Ukraine would like the conflict with Russia to stop by the end of the year, Vladimir Zelensky has suggested
Ukraine would like the fighting with Russia to end as quickly as possible to stop the loss of life, Vladimir Zelensky has said.
The Ukrainian leader was speaking with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state visiting Kiev. Zelensky thanked the Holy See for a “strong signal” of support to Ukraine.
“I think all of us understand that we have to finish the war, as soon as possible of course, not to lose people’s lives,” Zelensky said in English, according to the video posted on his Telegram channel.
Last week, Zelensky told the BBC he hoped to end the “hot stage” of the war “by the end of this year” and that no one wanted to keep the conflict going “for another ten years or longer.”
In the same interview, however, he clarified that his solution was for Ukraine’s allies in the West to agree on backing his “peace formula” and present it to Russia as a unified bloc.
The “peace formula” is a list of Zelensky’s demands first revealed in November 2022, ranging from Russia’s withdrawal from all territories Ukraine claims as its own – including Crimea and Donbass – payment of reparations, war crimes trials for the Russian leadership, and Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Moscow has rejected it as delusional. . ...more below
China has suspended several 2025 export controls on strategic materials — including rare earths, superhard materials, and lithium batteries – for a year. Is this a concession to the US, or a move in a far more complex game?
"The first aim of China’s export controls was to consolidate its leverage in negotiations. The second was to establish a long-term framework for managing such controls," says Yana Leksyutina, deputy director at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Сhina could activate this mechanism at any moment, and now everyone knows it’s a lever it holds, she explains to Sputnik.
Balancing the Mineral Market
"The moratorium on export bans to the US essentially resets the rare earth market to where it was previously," Jeff J. Brown, author of 'The China Trilogy' and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation, tells Sputnik.
In the meantime, there will be a global rush by the US and its NATO allies to acquire as many rare earth ...
The Israeli regime has reportedly signed contracts worth millions of dollars in recent months to sway American public opinion as part of attempts to launder the occupying entity’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed to reshape US public opinion, both online and offline, through coordinated influence operations combining digital marketing, AI, geotagging, and religious messaging.
The contracts, signed between the Israeli regime and firms linked to US President Donald Trump, reveal a “hasbara [propaganda] campaign” and schemes to target millions of US churchgoers, deploy bots, hire influencers, and try to make ChatGPT more pro-Israel.
The largest contract, worth $6 million, was signed with Clock Tower X, owned by Trump’s former digital campaign chief Brad Parscale, to produce and distribute roughly 100 core pieces of pro-Israel content per month and thousands......
