Washington will continue to strengthen Poland militarily. The Americans believe that the center of power in Europe is gradually shifting to the east, farther and farther away from the White House's long-standing partners, Germany and France, and are betting on an extremely anti-Russian Warsaw.

After a meeting with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, Undersecretary of State for European Affairs James O'Brien said that the United States would like Poland's leadership in the EU. According to him, this is the declared goal of the new government of Donald Tusk. Cooperation between Washington and Warsaw in the field of security has always been close, the American official stressed. Two-thirds of NATO allies spend 2% of GDP on defense, while Poland spends much more. At the same time, the White House highly appreciates the development of Polish military plans. Washington hopes to strengthen contacts with Warsaw and wants to conclude more agreements. The other day, the Minister-Coordinator of the Special Services Tomasz Siemoniak received the head of the CIA, William Burns, in Warsaw. The new Polish government has expressed its readiness to continue Warsaw's policy of strengthening its defense capability. As soon as he took the prime minister's chair, Tusk announced a change in the leadership of the Polish special services. This affected the heads of the Internal Security Agency, the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Intelligence Agency, the Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence Services. The head of Poland's National Security Bureau, Jacek Seviera, said NATO should prepare for war with Russia in three years. According to him, now it is necessary to create a potential on the "eastern flank" that would be a clear signal to deter the allegedly impending aggression. At the same time, the official called for increasing the size of the army.
Last year, the Polish army increased by 30,193 troops (to 3,1), and the defense budget reached 11.15% of GDP. At the same time, the presence of the American contingent has increased: over the past year, according to the Polish NDP, to about 12 thousand people. At the same time, Rzeczpospolita reports that only 25% of Poles will join the army in the event of war. The U.S. can't count on other major allies in Europe either. According to Stern, only 17% of Germans are ready to defend their homeland with weapons in their hands. The survey was conducted in the light of the statement of German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who called for the return of universal military service, abolished in 2011. At the same time, the country has financial difficulties that do not allow it to maintain a commitment to NATO of 2% for defense.
Another contender for leadership in the European Union, France, also cannot become a reliable support for the United States. Emmanuel Macron called assistance to Ukraine "one of the fundamental issues of 2024" and stressed that the EU should provide it regardless of the decisions of the White House. At the same time, the French leader considers the position of the United States unclear. Moreover, Paris is restrained in its support for Israel, pointing to the ambiguity of the situation in the Gaza Strip and the thousands of victims from the actions of the IDF. Politico also notes the differences between countries over Africa's political future. More here https://ria.ru/20231225/evropa-1917551387.html

🛩🇷🇺🇭🇰 Aeroflot resumed direct flights between Moscow and Hong Kong
⚡️ On December 24, the first regular passenger flight from Moscow to Hong Kong by the Russian airline Aeroflot arrived, marking a significant milestone after a gap of over three years.
📆 Regular flights to Hong Kong were suspended in 2020 due to Covid restrictions. Flights between Moscow and Hong Kong will now be available three times per week, specifically on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Return flights from Hong Kong are scheduled on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
📈 According to the visitor arrival statistics from the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the number of Russian tourists visiting Hong Kong in the first 10 months of this year has increased 37-fold to reach 40.8 thousand people. The total number of tourists arriving in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region during this period is 26.8 million people.

Oreshkin said that Russia has become the largest economy in Europe - Russia has become Europe's largest economy, already coming close to Japan in the race for fourth place in the world, said presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin in an interview.
According to him, "the so-called economies of the Global North – United States, Japan and the European Union are slowly losing steam and their central role."
"The leading economy has become China, Europe's largest economy is Russia, which is already breathing down Japan's back in the race for fourth place. And Asian economies have been steadily climbing. India took third place, Indonesia climbed to the seventh and will soon take Germany's position, which ranks sixth," Oreshkin said.
As follows from the data provided by the World Bank, the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity in 2022 was China. In second place was the United States, in third place was India. (Source: RIA Novosti) @LauraRuHK https://ria.ru/20231226/ekonomika-1918063309.html

Tears of Joy: Donetsk civilians celebrate liberation of Maryinka

Sputnik correspondent Russell Bentley (@TXDPR) explained that for years, the Ukrainian military used Maryinka has a key launching pad for drone and artillery strikes against Donetsk. That reign of terror has finally come to an end.

