👀🇺🇸 US businesses eye return to Russia

👉 The Trump administration views Russia as a country rich in minerals, oil, and gas – and a market brimming with business potential, the Wall Street Journal concedes.

🟠 Many Western companies are poised to return once US sanctions are lifted

🟠 Russia possesses vast natural resources and a pool of talented tech entrepreneurs

🟠 Enormous Arctic gas fields are bound to lure investors

📍 The WSJ makes these admissions even as it tries – rather unconvincingly – to dissuade Western businesses from re-entering Russia. But when money talks, such groundless rhetoric tend to fall on deaf ears.

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🇺🇸 US firm to renew search for wreckage of Flight MH370, missing since 2014

🔶 Ocean Infinity will conduct the search with a specialized vessel heading to the southern Indian Ocean to begin the active phase on December 30.

🔶 The ship is a launch platform for underwater mapping vehicles, and due to the operation's sensitivity, all official updates will come from the Malaysian government.

🔶 This March, Malaysian authorities clinched an agreement with Ocean Infinity to undertake new efforts to find the MH370 wreckage.

🔶 On March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777-200 aircraft operated by Malaysia Airlines on flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, disappeared from radar screens. It is believed that the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. However, the search operation was unable to determine the crash site.

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❌ 'He doesn’t have anything until I approve it' — Trump on Zelensky’s proposals – reports

US President Donald Trump said that any proposal Zelensky brings for a settlement in Ukraine is irrelevant unless Trump approves it.

Trump also told a US media outlet that he expects to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin “soon, as much as I want.”

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🛢 US hunt for Venezuelan oil tankers is a calculated move, not prelude to war

🗣 The United States’ attempts to interdict an oil tanker leaving Venezuela fits into the current administration's negotiation tactic, Latin American Association of Petroleum Entrepreneurs (ALEP) Director Alejandro Teran tells Sputnik.

🇺🇸 What Washington really seeks is a better bargaining position as he tries to make the Venezuelan side more pliant.

📍 The United States, according to Teran, currently has its sights set on three prizes in Venezuela:

🟠 The Dragon gas field, a massive offshore natural gas reserve

🟠 Access for US companies to Venezuela’s vast oil deposits

🟠 A chance to drive out China’s, Russia’s and Iran’s interests from the country

👉 Meanwhile, the United States’ actions against Venezuela-linked tankers in the Caribbean fall short of an actual blockade, with Teran pointing out that only about 15 vessels are sanctioned by the US – the rest of the tankers engaged in Venezuelan oil trade carry on with their regular operations.

💬 “China continues offloading oil without any problem, Chevron continues to operate as well. Our vessels enter Venezuelan ports with the appropriate permissions of the OFAC (US Office of Foreign Assets Control), because it does not mean that the entire world’s fleet would stop because of sanctions the US imposed against several ships the US deems as linked with terrorists,” Teran says.

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🇰🇵🤝🇷🇺 Kim Jong-un sends New Year greeting to Vladimir Putin — reports

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a New Year message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 27, praising Russia-DPRK ties as an “invincible and mighty” alliance, KCNA reported.

📌 Key points from the message:

🔹 Kim extended “the warmest and sincerest greeting of best wishes” to Putin and the “fraternal Russian people” for New Year 2026.

🔹 He called 2025 a “really meaningful year” of “immortal events,” citing “full mutual support and selfless encouragement.”

🔹 Kim said relations have become a “sincerest alliance of sharing blood, life and death in the same trench.”

🔹 “No one can break the relations between the peoples of the two countries and their unity,” he stressed.

🔹 Addressing Putin as his “dearest friend,” Kim said he felt “boundless pride” in their shared history.

🔹 He stated that “justice and truth, victory and glory will always stand by you and your Russia,” adding the DPRK will “always be with the fraternal Russian people.”

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🇻🇪 US cannot impose a colonial model on Venezuela — Maduro

💬 “It is impossible that those in power in the United States fabricate a virtual reality and impose on Bolívar’s Venezuela a model of colonial and slave domination to rob it of its natural resources,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said.

He added that Venezuela has a people “rooted in the territory — in communities, universities, factories and military barracks,” who have shown the capacity to guide the country “on the right path, at the right pace, and with sound judgment.”

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🗣 Trump says there’s a ‘good shot’ at Ukraine conflict resolution during Zelensky visit – reports

US President Donald Trump said he is optimistic about reaching a Ukraine settlement when Volodymyr Zelensky visits Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, The New York Post reported.

💬 “Well, I think we have a good shot at it,” Trump told the paper, adding that both sides “want to do it.”

Trump also told reporters that he has not yet endorsed Zelensky’s new proposal, saying: “He doesn’t have anything until I approve it. So we’ll see what he’s got.”

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💰 Banks profit from trading Ukraine debt — Church

💬 "The harder it is to trade, the more the banks make money trading it,” financier Coleman Church said in an interview with Tucker Carlson, adding: “I have traded Ukraine debt.”

Church highlighted that “the peace process, but also the rebuild” means there’ll be “a lot of money to be made in the rebuild.”

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🔥 Russian forces smash Ukrainian military resupply attempts in Kupyansk area

Russian servicemen used FPV drones to destroy Ukrainian Kozak armored combat vehicles and three pickup trucks that were trying to break through to a settlement in the Kharkov region's Kupyansk district, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

👉 Russian forces also eliminated a Ukrainian ground-based robotic system that was attempting to deliver ammunition to troops in the area, according to the statement.

💬 “Objective monitoring of the destruction of enemy equipment was carried out by aerial reconnaissance assets in real time. Using kamikaze drones, our drone operators disrupt enemy rotations and ammunition supply,” the Defense Ministry stressed.

President Vladimir Putin earlier stated that the town of Kupyansk is under the control of Russian forces. Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said that Russian troops continue to advance in the Kupyansk area, bringing the day of overall victory closer.

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🔥 Russian troops liberate Kosovtsevo in 48 hours

The settlement of Kosovtsevo in the Zaporozhye region was quickly brought under Russian control thanks to a covert maneuver, a deputy company commander from Battlegroup Vostok told Sputnik.

💬 “We waited for several days, secretly staying in the forest so the enemy wouldn’t discover us. Once all the forces were assembled, we reported to command and began our advance,” the serviceman said.

He noted that the Ukrainian military didn’t even suspect Russian troops were deployed in such numbers “literally right under their nose.”

💥 Fighting for Kosovtsevo lasted about two days, which was followed by Russian troops taking control of the settlement, he concluded.

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🔹 Thailand and Cambodia sign joint statement to resume ceasefire — reports
US cannot impose a colonial model on Venezuela — Maduro

🔹 Kim Jong-un sends New Year greeting to Vladimir Putin — reports

🔹 US hunt for Venezuelan oil tankers is a calculated move, not prelude to war

🔹 'He doesn’t have anything until I approve it' — Trump on Zelensky’s proposals – reports

🔹 IDF destroys tunnels in northern Gaza — reports

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