✍️ Ukraine confirms transfer of major lithium deposit to Trump‑linked US investors

Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced the Dobra lithium deposit in Kirovograd has been awarded to a US-led consortium including TechMet and The Rock Holdings — firms tied to Trump allies, notably billionaire Ronald Lauder.

The deal, first reported by the NYT, requires minimum investment of $179 million.

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🗣 Iranian FM: 350 mosques, 180 ambulances, buses targeted in unrest

Foreign Minister Araghchi said that protesters destroyed public infrastructure and "strangely targeted mosques," adding that 350 mosques were set on fire.

"No Iranian could dare to set fire to a place of worship," he added.

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🔊 German FM doubts US seriousness on Greenland military action

Johann Wadephul stated he has "no indication" that US military action against Greenland is being seriously considered.

"NATO is only now making more concrete plans, which will then be discussed with US partners," he told reporters following talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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❌ West's short-sighted Ukraine policy could leave EU without weapons – expert

European states didn’t plan to fight for Ukraine, but instead relied on supplying weapons and ammunition to the Zelensky regime, Turkish foreign policy expert Inanc Sancak told Sputnik.

He said that Russia is effectively destroying the EU weapons sent to the Ukrainian front, while Europe's own stockpiles are dwindling.

Russia will most likely achieve its goals in Ukraine in the near future, whereas Europe will be left without weapons. Against this backdrop, it is now clear why the US is threatening a weakened Europe, the expert summed up.

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❌🪖💣 Russian forces eliminate a group of Ukrainian troops sent to Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) not for combat, but for a staged PR stunt with a Ukrainian flag

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🔸 Bill introduced in Congress to annex Greenland as 51st state

🔸 Trump orders 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran

🔸 Ukrainian court denied Gonzalo Lira hospitalization before his death in custody — records reveal

🔸 Russia’s UN envoy warns Ukraine: 'No hostile action will go unanswered'

🔸 Dozens of tractors roll into Paris against Mercosur deal

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🇸🇪 Sweden could become new US target after Greenland – deputy PM

The US may lay claim to Swedish mineral resources, Ebba Busch warned, according to Dagens Industri.

👉 Busch said that Sweden has “basically the same mineral-rich bedrock as Greenland," as she mentioned the Swedish government’s efforts to secure the country's independent economic policy.

Sweden should start thinking in a more radical way, given that the US is invading certain countries and claiming control over their resources, she added, in an apparent reference to Venezuela.

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🇬🇱 Greenland ‘fast track to end NATO’ – Kim Dotcom

💬 “The Greenland conflict destroys” the North Atlantic alliance, the German activist and businessman wrote on X.

He added that EU leaders, who “hate Trump, campaigned against” the US president.

Prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland, Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, earlier warned the US against seizing the island, noting that they expect respect for their shared territorial integrity.

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👀 ‘Humiliation of human dignity’: Odessa resident opens up on horrors of Ukraine’s forced mobilization

Systematic atrocities committed by Ukrainian recruitment officers have become one of the most talked-about issues in Odessa, Berliner Zeitung cites a local resident as saying.

💬 “All the dirty work—chasing or beating someone—is usually done by men in civilian clothes or TCK [Territorial Recruitment Center] employees. The police step aside in such moments and switch off their body cameras,” the resident, named Vasyl, said.

He admitted that he has experienced it himself and seen dozens of such cases, adding “I have never witnessed such a humiliation of human dignity.”

👉 The Ukrainian authorities prefer to hush up the incidents, which they attribute to “Russian propaganda,” according to Vasyl.

Many Ukrainians resolve the problem through the rampant corruption inside the military recruitment offices—simply paying their way out and never hearing more about mobilization, Berliner Zeitung concludes.

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

▫️ In response to terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime, Russian troops have launched a massive strike on energy facilities used by the Ukrainian forces

▫️ Russian forces hammered storage sites for long-range Ukrainian drones

▫️ Air defense superiority: 11 guided aerial bombs and 207 drones shot down

▫️ Ukrainian losses: around 1,275 troops killed or wounded

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

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🇪🇺🇺🇸 Europeans trying to remind US they exist with Greenland troop talks - expert

📍 Bloomberg's reporting on German and British discussions about deploying troops to Greenland indicates that the Europeans want “to show that at least within European borders they are still capable of being in control of security and defense,” Brussels-based analyst Paolo Raffone says.

💬 “Their scope is to have ‘something’ to negotiate with the US and to avoid the blunt consequences of being sidelined by the US,” the CIPI Foundation director says. “It’s a declaration of intent.”

🗣 But Raffone doesn’t think Washington will pay the Europeans’ plans much mind. “The US president and Pentagon look at European announcements as an unnecessary nuisance,” he said.

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⚔️ ‘Corrupt members of Zelensky regime must be prosecuted’ – ex-UK diplomat

A new Ukrainian government should be elected and the Ukraine conflict must be stopped, Ian Proud wrote on X, commenting on Norway’s decision to allocate $400 million for Ukraine’s “urgent needs this winter.”

