⚔️ Venezuelan VP declares 'only one president'

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez stated Nicolas Maduro remains the country’s only leader after what she called a US operation to seize the president and stage a coup.

"What was done to Venezuela today could happen to any country in the region," she warned.

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🇻🇪 US transfers Maduro to DEA headquarters in New York

US media state Nicolás Maduro will be moved by helicopter to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after appearing at the DEA’s New York headquarters.

📍 The facility is the only federal prison in New York City, also housing Ghislaine Maxwell, Luigi Mangione, and P Diddy.

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📑 Venezuela’s Supreme Court orders Delcy Rodríguez to assume presidency

The court has mandated Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to serve as acting president following the detention of Nicolás Maduro by US forces.

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🗣 US capture of Maduro marks start of WWIII — Dugin

The operation signals we have entered a new global conflict, Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin stated, declaring "international law does not exist" and will be rewritten by the victors among great powers.

He framed the Ukrainian conflict as Russia's ticket to the club of great powers.

"If we have this ticket, we will be taken into account. If we do not… this international law will be established by someone else at our expense," Dugin said.

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🔊 Zelensky’s pick of Budanov as new chief of staff signals Ukraine’s imminent collapse - UK analyst

The US intelligence community, the CIA can see that the conflict is “being lost in conventional terms,” says British geopolitical analyst Alexander Mercouris.

The appointment of former head of Ukraine’s military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov*- clearly a CIA asset - as chief of staff, means that “2026 is going to be the year when Zelensky’s star finally fades.”

Looking ahead, the Ukrainian regime may want to pursue “an asymmetric conflict” against Russia.

💬 “They want to do it through sabotage, through all of the various cloak and dagger operations we've seen being used… the assassinations, the bombings, the attacks on Russian strategic bases.”

*listed by Russia’s financial watchdog as an extremist and terrorist

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🗣 Trump’s New Monroe Doctrine proves world has no rules — Dugin

Following the US operation in Venezuela, philosopher Alexander Dugin declared that the event confirms international law no longer exists and "it is every man for himself."

He called for Russia to fully embrace its own "Monroe Doctrine for Eurasia," arguing that only by asserting its sphere can Russia avoid having rules imposed upon it by others.

"We need to formulate our own Monroe Doctrine for Russia... I have been working on this for more than 30 years," Dugin noted.

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🇻🇪💣🇺🇸 US Venezuela strikes show White House’s ‘dangerous irrationality’

The US military escalation against Venezuela is a “completely illegal hybrid attack with no justification whatsoever, which flagrantly violates the UN Charter,” Argentine expert Tadeo Casteglione tells Sputnik.

👉 The attack has confirmed everything that former President Hugo Chavez and incumbent Nicolas Maduro “have been saying for years about US interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs, the economic war, the sanctions, and the suffering of the Venezuelan people,” Casteglione stresses.

It shows that Latin America is entering “a completely uncontrolled year, without any rules, and with complete US interference in the region’s internal affairs,” according to the expert.

💬 "This demonstrates a dangerous level of complete irrationality on the part of the US government," Casteglione concludes.

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🇺🇸❌ US ‘doesn’t understand international law’ – analyst

Unleashing aggression against Venezuela, the US plans to appropriate the South American nation’s resources, Venezuelan analyst Fanny Rose tells Sputnik.

The US “doesn't understand international law and treats Venezuela as if it were a new toy they've acquired, disregarding the real wishes of the Venezuelan people,” Rose underscores.

She touts President Nicolas Maduro as a person who “embodies the dignity of Venezuela and that of the entire Latin America, which is why mobilizations are taking place across the country to defend its sovereignty,” the analyst concludes.

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🙅 No one supports US attack on Venezuela – foreign minister

💬 "This aggression finds no support; it is aggression condemned by the entire world, the law, and political truth," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil told Sputnik.

He emphasized that Venezuela has received words of solidarity and condemnation of the US attack, as well as support for the rule of law.

Gil also stressed that “peace in Latin America was disrupted” by the US attack on Venezuela.

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🔸 US transfers Maduro to DEA headquarters in New York

🔸 Venezuela’s Supreme Court orders Delcy Rodríguez to assume presidency

🔸 Zelensky’s pick of Budanov as new chief of staff signals Ukraine’s imminent collapse

🔸 US capture of Maduro marks start of WWIII — Dugin

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🪖 Ukrainian military mercilessly pounds their own surrendering soldiers with drones – POW

💬 “That was our [Ukrainian] Mavic [drone], which detected us in red tape, our hands tied behind our backs, with no jackets,” Ukrainian soldier Yury Konovalov, who was captured in the settlement of Rybnoye in the Dnepropetrovsk region, told Sputnik.