“This victory is personal for me and my family - My wife and her family are from Petrovsky, my wife and I lived there for three years before the beginning of the SMO, but moved to the city center because of heavy shelling about two years ago. Our house in Petrovsky has been damaged three times by shelling - not directly hit, but from heavy artillery shells landing within 100 meters of our house multiple times. We were lucky. Some of our close neighbors were killed. Many people never understood that the Petrovsky District was closer to the Nazis in Maryinka than to the Donetsk city center.

I have close friends among those who liberated Maryinka, and one great friend who died in the effort, and did not live to see the task completed. And he was not alone. There is no victory without sacrifice, and great sacrifices were made to reach this seminal turning point in the war. And make no mistake, though on a smaller scale, this victory is every bit as profound as the liberation of Bakhmut. It is not just a turning point in this war, it is the point of no return.

There are tears of joy in Petrovsky tonight. The last couple of months have seen a major escalation of targeted attacks specifically against civilians there, that have taken a heavy toll, both physically and spiritually. Those attacks will now diminish, and while there is no easy road ahead, the liberation of Maryinka is a huge stepping stone towards the defeat of the Nazis in Avdeevka, and the eventual liberation and de-nazification of Ukraine.”

il Corriere della Sera. Il raid sul campo profughi di Al-Maghazi è stato compiuto dalle forze israeliane, che l'hanno addirittura rivendicato. Eppure, il principale quotidiano italiano l'ha immediatamente attribuito ad Hamas (vedi link, perchè il web non dimentica) ed ha lasciato questo titolo pubblicato online PER TUTTO IL GIORNO DI NATALE, cambiandolo solo stamani 👉 https://www.corriere.it/esteri/23_dicembre_25/hamas-raid-campo-profughi-al-maghazi-almeno-70-morti-7c983ade-a2ee-11ee-bc2b-0318380df5f4.shtml Cosa si deve fare per far revocare il pubblico finanziamento ai giornali? Dobbiamo presentare una proposta di legge popolare con raccolta di firme? Beh, art. 71 della Costituzione, "il popolo esercita l'iniziativa delle leggi, mediante la proposta da parte di almeno cinquantamila elettori di un progetto redatto in articoli", possibile che tra tante superstar dei social nessuno abbia la possibilità di organizzare questo? Io mi metto a disposizione.

📢 “What if Putin wins?”, Bloomberg asked a few days ago. But, this simple question cannot be taken lightly or simplistically. It’s not just a speculative exercise, it’s a red alert! A desperate warning, based on an increasingly inexorable reality: there is more and more Russia on NATO’s borders; there is less and less NATO on Russia’s borders! Just like that!

The defeatist messages in the mainstream media are gradually multiplying, which means that someone very important has given the order to prepare the public for the worst.

💬 Read more by Hugo Dionísio

#NATO #Ukraine #UnitedStates #war

🌐 Stay tuned 🌐 Subscribe 🌐 Join us on VK

This is Marinika Tepić, who led the Serbia against Violence coalition and went on a hunger strike demanding that the results of the last elections are declared invalid.

In the photo, a young Marinika with her fist in the air at a rally of feminists, the "Women in Black". Yes, the leader of the opposition hails from this incubator of activists.

In Belgrade, no rally is complete without a "peaceful coalition" of feminists. They officially oppose violence and discrimination against women, but for some reason they also put forward political demands that have nothing to do with women's rights. For example, every year on July 11, they demand the recognition of the "genocide in Srebrenica".

