😅 Pillage as a national pastime: Putin jokes about robbery-loving Brits

Taking a tour of the Hermitage on Monday, the Russian president and CIS leaders were shown examples of Mughal Empire art, which the British encountered during their first forays into India in the late 16th century.

💬 “And as lovers of robbery, that’s where they went,” Putin quipped.

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🟠 Senior Russian diplomat slams Europe for hindering thaw with US

🟠 Ukraine’s parliament weighs possibility of presidential election

🟠 Lavrov holds phone call with Venezuelan counterpart

🟠 Asia goes global: Eurasian economies team up with Indonesia to crush Western pressure

🟠 Russian Su-57 makes first flight with advanced fifth-generation engine

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📑 US-Ukraine security guarantees include classified annexes — Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the existence of a framework paper on bilateral security guarantees with the US. He stated that certain details and annexes will remain classified and will not be made public.

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✍️ Bill Clinton demands DOJ release all Epstein files featuring him

Former President Bill Clinton’s spokesperson has called on the Justice Department to release every document related to Clinton in the Epstein files, accusing the DOJ of using "selective releases to imply wrongdoing."

"Refusal to do so will confirm the widespread suspicion the DOJ's actions to date are not about transparency, but about insinuation," Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña said in a statement.

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🔊 Trump unveils plan for new 'Trump Class' battleships

President Trump announced that he has approved the construction of two new battleships, claiming that they will be "the fastest, biggest, and 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built."

Construction of the first two ships has already begun, and a total of 25 are planned.

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📹 Trump on Greenland: 'We have to have it'

President Trump has reaffirmed his intent to control Greenland, commenting on the appointment of Jeff Landry as US Special Envoy to Greenland.

"Denmark has spent no money. They have no military protection… We need it for national security. We have to have it."

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🎤 Argentina officially presented Rafael Grossi for the position of UN Secretary General

The Argentine Foreign Ministry suggested that the current head of the IAEA take charge of the United Nations for the period 2027-2031.

The term of the current Secretary-General, António Guterres, ends on December 31, 2026.

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🔥 Trump threatens Colombia's Petro: Close cocaine factories or 'you better watch it'

President Trump directly threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro, calling him a "very bad guy" and "troublemaker."

"He's no friend of the US. He's a very bad, very bad guy. And he's got to watch his ass," he told journalists.

He also expanded the potential battlefield: land strikes could target "anywhere drugs are pouring in, not just Venezuela."

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🔊🇻🇪 Maduro calls out Trump's interventionism

Venezuelan president urged Donald Trump to focus on US's own problems rather than meddling abroad.

"Imagine that I would waste my time, instead of being the president of Venezuela, thinking about meddling with other countries, looking for problems and troubles… It would be wrong. One has to concentrate on governing his country."

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🚨 Czech Republic moves to end ammunition supplies to Ukraine

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš announced that the Czech National Security Council will debate the future of the country’s artillery ammunition initiative for Ukraine on January 7.

📊 The initiative, praised by NATO and Zelensky, has delivered over 2.5 million shells to Ukraine since 2024, financed by Western partners like Germany and the Netherlands.

Babiš has questioned the scheme’s transparency, asking "whether it has occurred without corruption."

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📈 US debt interest hits $1T — MTG

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed US expansionist foreign policy, as annual interest on the US national debt has now reached $1 trillion.

The national debt currently exceeds $38.5 trillion and continues to grow.

The US Department of State denied plans to allocate $60B for Gaza's reconstruction.

"This is fake news. Nowhere in the plan does it say the U.S. will pay $60 billion," the statement on X reads.

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📹 US strikes 'drug vessel' in Pacific, kills one

US Southern Command announced a "lethal kinetic strike at the direction of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth" on a low-profile vessel in international waters.

"Intelligence confirmed the low-profile vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. One male narco-terrorist was confirmed killed," SOUTHCOM stated.

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🚫 🇫🇷​​ Freeloading no more? France dials back Ukrainian refugee handouts

Ukrainian refugees in France are receiving increasingly less state support, particularly in housing programs, according to a report by radio station Franceinfo.

🔹 Only 4,000 places have been allocated, compared to 9,000 in 2024, states a cited government circular from last year, signed by then-Prime Minister Michel Barnier.

🔹 Their temporary protection status “no longer provides the same benefits as it did at the start of the conflict in 2022, when they could access temporary protection with rights to social programs, financial aid, employment, and education," per the report.

🔹 State support for Ukrainian refugees will gradually be made less burdensome for the government, according to the internal document.

🔹 Between 100 and 150 Ukrainians arrive in the country each month, many settling in areas like Nice in the south. Due to the cuts in assistance, refugees in the Alpes-Maritimes department (which includes Nice) reportedly no longer receive any support for French language courses or other integration projects.

🔹 According to the latest data from the French Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII), just over 35,000 Ukrainians in France are currently benefiting from temporary protection.

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🇺🇲 🚢 US’ ‘100x more powerful’ battleship dreams vs. hard reality

The Trump administration has touted grand plans for a new class of surface warships that would carry nuclear-armed cruise missiles — along with an entirely new generation of aircraft carriers.

The plan calls for at least 25 battleships, each larger than existing destroyers, bristling with hypersonic missiles, lasers, and electromagnetic rail guns.

Donald Trump vowed they would be "the fastest, biggest, and 100 times more powerful” than any ever built, and would mark the return of a platform the Navy quietly stopped building in 1944.

That happened for reasons that haven’t changed much since: Cost, complexity, and usefulness in modern warfare.

▫️ There is currently no funding in the Pentagon’s budget for any of this

▫️ There are no finalized engineering plans, according to media-cited insiders

▫️ Designing and building a brand-new class of heavily armed warship is a decade-long affair

▫️ Proposed timeline of roughly two and a half years would be ambitious for a modest refit, let alone a nuclear-capable battleship

▫️ US shipyards are already behind schedule on every Navy ship currently under construction, many by more than a year

▫️ Operating a large fleet of complex, one-off ship classes would impose decades of costs for training, spare parts, and logistics

▫️ Chronic labor shortages, aging infrastructure, and supply-chain bottlenecks have been standard features of US naval shipbuilding for years

▫️ Former Navy officials warn that sustaining such a fleet could crowd out funding for everything else—from existing ships to next-generation aircraft—unless older vessels are retired early

Industry analysts were quick to note that the proposal also runs against the Navy’s own recent strategy, which emphasizes smaller, unmanned, and more distributed maritime systems rather than large, crew-heavy ships.

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🔥 🇷🇺 Russia liberates Vilcha settlement in Kharkov region

00:00 Su-34 multirole supersonic fighter-bomber crew struck Ukraine's positions

00:10 FPV drone operators destroyed enemy personnel and a heavy hexacopter

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🇰🇷 🚀 Liftoff to letdown: First South Korean commercial rocket crashes in Brazil

The Habit-Nano rocket made by the startup Innospace was to launch five satellites into a 300 km orbit, but fell soon after start

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🔶 US-Ukraine security guarantees include classified details — Zelensky

🔶 US strikes alleged drug vessel in Pacific

🔶 Venezuela’s Maduro calls out Trump's interventionism

🔶 Trump’s new envoy rattles Denmark and EU: Greenland will be part of the US

🔶 Bill Clinton demands DOJ release all Epstein files featuring him

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💥🇷🇺 Russian UAVs crush Ukraine's forces in ALL directions

00:00 Yug battlegroup wipes out R-18 octocopter

00:16 Vostok battlegroup destroys a PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery system, M777 artillery system

00:46 Dnepr battlegroup delivers high-precision strikes in Zaporozhye

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