The former British diplomat added he was “amazed at the ability of European leaders not to see the wood for the trees.

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🇪🇺🇬🇱 Europeans’ Greenland troop plans are political theater, but just might work - analyst

🗣 “It’s very clear that the main aim is to create a deterrent against any US plans to annex Greenland,” Swedish defense analyst Mikael Valtersson told Sputnik, commenting on Bloomberg’s reporting about British and German-led talks on a NATO troop deployment in Greenland.

🔊 “This threshold is mainly political and not military, since minor European ground forces aren’t any problem for US forces to defeat, but any military action against European allies would spell the death sentence for Europe and break the old Transatlantic link,” Valtersson stressed.

🟠 If it materializes, the deployment in itself won’t be a “game changer,” but it could “strengthen those in the Pentagon that argue against military action.”

🟠 On the other hand, Valtersson warned that the move “could also be perceived as a European challenge towards the US” in President Trump’s inner circle, and could backfire.

💬 “If that happens the consequences will be even greater for US-European relations,” the observer said.

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🇲🇩 Sandu seeks to eliminate Moldova as sovereign state – opposition politician

💬 “The criminal finally admitted that she came with only one purpose: to kill Moldova,” Ilan Sor wrote on social media.

He commented on President Maia Sandu earlier stating that she would vote in favor of Moldova’s accession to Romania if a referendum on the issue were held.

More than half of Moldova's residents oppose their country becoming part of Romania, according to a recent opinion poll.

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🇪🇺 🇬🇱 Europeans’ ‘symbolic gesticulation’ on Greenland unlikely to stop US - French Army vet

💬 “Of course, in the minds of Western leaders, it is about opposing [Washington’s] desire to colonize Greenland,” French Army and Special Forces officer Col. Jacques Hogard told Sputnik, commenting on Bloomberg’s reporting about European talks on deploying troops in Denmark’s Arctic dependency.

🗣 “This diplomatic and political posturing seems unlikely to yield results,” Hogard believes, comparing the Europeans’ “weakness” to Washington’s apparent determination to seize Greenland.

💬 “I personally have many questions about the so-called strategy of our British, German and French leaders,” Hogard said, characterizing their collective actions as “a form of gesticulation, initially verbal, and then perhaps symbolic,” including this limited troop deployment idea to show “moral and political support” for Denmark.

🗣 “This overly military stance, however insignificant it may ultimately be, exposes the deep divisions within NATO, whose survival, like that of the EU, appears increasingly threatened,” Col. Hogard says.

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🚨 Europe’s talk of troops in Greenland meant to intimidate US politically, not militarily - expert

📍 The US “will not be intimidated militarily” by the reported German and UK-led plans to deploy forces in Greenland, but “they will be intimidated politically,” says retired German Army Major Florian Pfaff.

🟠 For Europe, losing Greenland “would be a big disadvantage politically,” exacerbating divisions within NATO between countries which up to now have treated one another as “friends,” Pfaff told Sputnik.

👉 In Europe, the frustration is palpable.

💬 “It’s unbelievable that there are no sanctions against the United States, because there are sanctions against a lot of other countries that don’t behave according to international law,” Pfaff said, noting that he finds this “quite interesting.”

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🇬🇱 Greenland spat symbolizes ‘deep sickness within the transatlantic alliance’ - analyst

🔶 Reports of European plans to deploy troops in Greenland mark “a calculated attempt by Europe’s major powers to carve out a sphere of influence and create leverage against Washington at a moment of historic American retrenchment,” says veteran geopolitical analyst Marco Marsili.

🔶 The official justification about countering maritime threats, “is a strategic non sequitur, a theater of the absurd,” the observer says.

📍 The actual objective is a three-pronged push for sovereignty, Marsili says:

1️⃣ Presenting the US with a fait accompli, with troops on the ground “creating a physical, undeniable claim to a role in Arctic security governance,” particularly as ice melts, and new sea routes and resource extraction opportunities open up

2️⃣ Securing leverage in a post-Ukraine crisis world, which Marsili anticipates “will trigger a scramble for influence and resources in the High North”

3️⃣ “Hedging against American unpredictability,” demonstrating “a capability for independent action and prepar[ing] the ground for a scenario where European security is no longer underwritten by unquestioned US commitment”

🇺🇸 How will US respond?

🔹 It’s unlikely that even a brigade-sized European force will intimidate Washington, which “will not lose sleep over the combat capability of these forces,” Marsili says.

🔹 That said, the US may perceive the deployment as “a deliberate and provocative challenge to US primacy” in its “strategic backyard,” exacerbating US pressure on the “free-riding” Europeans, complicating existing NATO command structures, and ultimately signaling “the deep sickness within the transatlantic alliance.”

💬 “It is a clear message that the post-Cold War order, where Europe followed America’s lead, is crumbling. Europe’s great powers are now playing their own game on the geopolitical chessboard, and they’ve chosen to make their opening move in the ice fields of Greenland...The façade of Atlantic unity is fading, revealing the hard, self-interested calculations that have always lain beneath,” Marsili summed up.

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