China came up about $6 billion short of the $40 billion in U.S. agricultural products it agreed to purchase in the two-year trade deal it signed in January 2020 – but suddenly began making up a bit of that deficit after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Chinese buyers scrambled to cover potential shortfalls of Ukrainian corn.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that Russia will continue its “military operation” in Ukraine even if a peace deal is made, until the process of “demilitarization” and “de-Nazification” is completed to Moscow’s satisfaction and Ukraine is stripped of weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological weapons he accused the United States of developing on Ukrainian soil.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday offered its first official estimate of casualties suffered in the attack on Ukraine, claiming 498 Russian troops have been killed and 1,597 injured.
A group of over 130 alumni of China’s top universities issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and calling on their own government to honor its 1994 security pact with the Ukrainian government.
Turkish-made Bayraktar armed drones have proven to be a key weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal against the Russian invasion, helping the defenders take out armored vehicles, eliminate artillery positions, and disrupt supply lines.
International observers generally agree Ukraine did well against the first phase of the Russian invasion, thwarting a blitzkrieg apparently intended to decapitate the Ukrainian government in a matter of days.
Russia’s state-run Sputnik News reported on Friday that Moscow is preparing ostensibly devastating retaliatory sanctions that will be “well-calculated and painful for the American side.”
Ukrainian forces are reporting great success in using American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles against invading Russian armor. British NLAW weapons are also reportedly performing well against Russian tanks.
Ukraine’s state-run Ukrinform news service reported several victories against the Russian invasion force on Friday, including the destruction of Russian tanks, warplanes, and rocket launchers. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Friday morning that a thousand Russian soldiers have been killed in action.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko of Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv said Thursday he was ready to take up arms against the Russian invasion.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia is not worried about U.S. and European sanctions as punishment for invading Ukraine, because Russia long ago gamed out every possible sanctions move and fortified its economy to withstand them.
Russian opposition leaders and human rights activists took to the streets on Thursday to protest President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine, but were swiftly met by a crushing police response.
Hardline Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has used his time in the dock to condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It is the West’s wacko environmentalists who handed Russian President Vladimir Putin the leverage and money to invade Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine this week.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry claimed on Thursday morning that Ukrainian forces captured two “Russian occupiers,” the first declared prisoners of war from the Russian invasion.
The European Union (E.U.) sought to place itself in front of Russia’s territorial ambitions Thursday as it announced the “strongest, the harshest package” of sanctions to punish Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine in a surprise television announcement at roughly 6:00 a.m. Moscow time, 10:00 p.m. Eastern. The Russian dictator described the unprovoked attack as a “special military operation for the de-Militarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky briefly addressed his nation about 90 minutes after the Russian attack began early Thursday morning local time. Zelensky declared martial law and vowed to resist the Russian invasion while urging his citizens to remain calm.
Ukraine requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Monday night in response to Russia’s military incursion.
Chinese state media mockingly commemorated Wednesday as “Invasion Day,” the day U.S. President Joe Biden and some of his top officials allegedly predicted Russia would launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine.
After weeks of hysterical pronouncements about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, culminating in an embarrassing meltdown by President Joe Biden in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week, the Biden administration appears to be backing away from Ukraine and looking for ways to change the subject – such as declaring war on cancer instead of Russia.
The Biden administration on Sunday once again rejected pleas from the Ukrainian government to impose sanctions on Russia before an invasion begins.
Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov warned on Friday that Russia now has over 94,000 troops massed along the border and could be plotting an invasion before the end of January 2022.
In an op-ed published by Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen warned that China’s increasingly aggressive behavior toward her island could be the prelude to an invasion that would be “catastrophic for regional peace and the democratic alliance system.”
Taiwan carried out a major live-fire military drill on Thursday to simulate repelling a Chinese amphibious invasion, pointedly demonstrating a strategy the Defense Ministry described as “enemy annihilation on the shore.”
The Turkish government is cracking down hard on internal dissent at the same time it lashes out against foreign criticism of “Operation Peace Spring,” its invasion of Syria to attack the Kurds.
SPARTANBURG, South Carolina — Former vice president began his address to a town hall meeting on Wednesday afternoon by paying homage to the late Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D-SC) — a segregationist who later changed his views.
