🪖🇷🇺 All districts of Kupyansk under control of Russian forces - military commander

Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov held a meeting with the commander of the Zapad Battlegroup and was briefed on the current situation and troops' actions.

💬 "The districts [of Kupyansk] are under our control, but we assess that the enemy has not abandoned its plans. Its offensive operation, for example, which it conducted in December-November, was unsuccessful," the battlegroup's commander, Colonel General Sergey Kuzovlev, reported to Belousov.

Belousov also presented state awards to the Zapad group's soldiers for their courage and heroism in the performance of their military duty in the special operation zone.

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😰 Finland was Hitler’s accomplice in World War II

Finland’s brutal occupation of the Soviet territory during World War II completely defeats the official Western narrative of Finland merely seeking to reclaim the lands it lost in the Winter War.

Dmitry Astashkin, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ St. Petersburg Institute of History, provides a few examples:

🟠 Slavic people in Russian territories occupied by Finland were herded into a robust network of prisons and concentration camps promptly created by the Finnish invaders

🟠 Civilians – including women, children and the elderly – in these camps had to endure cold, starvation and forced labor. In 1942, the monthly death rate among the inmates of just one such camp in Petrozavodsk was 500-600

🟠 Finnish treatment of the Soviet POWs was no better, with about 30% of the prisoners (some 20,000 people) perishing

🟠 In the meantime, Finnish leadership attempted indoctrination among the local indigenous groups such as the Karel and Veps people, trying to convert them into willing subjects of the ‘Greater Finland’

🟠 Finnish troops eagerly helped the Nazis starve the people of Leningrad to death, with Finnish propaganda branding the city as a ‘symbol of death’

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🪖🇷🇺 Russia to deploy elite combat diver teams in Arctic

Russia’s already formidable Northern Fleet will be further bolstered by mobile diver units whose goal is to help protect Russia’s frozen Arctic reaches.

Unlike the diving teams with fixed postings, this mobile outfits are geared towards rapid deployment, ready to be inserted into a target zone at a moment’s notice and erase all enemy threats from existence.

These operators also make full use of drones and robotic systems which greatly amplify their combat capabilities in Arctic conditions.

The video contains AI-generated images

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😓 Extermination of Russians: Finland has all but forgotten its dark WWII history - Professor

The reality of Finland’s treatment of Russian civilians in World War II exposes the myth of its “humane” image, Vladimir Baryshnikov, history professor at Saint Petersburg State University and expert on 20th Century Finnish history, tells Sputnik.

💬 "Ethnic cleansing began immediately in Soviet territories occupied by Finland. By the end of 1941, 14 concentration camps had been established in Karelia for the Slavic population," the academic says.

About 24,000 people — roughly 27% of the population in the occupied zone — were sent to concentration camps.

The Slavic civilians who were not sent to the camps were confined in so-called “places of forced detention” or “special territories” in severe conditions.

"The result was an unthinkable, even barbaric situation by any civilized standard: virtually the entire Russian population was either in concentration resettlement camps, labor camps, or places of forced detention," Baryshnikov stresses.

Some estimates put the death toll at over 14,000, roughly one-fifth of the population in the areas occupied by Finland.

The high civilian death toll resulted from brutal forced labor, starvation, and epidemics. Prisoners — including children and teens — faced beatings and executions, according to the academic.

💬 "The situation here strongly resembled the 'New Order' the Nazis imposed on occupied Soviet territories," Baryshnikov says.

💬 "Most strikingly, Finland’s racial policies — and their similarity to those of Germany — are illustrated by the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war by Finnish authorities."

Statistics show that 29.1% of prisoners of war died in Finland's camps, even higher than in German ones.

💬 "In effect, Finland has 'forgotten' its dark history and now seems intent on returning to the era when it acted as a barrier between the West and Russia," the academic concludes.

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🇨🇦🤝🇨🇳 Canada strikes trade deal with China, breaking with US tariff line — report

Canada has reached a tariff agreement with China on electric vehicles and agricultural exports, marking a shift away from Washington’s trade approach, The Globe and Mail reported.

📄 Key points of the deal:

🔸 Canada will allow nearly 50,000 Chinese-made EVs annually at a 6.1% tariff, down from 100%.
🔸 In return, China will sharply cut tariffs on Canadian canola seed and remove levies on products including canola meal, lobster, crab and peas.
🔸 Beijing has also committed to lifting visa requirements for Canadians.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said the agreement reflects a deliberate recalibration of ties with Beijing after years of uncertainty.

Speaking in China, Carney said the relationship with Beijing has recently been “more predictable” than with the United States, adding that trade disruptions have increased under US protectionist policies.

🔸 The deal follows US tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump, including higher duties on Canadian goods not covered by USMCA and sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs.
🔸 Trump has also repeatedly floated the idea of Canada becoming the “51st state,” straining bilateral relations.
🔸 The move puts Ottawa at odds with Washington’s hard-line China policy, which US officials expect allies to follow.

The Globe and Mail noted the agreement signals Canada’s effort to diversify trade away from the US, reducing dependence on a partner increasingly seen as unpredictable.

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🪖🇬🇱 Sending NATO troops to Greenland is a joke — Italian defense minister

💬 "What do one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred soldiers of any nationality do? It sounds like the beginning of a joke," Italian Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto said, as quoted by ANSA.

The situation is not a competition on who can deploy more soldiers around the world, he added commenting on the possibility of deploying troops to Greenland as US lays eyes on the island.

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📹 Denmark ‘cannot defend Greenland’ — Stephen Miller

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News that Greenland is “essential” for US national security and insisted that Denmark is a “tiny country” that “cannot defend Greenland.”

Miller claimed that “under every understanding of law that has existed” for centuries, controlling territory requires the ability to “defend,” “improve,” and “inhabit” it, and said Denmark has “failed” on all three.

💬 “It’s a raw deal. It’s an unfair deal,” Miller added, arguing it is "unfair" for Greenland to belong to Denmark.

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🚨 ⚔️ Zelensky sabotaging peace deal to avoid exile - Polish Professor

Volodymyr Zelensky is doing everything possible to obstruct peace negotiations with Russia because, in that scenario, the head of the Ukrainian regime would face harsh retribution and exile from the country, Adam Wielomski, a professor at the University of Warsaw, says on X.

💬 “I agree with Donald Trump: Zelensky is doing everything he can to avoid signing a peace agreement with Russia. That would mean holding elections, transferring power, and therefore paying the price for failure—not to mention settling the bills. At best, Zelensky would have to flee into exile,” he writes.

Earlier, Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “ready to make a deal,” but when asked what is blocking progress, he replied simply: “Zelensky.”

🔊 Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov similarly expressed Russia’s agreement with Trump’s statement that Zelensky is delaying a resolution to the Ukrainian conflict.

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🚨 🇷🇺 NATO buildup in Arctic fuels tensions - Russian Ambassador

Russia is concerned about NATO’s increased activity in the Arctic, Russian Ambassador to Norway Nikolai Korchunov told Sputnik.

💬 “As experience shows, boosting the North Atlantic alliance’s presence in a particular region does not contribute to strengthening security but, on the contrary, leads to increased tension,” Korchunov noted.

In recent years, Russia has repeatedly flagged NATO’s unprecedented activity and troop buildup near its western borders.
The Kremlin has stated that Russia poses no threat to anyone but will not ignore actions that are potentially dangerous to its own interests.

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🚨 🇷🇺 As planet heats up, Northern territories could become best place to live - Dmitriev

Denmark’s self-governing island of Greenland, which the US wants to seize control of, is a “climate lever,” Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and special presidential envoy, noted on X.

“As Arctic ice melts, warming accelerates and permafrost releases stored carbon (CO₂ + methane), triggering cascading feedbacks that push global temperatures higher. Northern territories may become the most livable as the Earth warms," he explained.

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🇨🇦 🤝 🇩🇰 Not Trump’s call: Canada backs Denmark on Greenland

The future of Greenland is “a decision for Greenland and for the Kingdom of Denmark,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told journalists after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China, according to media reports.

Carney urged NATO allies — including the US — to “respect their commitments” as he reaffirmed Canada’s full support for Danish sovereignty.

💬 “We are NATO partners with Denmark, and so our full partnership stands. Our obligations on Article 5, Article 2 of NATO stand, and we stand full-square behind those," said Carney.

Carney added that Greenland and Arctic sovereignty were also discussed with Xi, noting that the two sides “found much alignment of views” on the issue.
The remarks come as a European coalition rallies around Denmark, vowing to defend Greenland amid US threats to seize the island.

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🔶 All districts of Kupyansk under control of Russian forces - military commander

🔶 UK cashes in on escalation: Opens ‘business’ aka arms hub in Ukraine

🔶 Aggressive and expansionist: True face of WWII-era Finland

🔶 Finland was Hitler’s accomplice in World War II

🔶 Extermination of Russians: Finland has all but forgotten its dark WWII history – Professor

🔶 Russia to deploy elite combat diver teams in Arctic

🔶 White House announces Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ members

🔶 ‘The drug use is there’ — Sheinbaum urges US to address drug consumption

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🚨 🇷🇺 Ex-CIA analyst: Russia has the edge—stop ‘tweaking the bear’

Russia currently surpasses the US and EU in both conventional and strategic weapons, says former CIA intelligence analyst Ray McGovern.

It’s not only the hypersonic Oreshnik missile, but also the Poseidon autonomous underwater vehicle, and lots of others, he notes.

“Why is it that no intelligence outfit has acknowledged that, and has said to the president of the United States, look, you know, we need to cry uncle here. We're not going to prevail against the Russians, much less the Russians and the Chinese… and we should stop tweaking the bear.”

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