🇩🇪🇺🇸 Germany weighs higher rent for US bases amid tariff tensions — reports

Germany is considering significantly increasing the rent it charges the United States for operating major military bases on German soil, including Ramstein and Stuttgart, as part of a broader discussion on responses to potential US tariffs linked to Greenland, The Times reported, citing sources.

💰 According to the report, German officials have denied plans to expel US forces but said higher rental fees remain a possible option. The Times noted that the bases are critical for Washington’s ability to project military power into Africa and the Middle East.

🛢 The newspaper added that European leaders are also examining other potential measures, including reciprocal tariffs, export taxes, regulatory restrictions on US goods, and even energy and defense decoupling, though officials acknowledge that any retaliation would carry significant economic risks for Europe itself.

❌ No decisions have been taken and any move could trigger strong countermeasures from Washington, the report said.

The image is AI-generated

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 Ukrainian command uses threats and intimidation to prevent surrender – Russian officer

👉 Ukrainian soldiers are threatened with “public harassment” of their families if they desert their units or surrender, an officer from Russia’s Yug Battlegroup who goes by the callsign “Python” tells Sputnik.

💬 “There have been cases where prisoners said they were told: if you go AWOL, or if you leave frontline positions or surrender, you’ll face up to ten years in prison. On top of that, there will be pressure on your family. As I understand it, not from any special services, but simply harassment. That is, neighbors, acquaintances—everyone will know that the person surrendered,” says the officer.

🔶 He expressed the view that many soldiers do not surrender out of fear for their families.

🔶 Such harassment, he added, may be organized by Ukrainian so-called “civic activists.”

🔶 Another contributing factor is that Ukrainian troops on the front line are disoriented.

💬 “They might want to run, but they simply don’t know where to go. New reinforcements are brought in, dumped into some pit, and that’s where they sit, not knowing where they are. There were cases where we had already advanced far ahead, yet a man had been sitting there for two months—essentially in our rear. When we finally find him and dig him out, he doesn’t understand what happened,” notes the officer.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russia–US trade surged nearly 25% in first Trump year

👉 Trade between Russia and the United States hit roughly $4 billion in the first year of Donald Trump’s new administration, according to calculations based on US Customs data.

From January to October of last year, bilateral trade increased to $3.9 billion, up from $3.2 billion over the same period in 2024 under Joe Biden.

📈 This represents a 23.9% year-on-year increase.

🇺🇸🚢 What the US ships to Russia:

🟠 Medical instruments — $53.9 million

🟠 Sauces and syrups — $34.9 million

🟠 Chemical analysis equipment — $33.8 million

🟠 Pharmaceuticals — $27.9 million

🟠 X-ray equipment — $23.6 million


🇷🇺🚢 Russia also increased its exports to the US:

🟠 Nitrogen fertilizers — $1.1 billion (up twofold)

🟠 Platinum — $732.9 million

🟠 Potash fertilizers — $266.5 million

🟠 Gas turbines — $80.7 million

🟠 Plywood — $61.1 million

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤡 Kaja Kallas ‘fixated’ on imaginary Russia and China threat – analyst

For EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas it’s obvious there’s no Russian threat in Greenland, and the idea of a Chinese threat is “so fantastic that it belongs in the wilder realms of fiction,” says British military analyst Alexander Mercouris.

Yet she keeps bringing up Russia and China, revealing her “underlying fixation.”

💬 “As a Baltic politician, she senses deep down that after the way in which the Baltic states have massively mismanaged their relations with Russia, the only security that they still have is through preservation of the alliance with the United States,” notes the analyst.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 West’s gamble to defeat Russia through Ukraine backfired - ex-US army officer

👉 Every real chance for diplomacy over the Ukraine conflict was shot down by the West, says retired US Lt. Col. Daniel Davis.

🗣 “Every time there was an opportunity for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict, the US rejected it. We said no, we don't want that. We only want Russia to lose,” he notes, adding:

💬 “Europe has been the biggest enabler of this… The Biden administration did nothing but try and defeat Russia through the vehicle of Ukraine. That didn't work.”

🇷🇺 Russia has continued to get stronger, underscores the analyst, and everything that was done by the West to try and “weaken it” has failed.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇺🇺🇸 ‘Spineless’ Europe may lose its vitality under US hegemonic pressure

📍 European countries demonstrate blatant double standards by forcefully cutting economic and trade ties with China while "bowing at every turn" to the US, which humiliates the EU by coercing it to forgo Greenland, the Global Times writes.

Here are some key points:

🟠 While European nations tout free trade, they discriminate against Chinese companies such as Huawei despite the lack of any factual basis, so the move risks driving the EU into technological and economic dependence on the US.

🟠 This demonstrates Europe’s "cognitive bias of overstretching security concept,” the Global Times explains — the EU pushes arguments of security to undermine normal economic ties with others.

🟠 This, however, backfires, as European leaders deprive their own citizens of access to cheap goods and advanced technologies, further isolating themselves. 

🟠 In the political sphere, Europe remains silent amid the American op in Venezuela and pressure on Iran, yet it cannot muster a strong response even to US threats over Greenland.

