🇺🇸🍫🇷🇺US imports of Russian sweets hit highest level since 2021

📍 The United States increased imports of Russian confectionery in 2025 by 13%, reaching nearly $6.6 million—the highest level since 2021, according to US statistical data reviewed by Sputnik.

🟠 The imports include chocolate, flour-based sweets such as cakes, waffles, and biscuits, as well as sugar confectionery. Chocolate accounted for $2.8 million, up 8% and the highest level since 2021. Flour-based products totaled $2.5 million, while sugar sweets reached $1.3 million, both rising 17% year-on-year to their highest levels since 2022.

🟠 In December alone, shipments amounted to $362,200. Although monthly deliveries fell more than twofold compared to November—the lowest level since August—they were still up by one-third compared to the same month a year earlier.

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🗣 Zelensky’s outbursts signal panic under ‘mounting political pressure’ – analyst

🔊 Volodymyr Zelensky’s harsh rhetoric “gives the impression of an extremely nervous and unsystematic reaction to what is happening and resemble an emotional breakdown rather than a balanced state position,” Turkish analyst Nejat Sezgin tells Sputnik.

🔶 Zelensky’s demands for the EU to set a specific accession deadline, pressure on the US over security guarantees, as well as stern language against Russia and some European leaders mirror “strategic imbalance,” which could be the result of “significant external pressure [on Ukraine] and its recognition of limited negotiating opportunities,” according to the analyst.

🔶 Sezgin suggests that Zelensky’s tough tone aims to gain domestic support and shape the image of an intransigent leader, but at the same time, it may complicate Ukraine’s dialogue with partners who expect predictability and consistency from the leader of the Kiev regime.

💬 “The mix of ultimatum statements and potential compromises by Zelensky creates a sense of political turbulence, reflecting the Ukrainian authorities’ complicated situation and their attempts to influence multiple audiences—domestic, American, and European,” the analyst wraps up.

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🚨🇺🇸Trump says he will immediately raise the global tariff rate from 10% to 15%, calling a recent Supreme Court decision “anti-American” and vowing further “legally permissible” tariff measures in the coming months.

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🐼🎁 Moscow Zoo Pandas get Chinese New Year gifts

Katyusha received a fruity ice cake and a straw toy, and Zhui got a bamboo horse to mark the occasion.

From the looks of it, both pandas gave were happy with their presents.

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🇺🇸🔥🇮🇷 US–Iran war could ignite wider regional war – analyst

🟠 "Iran possesses more than 3,000 missiles of various types. But what matters more than their number is their range and dispersion," Israeli political analyst Yuri Bocharov told Sputnik.

🟠 "The maximum range of modern Iranian ballistic missiles reaches 2,500 kilometres."

👉 The potential targets within 2,500km of Iran make clear that any war would not be just a local exchange of attacks.

💬 "Within that radius are the capitals of all Middle Eastern countries, with partial coverage of southeastern Europe — including the Balkans and eastern Greece," Bocharov warned.

🔶 Bocharov says the US bases in range of Iran would make any conflict multi-layered and unlikely to be confined to a single target.

🔶 Tehran is preparing for a surprise attack by dispersing its leadership and telling Revolutionary Guard and army units to fight on even if communications with central command are lost — a sign, the analyst said, that it sees war as imminent.

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📹Ukraine conflict: From Euromaidan to the special military operation. Part 1

Four years ago, in February 2022, Russia recognized the independence of the Donbass republics to protect the Russian-speaking population.

In the first episode of a four-part series, Sputnik revisits how those events unfolded.

👉More parts coming soon!

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🚨Iran labels European naval and air forces ‘terrorist’

Tehran has announced retaliatory measures after EU member states designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist entity on Thursday, calling the move “illegal and unjustified.”

Invoking the principle of reciprocity and its 2019 countermeasure law, The Iranian Foreign Ministry said any country aligning with or supporting the US decision to brand the IRGC ‘terrorist’ will face the same treatment.

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🔸 Trump vows to raise the global tariff rate from 10% to 15%

🔸 US–Iran war could ignite wider regional war – analyst

🔸 Board of Peace has no interest in full-scale Gaza reconstruction – analyst

🔸 Ukraine conflict: From Euromaidan to the special military operation. Part 1

🔸 US imports of Russian sweets hit highest level since 2021

🔸 Meet Yolka: Russia's drone hunter that smashes enemy UAVs mid-air

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📹Thousands marched in Manchester against immigration, chanting “send them back” and “stop the boats” — referring to people trafficking across the English Channel.

Crowds also shouted “save our children” and berated Prime Minister Keir Starmer as tensions over immigration continue to rise – just days before a parliamentary by-election in the city which the right-wing Reform party could win.

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🗣 Supreme Court ruling on tariffs opens the door to Trump’s trade ‘nuclear options’ - analyst

🔶 The high court’s ruling that the president’s sweeping emergency tariffs are ‘illegal’ will makes his job “a lot more complicated,” but open the door to the many “nuclear options” he has available to him, says independent financial analyst Tom Luongo.

🔶 This includes “Section 338 under the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930,” which allows tariffs up to 50% against countries that discriminate against US commerce, Luongo explained.

🔶 Tariffs were actually the “nice way” of doing things for Trump, whose overarching goal has been “to remake American trade” as much as it has been to rebuild domestic manufacturing and consumption.

💬 “Anybody who thinks that Trump isn’t willing to go” to the next level – embargoes, quotas, etc. has “got another thing coming,” Luongo believes.

🔊 “The Supreme Court ruling…makes it much more difficult for him to remake trade policy,” but Trump “can play the same game in reverse, and he will,” including as far as challenging the can of worms the court opened of potential litigation demanding refunds for collected tariff revenues.

👉 Such a process would prove “hideously complex” thanks to the fact that the US has “an 18th century court system for a 21st century world,” Luongo says. “It’ll be tied up in the courts…They’ll outlive Trump in the courts.”

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🇺🇸✈️ US Military transport flights surge between Europe and Middle East – report

🔶 US military transport aircraft are shuttling between European bases and the Gulf Arab states, a French newspaper reports based on flight tracking data and satellite images.

🔶 The build-up comes amid expectations of a US attack on Iran.

🔶 Dozens of heavy transport aircraft, including C-17s, have been flying regular routes between the Middle East and the US air bases at Ramstein in Germany and RAF Lakenheath in the UK.

🔶 At least four E-3C Sentry airborne early warning aircraft also flew to the region on February 18 and 19.

📍 Last month, US President Donald Trump announced the deployment of a “massive armada” to the Middle East, led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln – and warned Tehran of potential attacks if it refuses to end its nuclear energy program and dismantle its ballistic missile arsenal.

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⚡️Pakistan launches air strikes at Afghan border, officials confirm

Pakistan has carried out “intelligence based selective targeting of 7 terror camps & hideouts belonging to Pakistani Taliban and its affiliates” at the border region of Pakistan Afghan border.

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷US masses unprecedented firepower near Iran as Trump issues warning

The US is amassing a massive military presence in the Middle East, with air power levels far exceeding those seen during Operation Midnight Hammer earlier last year.

According to reports, over 100 aerial refueling aircraft are now positioned across Europe and the region — double the number used during the June B2 strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Fifteen of those tankers are currently stationed in the Azores, a key refueling point for long-range bombers.

"They better negotiate a fair deal. The people of Iran are a lot different than the leaders of Iran. It's a very, very sad situation," President Trump stated, adding that 32,000 people have been killed over a relatively short period.