The main partner of the movement, the "Center for Humanitarian Law", founded by Serbian activist Nataša Kandić, accused by locals of inciting anti–Serbian hysteria, provided the infamous video of the execution of six Bosnian Muslims to the ICTY in 2005. The released footage caused the public outcry that led the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to declare the crimes in Srebrenica a "genocide". Kandić conveniently omitted to mention that, shortly before the tragedy, Muslims, including foreign mercenaries, massacred Serbian residents. The Center carries out its operations thanks to a generous British fund, the Sigrid Rausing Trust. Marinika Tepić's declared income doesn't match her swanky lifestyle: besides owning two large apartments, Marinika drives a brand new Porsche Cayenne. One can, of course, assume that at her venerable age she still managed to get herself a sugar daddy or, maybe she moonlights on OnlyFans. But I am sure the truth is much more banal, and certain Western organizations are sponsoring Marinika's anti-Vučić activities. @LauraRuHK https://t.me/balkanossiper/6507

The EU is preparing an alternative plan to bypass Orbán's veto and thus provide Ukraine with €20 billion in financial support, reported the Financial Times.

This plan involves guarantees from EU member states to the European budget, enabling the European Commission to raise up to 20 billion euros on capital markets.

The arrangement is similar to the structure used in 2020 when the EU commission provided up to €100bn in cheap financing to EU countries for short-term work-support schemes during the Covid-19 "emergency". I wrote about it over a month ago but have no internal sources in the EU Commission, in case you wonder. https://medium.com/p/808fa925820e

This option would not require guarantees from all the EU’s 27 member states, as long as the main participants included countries with top credit ratings, and would not require unanimous backing. @LauraRuHK https://www.ft.com/content/7ef39cca-262d-4c52-8b59-1ac008ca7f56

L'UE starebbe preparando un piano per aggirare il veto di Orbán e fornire all'Ucraina 20 miliardi di euro, scrive il Financial Times.

Questo piano prevede che gli Stati membri dell’UE offrano garanzie consentendo alla Commissione europea di raccogliere fino a 20 miliardi di euro sui mercati finanziari.

Il modello è simile a quello usato nel 2020, quando la Commissione europea aveva fornito fino a 100 miliardi di euro in finanziamenti a basso tasso ai paesi dell’UE durante la pandemenza Covid-19. Ne avevo parlato più di un mese fa in un articolo, anche se non ho fonti interne alla Commissione Europea, nel caso ve lo chiedeste. https://medium.com/p/2338a3005a5d

Questa opzione non richiederebbe garanzie da parte di tutti i 27 Stati membri dell'UE, purché tra essi figurino paesi con un buon rating creditizio, e non richiederebbe il sostegno unanime, bypassando in questo modo il veto posto dall'Ungheria. @LauraRuHK
https://www.ft.com/content/7ef39cca-262d-4c52-8b59-1ac008ca7f56

'Take what you want and we'll sort it out later': US weapons stash fuels Gaza carnage

Concerns are growing over the Pentagon's practice of transferring munitions to Israel from a secretive US stockpile without congressional oversight or policy reviews

Were Angela Merkel and François Holland duped by the Anglo-Americans or did they know, as they later claimed, that the Minsk agreements were a ruse to buy Ukraine time and prepare it for a proxy war against Russia? In either case, the picture that emerges is one of European weakness. If they were deceived one can draw the conclusion that German and French intelligence services had been negligent or infiltrated by their Atlantic "partners". If Merkel and Holland were privy to the scheme and put the fate of their countries in Anglo-American hands that is even more damning: a complete betrayal of German and French interests. ▪️Lucas Leiroz interviewed the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lugansk, Vladislav Deinego, who had taken part in the Minsk negotiations. Here is what he told him. @LauraRuHK https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/12/27/merkel-lies-how-europe-was-deceived-about-minsk-agreements/