🇪🇺 Blind to root causes of Ukraine conflict, EU undermines own mediator role - MFA

💬 “As long as the EU officials fail to understand that eliminating the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict is not a concession to Russia, but a contribution to lasting stability and security on the European continent, there is no talk of their role in the peace process,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier added that the root causes would not simply vanish, instead they must be tackled head-on in any genuine settlement.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 ‘Ukraine will never pay it back’: French politician blasts EU’s new $106Bln loan

👉 The EU parliament’s approval of a massive $106B loan for Ukraine comes as Europe "sinks further into the mire," according to Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, leader of France’s Debout la France party.

In a sharp rebuke posted on X, he argued that Ukraine will never repay the debt — and the EU is ploughing ahead regardless.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚀🇷🇺 Proton-M blasts off: Russia bolsters orbital weather fleet with new Elektro-L

Russia's Proton-M rocket has successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It will deliver the Elektro-L weather satellite to an orbit of ~36,000 km.

The satellite will provide 24/7 meteorological monitoring. Once operational, Russia will have three such spacecraft in orbit.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔥🇷🇺 Meet the Sarma: Russia’s new hard-hitting rocket launcher

👉 Built for the brutal tempo of modern combat: deploy quickly, strike with fury, and vanish without a trace

👉 Engineered for hit-and-run warfare—where minutes separate triumph from loss.

Check out the video for more☝️

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 Erosion of US credibility in NATO approaches critical threshold – expert

📍 Polls show NATO allies are increasingly considering the US unreliable – but that perception does not emerge in a vacuum, says Adriel Kasonta, a London-based foreign affairs analyst.

💬 "It is the cumulative effect of a decade of strategic whiplash," Kasonta tells Sputnik. "From European and Canadian vantage points, Washington’s foreign policy has appeared less like a steady hand on the tiller and more like a pendulum."

Three dynamics stand out:

◼️ The oscillation between US administrations has been stark: One praised alliances as sacred; the next questioned NATO’s value. Even when policy — like Eastern Europe troop deployments — remained consistent, the rhetoric unsettled allies: in security politics, tone shapes deterrence

◼️ The US strategic pivot to Asia has been seen as downgrading Europe. The Indo-Pacific is now Washington’s primary theater. That fuels European anxiety that they are no longer central to America's grand strategy

◼️ US domestic polarization has undermined confidence in continuity. Allies now judge not just one administration’s intentions but whether commitments will survive the next election

Recent sharp decline in trust

While a similar poll in 2025 reflected similar concerns, this year's findings show an even sharper decline in trust

Kasonta outlines two major causes for the slide:

🟠 The Ukraine conflict has stress-tested the alliance: US support for Kiev faltered under domestic political pressure. What if the same could happen to Washington's obligations to its NATO allies?

🟠 Explicit political rhetoric questioning article 5 — the alliance’s collective defense clause — has crossed a psychological Rubicon

💬 "Allies are preparing for a future in which American engagement is selective and contingent," Kasonta says. "The erosion is less about a single event and more about cumulative uncertainty reaching a tipping point."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇵🇰 SMASH: Pakistan unveils new hypersonic missile.

🔶 At the WDS 2026 exhibition in Riyadh, Pakistan's GIDS company unveiled the SMASH hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile (export designation P282), stating that it is also capable of effectively engaging land-based targets.

🔶 The missile has a range of 290 km. It follows a quasi-ballistic trajectory (maneuvering during flight) with a nearly vertical angle of attack in the terminal phase, significantly reducing the enemy air defense reaction time.

🔶 The first standard carriers of the SMASH are frigates of the Zulfiquar (Type 22) and Tughril (Type 054A/P) classes. Launch from ground-based mobile platforms is also possible.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤦‍♂️ Turkish man tormented for Epstein likeness

🟠 Rifat Ozdemir from the city of Kayseri in Turkiye found himself enduring immense discomfort and psychological pressure because of his uncanny resemblance to the late Jeffrey Epstein.

🟠 After locals started speculating that "Epstein did not die, he came to Kayseri," Ozdemir had to move to Ankara and stay at home for a while, Turkish media report.

🟠 He even had to give up his plans to travel abroad because, as Ozdemir explained to Sputnik, at least in Turkiye he can explain to his compatriots that he is not Epstein.

💬 “How would I be able to explain to them that I’m not him,” he asked, referring to a potential encounter with foreigners.

🟠 Ironically, Ozdemir suffers due to no fault of his own while many of the people implicated in the Epstein files are not inconvenienced in the slightest.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 Erosion of US credibility in NATO approaches critical threshold – expert

🔸 Putin–Zelensky meeting only possible in Moscow - Kremlin

🔸 Epstein files may spark resignations across Europe in coming days — expert

🔸 'New START was very strong and effective agreement' — US Arms Control Association

🔸 Pakistan's armored shield: composition, modernization, and prospects

🔸 Meet the Sarma: Russia’s new hard-hitting rocket launcher

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇬🇱 Greenland spat to serve as West’s excuse for NATO’s Arctic buildup - Russian envoy

The primary outcome of the 'Greenland crisis' will be "an increase in the objectively unjustified military presence in the Arctic of NATO countries, including non-regional members lacking their own natural resources, directed against Russia and China," Russian Ambassador to Norway Nikolay Korchunov told Sputnik.

A scenario of this nature would have destructive consequences for security and stability in this region, which until recently was an area of low tension, he noted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 Cold shower for NATO allies: US pursues own agenda at Europe’s expense – ex-AfD MEP

🔹 Europeans once couldn’t imagine a conflict of interests with Washington, Gunnar Beck, a former AfD MEP from Germany, tells Sputnik.

🔹 Another cherished illusion was that “the EU has the strategic and economic capacity to establish foreign and military policy entirely independent from that of the US” — except Europe now produces little of its own weaponry.

💬 “That equipment would have to be bought in the US. So it's a boost to the US economy, not to the European economy - it will be a burden on European taxpayers.”

🔹 Europeans are finally waking up to the reality that “the US is not only acting in accordance with its own national interest, it's also articulating certain very uncomfortable truths to Europe.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💫 65 years ago, the USSR aimed for Venus — and proved interplanetary flight was real

In 1961, history was made with the spacecraft Venera-1 flying past Venus, confirming solar wind, and proving that interplanetary flight is possible.

📹 Watch Sputnik’s video to find out more 👆

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📑 Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbass — report

Zelensky's own advisers admit Ukraine may accept the "hardest concession" — surrendering control of the eastern Donetsk region, the Atlantic reported.

Ukrainian regime is now considering holding a referendum this spring to legitimize the compromise.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔊 Trump expects US-Iran deal over the next month

President Trump signals a one-month window for nuclear negotiations — and warns of escalation if Tehran doesn't fold.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 US is working hard to end Ukrainian conflict — Rubio

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the US is pushing to end the conflict, and there's a possibility of a Zelensky meeting on the margins of Munich.

He said that "this time" his trip doesn't include Russia.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 Ukrainian soldiers massively fleeing positions near Kupyansk

🔶 The desertion of Ukrainian troops from positions near Kupyansk has become widespread reportedly due to frost, energy supply problems, and commanders' indifference.

💬 “Brigades are facing critical personnel shortages. Dozens are killed daily, while no one is arriving to take their place,” one of the Ukrainian commanders told Sputnik.

🔶 Some commanders conceal losses by registering the killed as deserters, while commanders’ discarded soldiers to wait in a pit before being sent to die, brigadiers shared.

📍 Russia is currently maintaining reliable control of all areas of the city of Kupyansk.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔊 Maduro is innocent, suffered from fake news like Trump — acting president

Nicolas Maduro remains legitimate president of Venezuela, and US prosecution of him does not complicate the bilateral dialogue, Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodriguez.

"We believe that political, diplomatic and the dialogue of energy is a channel that will crush all the fake news," she added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

✍️ Trump's Board of Peace welcomes Israel as founding member

Israel officially joined the Board of Peace before the first formal meeting of the body.

According to Reuters, delegations from over 20 countries are expected to attend the meeting in Washington on February 19.

Two senior US officials told that President Trump will announce a multi-billion dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and detail plans for a UN-authorized stabilization force.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 US government tells businesses they are on their own in Venezuela — Energy Secretary

Chris Wright confirms Washington is green-lighting American corporate activity in Venezuela — with zero security guarantees.

"It was one of the absolute riskiest, worst business environments. That was two months ago; today, it's meaningfully better," he noted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚔️ West is deliberately destroying Arctic cooperation — Deputy FM

All peaceful mechanisms for Arctic cooperation are being systematically dismantled, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko warns.

"The work of the Arctic Council, which was the main international platform for managing the situation in the Arctic and establishing cooperation, has actually been blocked. It is in this region that international cooperation is needed more than ever," Grushko said.

NATO and the EU are "demonizing Russia" and militarizing the region, which becomes now an arena for confrontation not only with Russia, but with China, he noted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Kristi Noem displays tons of drugs seized on Mexican border

The US Homeland Security secretary visited the San Diego border crossing and revealed drugs interdicted under Trump's administration.

"The vault that we've toured today holds 188,218 pounds of seized illicit drugs... more than 1.7 billion lethal doses of narcotics," she noted.

Despite Mexico's willingness to collaborate on efforts to combat drug trafficking, President Trump has repeatedly called for land strikes in Mexico against drug cartels.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🤝 Final move on Ukraine peace deal belongs to Russia and US – analyst

The key to ending the Ukraine conflict lies neither in Kiev nor in European capitals, but in the extent to which Moscow and Washington can align their positions, Turkish political analyst Nejat Sezgin tells Sputnik.

The real architecture of the negotiation process is being shaped at the strategic dialogue level between Russia and the United States, according to the analyst.

✍️ He notes that both sides possess the necessary political and military resources to determine the parameters of a possible peace deal on Ukraine, while European countries, hit by internal differences, mainly stick to an already established agenda.

As for Ukraine, it is heavily dependent on external support and is therefore objectively constrained in independently defining the framework of negotiations, Sezgin concludes.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt