Russian Pop Star Found Dead From Drowning After Criticizing Putin

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Russian pop star Dima Nova was found dead from drowning on Sunday after criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was 34.

Born Dmitry Svirgunov, Nova founded the popular electronic group Cream Soda — whose song “Aqua Disco” became an anthem for anti-war protests in Russia, Newsweek reported.

In the song, the pop group called out Putin over his alleged $1.3 billion mansion. The song was commonly heard at protests against the country both before and after Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. These protests became known as “Aqua Disco Parties.” . . .

The report cited an article in a Russian news website People Talk that said Nova fell through the ice while crossing the Volga river in the Yaroslavl region, north east of Moscow. Svirgunov was not alone – he was reportedly with his brother Roma and a couple friends. (Read more from “Russian Pop Star Found Dead From Drowning After Criticizing Putin” HERE)

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Xi Jinping Uses Russia Trip to Position China as the Winner of Ukraine Invasion

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Chinese dictator Xi Jinping emphasized on Monday that his visit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, charged with human rights crimes before the International Criminal Court (ICC) less than a week ago, is intended to promote “friendship, cooperation, and peace,” positioning China as a mediator in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Xi will be in Moscow from Monday to Wednesday, meeting with Putin and other senior leaders. Xi has emphasized China’s potential role in the Ukraine crisis since arriving, promoting a Chinese “peace plan” debuted last month that demands a ceasefire, lays no blame on either side, and does not offer specificity on its demand for both sides to “calm down as soon as possible.”

Arriving on Monday, Xi vowed that China would “stand guard over the world order,” hinting at ambitions to mediate the Ukraine conflict.

Both Russia and Ukraine have offered tepid reactions to the peace plan but have encouraged Beijing to get more involved in the conflict in the role of mediator. If successful in halting some of the hostilities, Xi could use Ukraine to greatly elevate China’s international reputation as peacemaker, even as China continues to execute a years-long genocide on its own people.

The Russian news agency Tass reported that his first meeting with Putin on Monday lasted 4.5 hours and, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “obviously” addressed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Xi and Putin will return to talks at 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday, Peskov added, regarding both countries’ bilateral ties and the Ukraine invasion. (Read more from “Xi Jinping Uses Russia Trip to Position China as the Winner of Ukraine Invasion” HERE)

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Israel Could Strike Iran in Months Unless U.S. Steps In, Former Israeli General Says

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The window to prevent an Israeli strike against Iran’s growing nuclear program is closing quickly, a retired Israeli military general says.

Retired Brigadier General Amir Avivi says that the United States’ retreat from the Middle East, which has allowed China and Russia to move in, is quickly limiting Israel’s options for avoiding conflict. Israel’s timeframe for launching a strike against Iran has shortened to potentially as little as a few months.

An Israeli strike against Iran “is bad for everybody, but this is at the moment what’s going to happen, and maybe happen in three months, in six months, maybe a year,” Avivi told The Washington Free Beacon. Avivi spent three decades in the Israel Defense Forces before becoming the chairman of an Israeli national security think tank, the Israel Defense and Security Forum.

Iran and Russia have deepened ties since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war last year. Iran has reportedly provided Russia with ammo and drones to fuel its war machine while pressuring Moscow to supply Tehran with S-400 missile systems. The anti-air missile system would bolster Iran’s defensive capabilities and make delivering a strike against sensitive or high-priority targets more difficult for Israel. (Read more from “Israel Could Strike Iran in Months Unless U.S. Steps In, Former Israeli General Says” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Ben & Jerry’s Co-Founder Gave $1M to Group Opposed to US Arms for Ukraine: Report

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A co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has donated more than $1 million to a group that is urging an end to US military support for Ukraine as the country tries to stave off a Russian invasion.

Ben Cohen — who with Jerry Greenfield started the ice cream behemoth in 1978 — told the Daily Beast: “I think the US should use its power to negotiate an end to the war, not prolong the death and destruction by supplying more weapons.”

Cohen is head of the People Power Initiatives — one of whose projects is Eisenhower Media Network, which bills itself as “an organization of expert former military, intelligence, and civilian national security officials … [which] seeks to reach broad, cross-partisan audiences in diverse media outlets and among the American people.”

The former national security officials promoted by EMN, including retired US Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, have argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was provoked by NATO expansion eastward.

Dennis Fritz, the director of EMN, told the Daily Beast: “We gave Putin just cause [to invade Ukraine].” (Read more from “Ben & Jerry’s Co-Founder Gave $1M to Group Opposed to US Arms for Ukraine: Report” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Putin Visits Russian-Occupied Mariupol (VIDEO)

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Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise trip on Saturday to Mariupol, a Ukrainian city his forces captured last year.

Reports say Putin flew in by helicopter. Video from Russian media showed Putin driving a car through after dark, visiting buildings, and meeting with residents.

Russian state news service TASS said it was Putin’s first-ever visit to Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine, and while there, he received a report from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin about efforts to rebuild the port city within the eastern region. (Read more from “Putin Visits Russian-Occupied Mariupol (VIDEO)” HERE)

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Ukrainian Commander Reveals True Scale of Losses – And Pays the Price

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Ukraine has demoted a top battlefield commander after he admitted his unit had been decimated in fighting around the city of Bakhmut.

