📍🇮🇱 Witkoff, Kushner head to Israel - reports

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are expected to visit Israel on Saturday to discuss reopening the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border, Ynet reported.

Head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza Ali Shaath said earlier the Rafah crossing would be opened next week.

👉 This crossing is the only one in the Gaza Strip that was not controlled by Israel before the Gaza war.

👉 It plays a key role in the delivery of humanitarian aid, the evacuation of the wounded, and the movement of civilians, and is also used by international organizations to import vital supplies.

👉 Its operation has been repeatedly suspended and resumed depending on the security situation, directly impacting the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

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📉 West pushed Ukraine toward collapse - Scott Ritter

🔊 The West set Ukraine on a path to total surrender by pumping it with weapons and ensuring it rejected Russia’s negotiating terms, says former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.

The plan to crush Russia backfired, he says, and Europe created the mess it’s in.

💬 “Oh, we thought Russia was weak. We thought we could beat Russia. So, we were going to drag this thing out until Russia broke up into tiny little component parts,” says Ritter.

However, the only outcome now, he argues, “will be unconditional surrender brought about by the collapse of Ukraine, political collapse, economic collapse, military collapse, societal collapse.”

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🇺🇸 🪖 Pentagon confirms directed energy weapons: ‘Yes, we are scaling them’

US military's Chief Technology Office has confirmed in a post on X that the Pentagon possesses directed energy weapons like high-powered lasers and microwaves.

The post is accompanied by a graphic image of a device blasting a red laser into the sky, with the emblazoned words: ‘Light speed lethality. Directed energy dominant.’

💬 “Yes, the Department of War has directed energy weapons. Yes, we are scaling them,” the post is captioned.

Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and other corporations are believed to be developing these kinds of weapons.

👉 The USSR was a pioneer in laser tech for both civilian and military use of such systems. It created a lineup of experimental laser weapons including the Terra-3 missile defense system, the 1K17 Szhatie ground-based laser combat platform, the Beriev A-60 airborne laser lab, and the Polyus laser-armed orbital weapons platform.

👉 Russia has built the Peresvet air defense and anti-satellite warfare system, which can blind enemy satellites up to 1,500 km away.

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▫️ Witkoff, Kushner reportedly head to Israel after Ukraine talks in UAE

▫️ Pentagon publishes new defense strategy

▫️ US conducts first boat strike since Maduro capture

▫️ US weighs total oil blockade on Cuba to force regime change

▫️ Zelensky acts like cornered rat, trying to squeeze something out of EU and US – intelligence veteran

▫️ Ukraine struck Russian energy targets first and now faces blowback – intelligence veteran

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🚨 Ukraine attacks ambulance in Kherson region - governor

The medics were trying to reach a critically ill patient in an area where enemy drones were targeting, Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo said.

The vehicle was damaged, and the fate of the doctors is unclear — though there is hope that they managed to take cover somewhere.

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🇷🇺 🇵🇰 ⛽️ Pakistan, Russia continue work on Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline

"[The project] is always under consideration. We are working on it, but it will take some time," Pakistani Ambassador to Russia Faisal Niaz Tirmizi told Sputnik.

📍 The Pakistan Stream gas pipeline, originally named North-South, will connect LNG receiving infrastructure in the southern Pakistani ports of Karachi and Gwadar with power plants and industrial gas consumers in the Kasur district (Punjab) in the northern part of Pakistan.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 WH hails ‘productive’ US-Russia-Ukraine talks in UAE

Trilateral conversations between the United States, Ukraine, and Russia will continue in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, on Saturday, a White House official told NBC News.

👉 It added that the key sticking point remains the future of Donbass. Ahead of the first meeting of the trilateral working group, the Kremlin said that Ukraine’s military would have to pull out of the area for any deal to end the conflict.

🔊 Russia prefers not to go into public details regarding the Ukraine negotiation process, deeming it inappropriate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added.

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

⚡️ STARITSA IN KHARKOV REGION FREED

The liberation of Staritsa in the Kharkov region has allowed Russian forces to expand their Volchansk bridgehead and secure positions on the western bank of the Seversky Donets River. This advance facilitates a further push south to cut Ukrainian river crossings.

