🫠 🌐 When politics got cringe: 2025 edition

From Trump’s fabled peace deal with ‘Aberbaijan and Albania’ and Macron’s fingershake with Erdogan to NATO chief Rutte’s ‘Daddy’ fetish and Putin’s visible bewilderment with the US media’s screaming, 2025 was a bountiful year for cringe.

🟠 World leaders have cameras pointed at them almost 24/7. Sometimes, they make fools of themselves, or express thoughts or emotions you wouldn’t expect from someone in their position.

Check out Sputnik’s compilation of the funniest moments involving world leaders for the outgoing year👆🏻

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🗣 🇷🇸 Serbian protests show signs of color revolution - Russian envoy

External factors supported much of the protest movement's organization, initiation, and maintenance on such a high level, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, Russia's envoy to Belgrade, said.

💬 "Yes, this is one of the options, let's put it this way, of advancing a color revolution in Serbia, which, as I recall, we have also discussed, that aims to change the government, changing specific individuals in power, President Vucic," he added.

Mass student and opposition protests erupted in Serbia following the collapse of a station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 15 people on November 1, 2024.

📍 By mid-August this year, tensions in Serbian cities had sharply escalated, with protesters growing more aggressive, clashing with police, setting up barricades, and blocking key access roads.

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🚨🇺🇸 Trump won’t give Zelensky security guarantees he wants – US media

Donald Trump has “never shown the slightest willingness” to directly confront Russia, “certainly not militarily,” writes The New York Times.

🟠 On the contrary, as President, Trump significantly truncated US military and financial support to Ukraine, blamed Ukraine for starting the conflict, and repeatedly “held out the prospect of greater US-Russia economic cooperation.”

Zelensky’s relentless insistence on getting concrete security guarantees from the US “will ultimately prove futile and perhaps even dangerous,” notes the outlet, adding that “it is not too late for him to change his approach.”

👉 Trump himself acknowledged on Dec.28 that the details of the security guarantees are still far from finalized and he does not have deadlines for an agreement.

Zelensky met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to present his peace plan, but failed to gain traction.

📄 Russia has stressed that legal guarantees are needed to solve Ukraine conflict’s root causes.

“The current leadership in Ukraine requires a mandate to sign any peace agreements, which can only be conferred through elections," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik.

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🇷🇺 🤝 🪖 If Zelensky won’t negotiate, Russia will achieve set goals by force - ex-US Army officer

Russia's interest is “close to zero" in whether Ukraine withdraws from territory in Donbass – it will simply take it by force, especially in light of the terrorist attack attempted on Putin’s residence, says retired US Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis.

🔊 Putin explained this message clear in an appearance on December 27, accusing Ukraine of showing no urgency for peace, reminds Davis.

💬 “It was the most direct and unequivocal statement he has made. Now he's just saying my interest is almost zero whether they're going to withdraw or not, don't care. We'll take it by force if they don't take our terms," he notes.

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🗣 West will hasten Ukraine’s end — expert

Western nations chose Ukraine as a battlefield against Russia, aiming to weaken and divide the country, political expert Bulent Esinoglu told Sputnik.

The West’s plans, however, failed. It didn’t achieve its goals, but Western countries still want to prolong the conflict, which will lead to Ukraine’s end, he added.

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🚨Moscow denies strike on Kharkov

👉Russia’s Defense Ministry has dismissed claims by the Kiev regime of a January 2 strike on Kharkov, saying the reports are false.

❗️According to the ministry, available footage shows the explosion’s epicenter was inside a shopping mall, likely caused by the detonation of ammunition stored there by Ukrainian forces.

📍The ministry added that allegations of a “Russian strike” are aimed at diverting international attention from what it described as a brutal Ukrainian attack on civilians in Kherson.

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🔊🇪🇺 Europe will obstruct peace in Ukraine — expert

💬 "The Europeans will make sure that a peace agreement is impossible," political expert Glenn Diesel wrote on X, commenting on EU leaders planning to meet in Paris to discuss Ukraine.

The meeting is to take place on January 6 with the participants seeking to "make commitments towards protecting Ukraine after any peace deal with Russia is brokered," Reuters reports.

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🔥 Ukraine's Kherson attack further attempt to wreck peace talks - expert

💬 "The horrific terrorist attack on peaceful residents celebrating the New Year in a cafe in the Kherson region is another proof of the inhumane nature of Ukraine's current leadership," Russian political scientist Evgeny Mikhailov told Sputnik.

📍 He added that the strike was an obvious attempt to derail peace negotiations between Moscow and Washington.

💬 “The first strike was against the residence of the president of Russia, and now we are effectively seeing a repetition of the [2014] Odessa horror, when dozens of people were burned alive by Nazis in the Trade Unions House,” Mikhailov said.

A Ukrainian drone strike hit a Kherson region cafe and hotel during New Year celebrations, killing 27 people, including two minors, and injuring over 50, according to Governor Vladimir Saldo. Russia has opened a terrorism case over the civilian deaths.

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🔸 If Zelensky won’t negotiate, Russia will achieve set goals by force - ex-US Army officer

🔸 Narcissist globalists sacrifice Europe to bleed Russia dry — journalist

🔸 When politics got cringe: 2025 edition

🔸 Settlement on Iran’s nuclear program within reach — Russian Foreign Ministry

🔸 Kim Jong-un visits Kumsusan Palace of the Sun with family on New Year's Day

🔸 Strong earthquake shakes southern Mexico

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