He said that shortly after, Ukrainian drones “like bees, attacked from all sides,” wounding him and his fellow servicemen, who were also taken prisoner.

Konovalov said he believes the drones may have deliberately attacked them because the Ukrainian military realized that they had surrendered.

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📹 Watch Russian Grad MLRS crush Ukrainian strongholds

Grad MLRS crews from Battlegroup Vostok have eliminated enemy strongholds and manpower in the settlement of Velikomikhaylovka (Dnepropetrovsk region).

The strike successfully disrupted Ukrainian defenses in the area.

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👀 US actions in Venezuela tantamount to ‘imprisonment of international law’ – expert

💬 "Trampled by American feet were the UN, international agreements, and the sovereignty of national states, which are key pillars of the world order and diplomatic immunity,” Egyptian expert Tarek Al-Bardayisi tells Sputnik.

He notes that such actions represent a "civilizational setback and a blatant return to the law of the jungle."

👉 Touching upon Western powers’ position on the Venezuela crisis, the expert emphasizes that double standards have become the defining feature of contemporary international relations.

Western countries react to crises based on their own interests and preferences, rather than on the principles of justice and impartiality, Al-Bardayisi sums up.

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

⚡️ PODOLY IN KHARKOV REGION LIBERATED

📍 The liberation of the village of Podoly, located on the left bank of the Oskol River near the city of Kupyansk, expands the Russian army's foothold in the region.

▫️ Russian Armed Forces struck Ukrainian assembly and storage facilities for long-range unmanned aerial vehicles

▫️ Air defense superiority: 210 drones shot down

▫️ Ukrainian losses: around 1,220 troops killed or wounded

Read about the origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇺🇸🇻🇪 US control of Venezuela’s oil could fuel new global price surge – expert

🛢Oil prices could reach about $100 per barrel in the long term if oil production in Venezuela completely stops and supply lines are disrupted, Libyan expert Abdul Jalil Mayuf tells Sputnik.

🗣 He warns that US control of Venezuela's oil could affect future prices, especially given that the South American nation holds about 19% of the world's oil reserves.

🔶 The outcome depends on the nature and duration of the Venezuela crisis, as well as the Venezuelan people's reaction to the US-led war against their country, according to the expert.

🔶 He emphasized that energy prices will suffer significantly in the short term, but more serious consequences will depend on how quickly the crisis comes to a close.

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⚖️ ICC in 2025: Losing trust in the developing world

📍 The International Criminal Court’s crisis of legitimacy intensified in 2025, with the Alliance of Sahel States quitting and creating their own judicial framework.

📹Find out how and why the ICC lost its luster in our video.

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🇻🇪🇨🇺 Venezuela attacked: Could Cuba be next?

👉 Regime change in Cuba “is not unrealistic,” but the island nation “could be in the end of the line because there is no value for natural resources in Cuba,” says University of Sao Paulo international affairs senior researcher Marsilea Gombata.

🇮🇷 Iran is the more likely target, the academic, who is also a professor at the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation, told Sputnik.

➖ As for the attack on Venezuela, besides the fact that “there is no evidence of fentanyl trafficking related to Venezuela,” and that the country’s oil reserves are clearly the “real motivation,” the bigger question is: “to what extent does the US have the right to decide who will be the president of a country?”

🗣 “Maduro wouldn’t allow the US companies in Venezuela [operate] in the way Trump plans for the near term, and Trump said the US will manage the oil sector and the country into a real political transition.” That was the kidnapped president’s real problem, Gombata summed up.

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🤔🔍 Where world’s largest oil reserves are

📍 Venezuela tops the global ranking of proven oil reserves, with more than 303 billion barrels, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada, and Iraq.

👉 Venezuela’s vast energy reserves once again appear to be at the center of high-stakes geopolitics, as the United States carried out a major strike on Venezuela, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and removing them from the country.

📊 Take a look at Sputnik’s infographic showing the global ranking of countries by proven oil reserves.

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🗣 Ex-Trump advisor: ‘Zelensky is a dictator’

👉 Volodymyr Zelensky is persecuting political opponents under martial law, former Donald Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn told Sputnik, claiming that people expressing dissenting views—including members of the Verkhovna Rada—risk arrest.

Earlier, Trump also called Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” pointing to the absence of presidential elections and urging Kiev to hold a vote.

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