 minutes

What did the president talk about?

👉Russia’s primary wish for 2026

👉The Russian military’s battlefield dominance

👉Zelensky’s video, allegedly from Kupyansk

👉NATO and relations with Europe

👉Advice for NATO’s Rutte

👉Relations with China

👉The true nature of 3I/ATLAS

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🚨 Here’s why Zelensky’s clique refuses to surrender, even if it means Ukraine’s total collapse

The strategic initiative is in Russia’s hands, and the longer Ukraine’s leadership puts off talks, the worse it will be for Kiev, says Swedish Armed Forces veteran and defense analyst Mikael Valtersson, commenting on President Putin’s comments at his year-end presser on the state of the Ukrainian crisis.

💬 “The Ukrainian approach to the peace process is very hard to understand,” Valtersson told Sputnik.

🗣“The Ukrainian leadership is desperate not to appear as losers towards the Ukrainian population, and also has been partially blinded by their own propaganda. Ukraine is very good at information warfare and has convinced a large part of the European and Ukrainian population that the war is a stalemate that is favorable to Ukraine.”

👉Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky is “in a very difficult situation,” and knows that “if he loses power he might even lose his freedom and maybe also his life.”

🔊“He can't have elections until he gets a good peace deal if he wants to retain power. He therefore clings on to power and waits for a [miracle], much like Hitler did in 1944-45…Zelensky prioritizes his own well-being over the future and lives of the Ukrainian population. The result will probably be more lost Ukrainian territories and soldiers, as well as an even harsher final peace,” Valtersson explained.

❗️Russian forces have held the strategic initiative since the fall of 2023, focusing on advancing with “as few casualties as possible and at the same time maximiz[ing] Ukrainian casualties…a kind of offensive attritional warfare,” according to the observer.

📍Russia has advanced ~6k sq km in 2025, up from ~4k sq km in 2024. Valtersson expects this trend to “increase significantly” in the coming year, with Ukraine’s southern front crumbling, and Russian forces advancing through the Donbass, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov regions.

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