The battalion commander, known by his call sign Kupol, gave an unusually frank assessment of Ukrainian losses in an interview from the front lines earlier this week.

He revealed that all of the original 500 soldiers in his unit had either been killed or injured, a rare acknowledgement from inside the Ukrainian ranks, where losses are kept strictly confidential. . .

Kupol told the Washington Post this week that the Ukrainian army training was often poor and that some of the rookie replacements didn’t know how to throw a hand grenade or fire a rifle. . .

Kupol said that he had been motivated to speak out to try to improve training levels but furious Ukrainian generals instead demoted him. The Washington Post said he had consented to have his picture taken but admitted he could face “personal blowback” for his honest assessment. (Read more from “Ukrainian Commander Reveals True Scale of Losses – And Pays the Price” HERE)

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White House Rejects China-Brokered Ceasefire in Ukraine

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The Biden administration came out against China’s push for a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, saying Thursday that a pause in fighting would work to Russia’s advantage.

Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an effort to broker a peace deal between the two nations, which have been at war for over a year after Russia’s invasion. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the administration believes a ceasefire would work against Ukraine.

“While that sounds perfectly reasonable and it sounds like a good thing, a ceasefire right now would basically ratify Russia’s conquest. Russia would basically be free to use that ceasefire to further entrench its positions in Ukraine, to rebuild their forces, refit them, re-man them, retrain them so that they can then restart attacks at a time of their choosing.”

Kirby said the White House supports talks between Xi and Zelensky, but warned Beijing against adopting a stance that favors Russia.

Xi is scheduled to visit Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Chinese leader has also reportedly reached out to Zelensky, although details on that were also unclear. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in a Thursday phone call. (Read more from “White House Rejects China-Brokered Ceasefire in Ukraine” HERE)

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Escalation: Backed by U.S. And EU, Poland and Slovakia Sending Jets to Ukraine

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Russia has vowed to destroy all fighter jets donated to Ukraine by European nations after Poland and Slovakia, backed by new equipment and finance from the U.S. and the European Union, became the first countries to send warplanes to Kyiv.

Fighter jets have been a long-term demand for the Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky since the renewed Russian invasion at the start of 2022, but NATO leaders have shied away from what they considered a major escalation of their involvement in the conflict until now. Enabled by cash and replacement warbirds from the United States and the European Union, two European nations are sending fighter jets to Ukraine in the coming days.

The first to announce it was sending jets was Poland, whose airforce operates many former-Soviet fighters. Warsaw announced Thursday it would be sending the first tranche of Mikoyan MIG-29 ‘Fulcrum’ fighter jets, a 1980s-era type roughly originally built as a parallel to the U.S. F-16. While that delivery will run to four jets, Poland has dozens and is reportedly preparing others for delivery. . .

As has been the case with other major escalations in levels of support to Ukraine — the provision of main battle tanks, for instance, where months of refusals from NATO nations ended with a rush of donations after the United Kingdom opened the floodgates by being the first to supply — Poland making the jets announcement has been closely followed. Slovakia has now said it will send its entire airforce’s stock of MIG-29s as well in an announcement on Friday just hours after Poland’s. . .

Slovakia is also receiving considerable support from Western powers to make the donation possible. The European Union is making a contribution of $200 million to the Slovakian government in “compensation” for them losing their jets, and the United States has agreed to supply $700 million of new military equipment — likely American-made fighters like the F-35 — to replace them. (Read more from “Escalation: Backed by U.S. And EU, Poland and Slovakia Sending Jets to Ukraine” HERE)

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Poland Plans to Grant Ukraine’s Request for Fighter Jets

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Poland’s president said Thursday that his country plans to give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfill the Ukrainian government’s increasingly urgent requests for warplanes.

President Andrzej Duda said Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes “within the next few days” and that the rest needed servicing and would be supplied later. The Polish word he used to describe their number can mean between 11 and 19.

“They are in the last years of their functioning but they are in good working condition,” Duda said of the aircraft. (Read more from “Poland Plans to Grant Ukraine’s Request for Fighter Jets” HERE)

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Blame Hillary and Obama: Tons of Uranium Concentrate Missing From Libya

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Some 2.5 tons of natural uranium stored in a site in war-torn Libya have gone missing, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday, raising safety and proliferation concerns.

Natural uranium can’t immediately be used for energy production or bomb fuel, as the enrichment process typically requires the metal to be converted into a gas, then later spun in centrifuges to reach the levels needed. However, each ton of natural uranium — if obtained by a group with the technological means and resources — can be refined to 5.6 kilograms of weapons-grade material over time, experts say. That makes finding the missing metal important for nonproliferation experts.

In a statement, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, informed member states Wednesday about the missing uranium. . .

Tuesday, “agency safeguards inspectors found that 10 drums containing approximately 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of uranium ore concentrate were not present as previously declared at a location in the state of Libya,” the IAEA said. . .

While inspectors removed the last of the enriched uranium from Libya in 2009, the yellowcake remained behind, with the U.N. in 2013 estimating some 6,400 barrels of it were stored at Sabha. American officials had worried Iran could try to purchase the uranium from Libya, something Qadhafi’s top civilian nuclear official tried to reassure the U.S. about, according to a 2009 diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks. (Read more from “Blame Hillary and Obama: Tons of Uranium Concentrate Missing From Libya” HERE)

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