Author: Linruzu

Moscow 22/5 (57.14) According to NATO’s top military official, Russia does not have enough troops to make a significant advance in the north-east of Ukraine. “The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli told reporters last week. “They don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” the general said. According to earlier statements by Putin, Russia’s intention is not to take the city of Kharkiv, but rather to create a security zone, a sanitary…

As Victoria Nuland steps down, she gets real about a world on fire. Victoria Nuland has long been known as a relentless, even pugnacious, U.S. diplomat, with a strong belief in American power. The approach sometimes got her in trouble, but it rarely held her back. Nuland recently left the State Department after serving at its highest levels, first as the Biden administration’s undersecretary of State for political affairs, and, for several months, acting deputy secretary of State. She previously was a career diplomat who held an array of roles under presidents both Republican and Democratic; her first posting more than…

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) — Minnesota officially unfurled its new state flag atop the capitol for the first time Saturday on statehood day. The new flag and accompanying state seal were adopted to replace an old design that Native Americans said reminded them of painful memories of conquest and displacement. The new symbols eliminate an old state seal that featured the image of a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with a rifle at the ready. The seal was a key feature of the old flag. That’s why there was pressure to change both.…

Jake Paul and Mike Tyson have been encouraged to cancel their ‘mismatch’ showdown. ‘Iron Mike’ is set to step back in the ring aged 58 to take on YouTube star Jake Paul in a blockbuster summer fight, a fight which has seen him given medical warnings given their 31-year age difference. Tyson has been documenting his training in footage posted to social media, with some fans surprisingly impressed by his punch power and suggesting he will beat Paul. And his new footage crushing the pads with trainer Rafael Cordeiro, has been met by new pleas from fans for Paul to abandon the fight…

Russia may respond to any U.S. confiscation of its currency reserves frozen in the West by seizing the assets, including property and cash, of U.S. citizens and investors in Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, a senior security official, said on Saturday. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing the Biden administration to confiscate Russian assets held in American banks and transfer them to Ukraine, something the Kremlin has said would be illegal and trigger retaliation. In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry and blocked about…

As Congress continues to delay aid and Volodymyr Zelensky replaces his top commander, military experts debate the possible outcomes. Long before it was reported, at the end of January, that Volodymyr Zelensky had decided to replace his popular Army chief, Valery Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian counter-offensive of 2023 had devolved from attempted maneuvers to mutual recriminations. The arrows pointed in multiple directions: Zelensky seemed to think that his commander-in-chief was being defeatist; Zaluzhny, that his President was refusing to face facts. And there were arguments, too, between Ukraine and its allies. In a two-part investigation in the Washington Post, in early December, U.S. officials…

A Pole, a German, a Frenchmen, and a Swiss meet in a bar, or was it a Swiss, a French, a German, and a Slovak, I forgot. However, what otherwise sounded like the beginning of a quirky joke was in fact an informal luncheon by some of the brightest analysts of the European Union in early December last year. Nationalities aside, the topic of the lunch was, of course, the Ukraine. The basic question was simple, Are We at War? Will Russia win? What’s the consequence for Europe if Russia wins? What is the European Union willingness to defend the…

KYIV, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Ukraine on Saturday strongly condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them. Russia’s upper house set the country’s presidential election this week for next March, and chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time. Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in the east and south of Ukraine during referenda last year dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a…

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) remained on “high alert” in the South China Sea as a three-day joint US-Philippines air and maritime patrols are set to culminate on Thursday, Chinese state-run media reported. The PLA Southern Theater Command’s frigate Yuncheng has conducted “routine” patrols in the South China Sea since Tuesday, “when the Philippines rallied forces outside of the region, held patrols and stirred up trouble in the region,” a spokesperson of the command was quoted as saying by Global Times on Thursday. The command troops are on high alert to firmly safeguard national sovereignty, security and maritime interests, he…

A year ago today, Peru fended off the biggest challenge to its democracy in years. The ensuing months have only proved that the country is still deeply broken. The attempted coup by then-President Pedro Castillo came at a time when the South American nation was already vulnerable from years of political chaos that had begun to overshadow its potential as a mining and agriculture powerhouse. Now under President Dina Boluarte, it is mired in the harshest recession in two decades excluding the pandemic. Its branches of government are all in crisis and experts are sounding alarm bells not just about its economy, but about the health of…