🟠 Russian air and missile firepower pounded long-range UAV storage sites and temporary deployment points for Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries in 157 places

🟠 Air defense superiority: four US-made HIMARS rockets and 137 UAVs were vaporized by Russian air defense systems over the past 24 hours

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

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

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🤡 Zelensky 'loses the plot,' forgets who’s bankrolling Ukraine’s survival - WSJ journalist

🗣 "His assault on Europe is not only factually wrong but also perceived as deeply ungrateful at a time when the Ukrainian state literally runs on European money," WSJ chief European political correspondent Bojan Pancevski writes on X.

While Germany alone pays around $9.5B per year for Ukrainian refugees, one third of each major cash transaction to Ukraine is stolen by Zelensky and his associates in the country, he adds.

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🚨 Medical crew killed in Ukraine drone attack in Kherson

Entire crew of medical vehicle that was attacked by Ukrainian drone, with three people inside, was killed, Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo said.

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🚨 Russia-US-Ukraine negotiations in Abu Dhabi have concluded, a Sputnik correspondent reports

The Russian delegation, led by military intel chief Igor Kostyukov, has returned to the hotel in Abu Dhabi after the negotiations on the Ukraine settlement, the correspondent added.

Another round of talks may be held in Abu Dhabi next week, reports Axios.

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🇭🇺 Hungary accuses Ukrainians of election meddling to secure funds & 'force' its way into the EU

💬 "As a member of the European Union, Hungary has the right to say no. We do not want Hungarian families’ money to be sent to Ukraine," Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said on X.

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💬 The delegations of Russia and Ukraine communicated directly during the two-day negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said

Key points from the ministry's statement, obtained by Sputnik:

🟠 The UAE highly values Trump's efforts to facilitate negotiations on Ukraine

🟠 The negotiations on Ukraine focused on unresolved elements of the proposed US agreement

🟠 The UAE will continue to support efforts to resolve the issue

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🪖🇺🇸🇻🇪 Trump: US military used 'secret disorienting weapons' when attacking Venezuela

Secret new weapon called “the discombobulator” was essential to the US raid that captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, Trump told the New York Post.

💬 “The Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump said.

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🇺🇸🇨🇦🇨🇳 Trump to Carney: 'If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods'

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🪖 NATO needs to accept that Russia won’t let it set foot on its doorstep - Orban

Any deal to resolve the Ukraine conflict must presuppose turning it into a “neutral state, a specific buffer zone between East and West,” Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated at a rally in Kaposvar broadcast by M1.

💬 “I don’t see any other solution than acknowledging that NATO and the EU can’t station troops directly on Russia’s doorstep… That’s why there must always be something—some buffer zone—between Russia and its borders. And we need to figure out how this land, called Ukraine, which used to be a buffer but is now a battlefield, can become a buffer state again,” Orban said.

He blamed the conflict on NATO’s push to bring Ukraine into the “Western security system,” saying Russia had made clear that it cannot allow a hostile army on its borders.

In addition to the cash already funneled to the Zelensky regime, Orban reminded that the pro-war elite in Europe are already working on plans for more billions that, “if we don’t stand our ground, will squeeze us into a debt that our great-grandchildren will pay.”

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🔥 🇭🇺 Hungarian defense minister puts Zelensky in his place after Davos cringe speech

💬 "I expected more from the actor. Zelensky interfered in the Hungarian election campaign. He wants a government in Hungary that will drag Hungary and all of Europe into his war," Hungarian Defense Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said.

Zelensky should leave Hungary alone and deal with his own problems instead, he added.

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🪖💸 Czech arms tycoon cashes in big-time on Ukraine meat grinder

Defense baron Michal Strnad’s net worth doubled overnight to approximately $37 billion - roughly 10% of the entire Czech economy – thanks to his Czechoslovak Group (CSG) exploding on its Amsterdam IPO debut, reports Bloomberg.

Shares jumped ~30%, allowing the company to rake in billions.

CSG is one of the top suppliers pumping munitions and armored vehicles straight to the Zelensky regime and NATO allies.

Strnad, who ranks as the world’s third-richest person under 40 according the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, wasted no time cashing in on a defense-stock rally fueled by Europe’s growing fear that the US security umbrella may be folding, adds the outlet.

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