🇨🇳 FM Wang Yi calls for dialogue on Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela, stressing peace, sovereignty, and int'l law at MSC

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📈 BRICS trade boom leaves average global growth behind – Russian Foreign Ministry

🗣 “According to statistics, the growth of trade among BRICS states significantly outpaces both the global average growth rate of foreign trade and the pace of trade between individual BRICS members and their other partners,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov announced.

💬 “This is simply an indication that BRICS—without being any kind of ‘magic wand’—can genuinely help resolve problems,” he underscored.

Ryabkov noted that this potential needs to be further developed, and that the political will to do so is in place.

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🇺🇸🤖 US military outsourced Maduro kidnapping to AI – report

👉 The US military used Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence model during its classified operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in Caracas, according to multiple reports.

🔹 Claude was accessed through a partnership with Palantir Technologies, whose systems are widely used on US Defense Department networks.

🔹 Anthropic’s own usage policies prohibit Claude from being used to support violence, develop weapons, or conduct surveillance, making its deployment in this context controversial and prompting scrutiny of the company’s roughly $200 million contract with the Pentagon.

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🗣 Rubio’s Munich remarks were attempt ‘to systematize a worldview that does not truly exist’ - expert

🟠 The current administration’s foreign policy “is inherently difficult to analyze” because its statements “often lack a coherent foundation or consistent meaning,” Prof. Joe Siracusa of Curtin University’s Global Futures Platform told Sputnik, commenting on Secretary Rubio’s speech at this year’s Munich Security Conference.

🟠 While the White House started off declaring its intentions to “avoid long-term conflicts,” its “shift from being risk-averse to highly unpredictable suggests a more dangerous and erratic direction for global stability,” Siracusa said, noting that Rubio’s job is to now try “to rationalize a worldview that does not truly exist.”

🟠 Washington is using “foreign policy quarrels with nations like Iran and Venezuela as easy means to compel solutions for a domestic audience rather than engaging in complex global strategy.”

🟠 Addressing Rubio’s criticism of international institutions like the UN, Siracusa recalled that “this tendency to turn away from international bodies is an old story in American politics, echoing the country’s decision to opt out of the League of Nations” after WWI.

🟠 As for Rubio’s “assertion that the United States is prepared to act unilaterally,” it “is difficult to reconcile with the historical record of American intervention and subsequent destabilization in regions like the Middle East and Latin America,” something that has always stood “in stark contrast to the rhetoric of international cooperation and collective defense,” Siracusa summed up.

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🇷🇺🇪🇺 Why will EU have to keep buying Russian gas?

🗣 "Europe needs gas, but its options [supplies from the US and the Middle East] are very limited” and they cannot “secure the required volume,” Spanish political analyst Juan Antonio Aguilar tells Sputnik, commenting on the EU’s move to ban the import of Russian LNG starting from January 1, 2027, and Russian pipeline gas from September 30 of the same year.

📍 He underscores that due to the abovementioned factors, “there will be no choice but to continue buying Russian gas."

According to Aguilar, the upcoming ban will force Europe to buy the much-needed Russian gas through third-party countries which purchase it from Russia, something that he says will make the supplies more expensive.

💬 "So, there is no sense in this ban. It’s just another foolish decision by European leadership," the analyst concludes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier called the EU’s decision to ban Russian gas imports a “highly unreasonable” move from the perspective of the bloc’s economic interests.

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🇭🇺This is why Ukraine can't join the EU – Orban fires back at Zelensky

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hit back after Volodymyr Zelensky mocked him at the Munich Security Conference, saying Orban was thinking about “the growth of his belly” instead of the army.

✍️In an X post, Orban thanked Zelensky sarcastically for his “election speech” promoting Ukrainian membership of the European Union (EU), but said Kiev misses the point:

💬“This debate is not about me and it is not about you,” Orban said. “It is about the future of Hungary, Ukraine, and Europe. This is precisely why you cannot become a member of the European Union.”

👉Orban has previously argued that Ukraine is on the wrong track and cannot dictate terms for its accession to the EU while it is just a candidate state.

The EU granted Ukraine and Moldova candidate status in 2022 — a move many in Brussels described as symbolic. Several EU member states remain opposed to Ukraine joining, exposing growing cracks inside the bloc.

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🚨 Ukraine deliberately disrupting Russian oil supplies to Eastern Europe via Druzhba pipeline – expert

💬 "The situation is that Ukraine is manually halting such supplies to Eastern European countries,” Russian expert Igor Yushkov tells Sputnik.

🟠 He doesn’t rule out that Ukraine is just claiming supplies have been halted, because “initially we only see the Kiev regime’s allegations about a strike purportedly resulting in reduction of deliveries.”

🟠 The transit of Russian oil to Eastern Europe through the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline has been suspended since January 27, Reuters earlier cited the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as saying. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow has no information on the issue.

🟠 Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto for his part insisted that Ukraine blocked Russian oil supplies to his country via the Druzhba pipeline in order to create problems for the government ahead of the Hungarian parliamentary elections.

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🗣 Possible Russian palladium tariffs could devastate US industry – expert

💬 "The potential imposition of such insane tariffs could deal a severe blow to many sectors, from automotive manufacturing to chemicals and oil refining,” independent industrial expert Leonid Khazanov tells Sputnik, commenting on the US Commerce Department’s preliminary plan to slap anti-dumping duties on imports of Russian palladium with a rate of almost 133%.

🔶 He notes that the number of countries producing palladium is relatively small, “and none of them can replace Russia, which accounts for 30–35% of all palladium imports to the US.”

🔶 According to him, the negative impact on the US from Russian palladium import restrictions would depend on several factors, including the depletion of profitable global palladium deposits.

🔶 The proposed duty will not have a critical effect on Russia, which will most likely redirect its palladium supplies on the global market, Khazanov sums up.

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🔸 Rubio’s Munich remarks were attempt ‘to systematize a worldview that does not truly exist’ - expert

🔸 Protesters in Munich rally against the NATO security conference

🔸 ‘Ukraine is militarily defeated’ – ex-Pentagon advisor

🔸 Possible Russian palladium tariffs could devastate US industry – expert

🔸 US military outsourced Maduro kidnapping to AI – report

🔸 New Russian Rus-PE loitering munition tested in combat zone

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🚨 Trump ‘to put more pressure on Zelensky to clinch Ukraine peace deal’ – MEP

💬 “The situation in the US is changing, so Trump's agenda will focus on the American public rather than on solving Ukraine's problems,” Belgian member of the European Parliament Rudy Kennes tells Sputnik

🟠 US President Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky this week not to miss “a great opportunity” for a peace deal with Russia.

🟠 Kennes notes that Trump is now increasingly focused on domestic issues and “no longer cares about Europe, or even Ukraine, because he's facing domestic problems. Everything he's doing now is tied to the mid-term elections in the US” which the Republicans risk losing.

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🇮🇷Iranian Foreign Minister mocks ‘CIRCUS’ of Munich Security Conference

Abbas Araghchi mocked the NATO-dominated meeting in Germany, saying rhetoric about Iran there had turned it into a "circus."

💬"Sad to see the usually serious Munich Security Conference turned into the ‘Munich Circus’ when it comes to Iran," he posted on X.

👉He said the European Union was confused about events inside Iran, adding that the Anglo-French-German axis had lost influence in the Middle East and was "empty-handed and peripheral."

Conference organizers withdrew invitations to Iranian delegates before the conference.


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