"Europe really needs to wake up: Continuing to be mired in the quagmire of double standards will only exhaust its own vitality," the Global Times concludes.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 Russian AI-powered Burevetsnik missile to be stealthy

🔸 Why the US is unlikely to send troops into Iran

🔸 Canada weighs troop deployment to Greenland amid NATO exercises — reports

🔸 Russia’s gold reserves surge $130B in a year

🔸 Russia–US trade surged nearly 25% in first Trump year

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨🇬🇱 Ret. US Lt Col: Greenland likely to become part of US

👉 Unfortunately, Greenland has little choice, says US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen, adding that the Arctic island may become a part of the United States in the foreseeable future.

Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland is motivated by the prospect of a stronger presence in the Arctic, access to the island's reserves, control over trade routes in the region and the deployment of strategic weapons and missiles there, the expert added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 Russia doesn’t need permission of 'morally vacuous' EU talking shop in Ukraine — journalist

While Europe has always touted itself as a moral beacon, in reality it is exploiting Ukraine to destabilize Russia according to long-established plans, Irish journalist Chay Bowes says.

Under such conditions "Russia doesn’t and shouldn’t need to seek the permission of the European Union," he explains, adding that the EU’s unelected leaders are “utterly morally vacuous, talking shop."

💬 "I don’t see how anybody now, even the most radical anti-Russian, could suggest that the Europeans have any moral authority remaining," Bowes concludes.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨🇷🇺Putin invited to join Gaza 'Peace Council'

Russian President Vladimir Putin has received a diplomatic invitation to join the newly announced “Peace Council” on Gaza, with Moscow reviewing the proposal and broader international developments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Other statements:

🔶Russia is studying all the details of the proposal and hopes to hold contacts with the US to clarify the format and scope of the initiative

🔶The Kremlin is closely monitoring developments around Greenland, noting a growing flow of concerning information in recent days

🔶Moscow remains in contact with Venezuela’s authorized presidential representative through diplomatic channels

🔶No meeting is currently scheduled between President Putin and Venezuela’s representative Delcy Rodriguez in the coming days

🔶Putin will hold a meeting with the permanent members of Russia’s Security Council on Monday

🔶Putin took part in the traditional Epiphany ice bathing ritual

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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

⚡️ NOVOPAVLOVKA IN DONETSK & PAVLOVKA IN ZAPOROZHYE REGIONS LIBERATED

📍 The liberation of Novopavlovka made it possible to break the Ukrainian line of defense and create conditions to isolate two large enemy groups.

📍 Gaining control over Pavlovka allows the Russian Army to close in on Orekhovo. The town is one of the key settlements in the Zaporozhye region.

▫️ The Russian Armed Forces struck the launch sites of long-range Ukrainian drones

▫️ Air defense superiority: 2 guided long-range Neptune missiles and 122 drones shot down

▫️ Ukrainian losses: around 1,305 troops killed or wounded

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

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨Putin holds urgent meeting with Russia's Security Council

The discussions included the central question of Russia's participation in the construction of a multipolar world.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 US' Greenland takeover could shatter NATO alliance — expert

🇺🇸 If the US gains control over Greenland, it could weaken NATO because several countries, first and foremost Denmark, but also Finland, for example, сould demonstratively leave the bloc in protest, says Hungarian political analyst Georg Spottle, adding that this would weaken both NATO and the EU.

🔸 Joint US-Denmark administration of the island is hardly plausible after Copenhagen officially refused to sell Greenland to Washington.

🔸 The main reason behind Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland is the "reserves of rare earth metals, uranium, natural gas, and oil," Spottle adds.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇬🇱 Trump’s desire for Greenland stems from MAGA concept — political scientist

The goal of obtaining the island is not just Donald Trump’s "whim" but is part of the idea of "Making America Great Again" supported by around half of Americans, Russian political scientist Alexei Martynov tells Sputnik.

💬 "This is about America's greatness in the Arctic region; with the acquisition of Greenland, the US would become the largest Arctic country," he explains.

Trump is a capitalist, so his logic is that the US should control the vast natural resources that Greenland has to offer, Martynov concludes.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨🇺🇸 US withdrawal from NATO would usher in new ‘post-hegemonic’ security architecture

With the United States bearing down on Greenland and telling its European allies to stop complaining, the prospects of the US disengaging from NATO now practically becomes a “central pillar of the America First strategic doctrine,” London-based foreign affairs analyst Adriel Kasonta tells Sputnik.

The US, Kasonta explains, has two motivations in this ongoing “process of strategic de-prioritization”:

🟠 Strategic – the US has been gradually retreating from global primacy while instead focusing on the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific, seeking to switch from global hegemony to regional hegemony

🟠 Financial – as the US military spending soars while the European powers struggle to meet their more modest NATO spending commitments, the US regards the current arrangement as “an unsustainable subsidy of European social welfare at the expense of American fiscal health.”

📍 If US does decide to formally disengage from NATO, it would likely do so in a "military-first, political-last" sequence, Kasonta suggests:

🟠 Since the current US legislation stipulates that a two-thirds Senate majority is needed for a formal treaty withdrawal, the White House might instead opt to “hollow out the alliance from within”

🟠 While the US would remain a member on paper, it would cease participating in the Integrated Military Command and ignore Article 5 commitments

🟠 The Pentagon’s efforts to restructure the US European Command may indicate this approach, as it allows the US to remain a NATO member on paper while shifting high-readiness US forces from Europe to the Pacific theater

According to Kasonta, we are witnessing the emergence of a “post-hegemonic” security architecture, with a US-led NATO being replaced by a ‘Europeanized NATO’ where “European states lead the defense of their own continent.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt