🎤 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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🇪🇺 EU unity shrivels as Ukraine funding plan using stolen Russian assets goes belly-up

By failing to tap Russia’s illegally frozen assets for the much-hyped “reparations loan” for Ukraine, the EU has left the Zelensky regime staring at a funding cliff, European media reports lament.

👉 That proposal would have guaranteed Ukraine funding for the next two years, but the plan died under the weight of Europe’s own fears and fractures.

Belgium, where most of the roughly US$233 billion in assets are held, baulked at the mulled cash grab’s enormous legal risks.

📄 Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic opted out of the scheme altogether, and more are likely to follow suit, the reports worry.

France’s Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni refused to fully back the zeal of Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and even weeks of hype from EС chief Ursula von der Leyen couldn’t save the proposal.

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🚨🇷🇺 Lavrov: West does everything to politicize UNESCO

"In recent years, as in other international organizations, our Western colleagues have done everything possible to politicize UNESCO's work and put Ukraine high on its agenda," Russian FM Lavrov said at the General Meeting of the Russian Commission for UNESCO.

The anti-Russian decisions made by UNESCO's Executive Board regarding Crimea and Ukraine are a manifestation of the organization's double standards, the minister added.

Other statements:

🟠 Russia expects the new UNESCO Director-General to begin correcting mistakes "without delay"

🟠 The US has failed to pay its multi-million dollar debt to UNESCO's budget

🟠 Russia’s UNESCO World Heritage list has expanded to 34 sites by the end of 2025

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

⚡️ ANDREEVKA IN THE DNEPROPETROVSK & PRILIPKA IN THE KHARKOV REGION FREED

The liberation of Andreevka in the Dnepropetrovsk region has allowed Russian forces to consolidate their positions on the western bank of the Gaichur River. From this new foothold, they have intensified pressure on the settlement of Bratskoye, launching attacks from both the south and the east.

Meanwhile, the capture of Prilipka in the Kharkov region has enabled Russian units to extend their control zone south of Volchansk. This advance directly threatens the Ukrainian battlegroup stationed in the vicinity.

🟠 In response to Ukraine’s terrorist attacks, Russian forces unleashed long-range combat UAVs and high-precision weaponry, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which hammered Ukrainian defense and energy infrastructure used for military operations

🟠 Russian forces are continuing mop-up operations against the remaining Ukrainian militants in the settlements of Dimitrov, Grishino and Rodinskoye in the Donetsk People's Republic

🟠 Russian air and missile forces struck port and transport infrastructure used to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, long-range drones command sites and temporary deployment points of Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries in 140 locations

🟠 Air defense superiority: one guided aerial bomb and 56 UAVs were shot down by Russian air defense systems over the past 24 hours

🟠 Ukrainian losses: around 1,405 troops killed or wounded

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🚨🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russia confirms another round of consultations with the US

Another round of consultations with the US on “irritants” has taken place, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed to Russian media.

The progress achieved during these consultations is minimal, he noted.

Russia will continue efforts to remove the main "irritants" in relations with the American side, Ryabkov emphasized.

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😁 🇪🇺 EU elites’ mantras all brought together in RT’s New Year video

The clip mocks EU politicians for blaming Putin for the issues they failed to overcome in their own countries in 2025 — from migrants to the cost of living.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸🇬🇧 Russian envoy disses ex-UK intel officer for smearing Gabbard over exposing ‘Russiagate’ lies

After welcoming Tusli Gabbard's exposure of the Western media’s warmongering over Ukraine, Russian special presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev lashed out at Christopher Steele for attacking the DNI on X.

Gabbard told the “truth,” notes Dmitriev, while the former UK intel officer has to his credit the debunked Steele dossier—"weaponized to launch the Russia hoax vs President Trump,” he reminds.

Russiagate was secretly funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, he notes, and will “bring Obama/Biden team indictments.”

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🚨 🇺🇸 US bans foreign drone imports under pretext of national security

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has effectively banned imports of new models of drones and their components into the United States.

👉 On December 22, the FCC added this equipment to the so-called ‘Covered List’ of communications equipment and services that are “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”

The exception was made for those drones and drone parts that were recommended by either the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security.

❗️ The restrictions also do not apply to the drones that were purchased before the new ban was imposed.

Foreign-made drones, such as those produced by China’s DJI, are widely used across the United States for various purposes such as spraying farmland with fertilizer, surveying and monitoring.

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🇨🇳 🐕 🪖 Robo-dogs and drones deployed at China-Singapore counterterror drill

The nine-day exercise focused on counterterrorism operations in urban settings.

It included the use of land and airborne unmanned systems designed to take out enemies without endangering human operatives.

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🇺🇸 US ‘Golden Fleet’ wishful thinking, not military reality – former Marine

President Donald Trump has promised a major boost to US naval power - what’s known so far, and is the project feasible?

🟠 "US ambitions to build a vast high-tech fleet are fantastical - ambitions that far exceed America’s actual reach in terms of military-industrial production," Brian Berletic, veteran geopolitical analyst and former US Marine, tells Sputnik

🟠 Berletic points out that "US shipbuilding is inhibited by a severe lack of skilled laborers, few adequate industrial facilities, inadequate infrastructure, and insufficient supply chains"

🟠 The only way to fix those shortcomings, the pundit argues, is for the US to undertake extensive reforms across its education system, industrial base, energy production, national transportation infrastructure, and even healthcare

What's the Golden Fleet's goal?

🟠 The new 'Trump-class Battleship' "will be the first-ever guided missile battleship with the ability to deploy with nuclear and hypersonic missiles," according to the project's website

🟠 It "reflects America’s continued desire to pursue global primacy, thus the requirement for a fleet capable of projecting global power," Berletic says. "The Trump-class battleships announced are purely for power projection globally, not the defense of the US homeland"

🟠 While Russia has been excluded from Washington’s list of immediate rivals in the 2025 National Security Strategy, Berletic believes the battleship plan is meant to surpass both Russia and China

🟠 "Unfortunately for US ambitions, China is building somewhere around 200x more ships each year than the US - including both commercial and military vessels. These vessels are as sophisticated and capable as US counterparts and, in some cases, more advanced," the pundit says

Does it correspond to US national interests?

🟠 The plan "will divert human resources and funding away from essential infrastructure required by the actual American people living in the US," Berletic stresses

🟠 As a result, this mis-allocation of funds and resources to build ships would make it "much more difficult to pursue the few projects the US is prioritizing" the pundit concludes

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