😬 "Donnyland" — Ukraine proposed naming a part of Donbass in honor of Trump during negotiations with the US. Kyiv wanted to sway the American leader in its favor and persuade Washington to resist Moscow's demands more strongly, writes The New York Times.

Sources claim that one of the Ukrainian negotiators, with the help of AI, created a "Donnyland" anthem and a flag — green and gold. It's unclear whether the American side saw them.

"This is a nickname formed from the words 'Donbass' and 'Donald', four people familiar with the negotiations process told. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the secrecy of the process. For Ukraine, these efforts did not yield results," the publication notes.

Source: Zvezda
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Ukrainian media:

The port infrastructure of Odessa was attacked by drones at night, reported Deputy Prime Minister Kuleba.

There were fires. Docks, storage facilities, railway infrastructure, and port operator facilities were damaged.

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The US Navy seized the sanctioned tanker Tifani in the Indian Ocean in open waters between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, suspected of smuggling Iranian oil, reports The Washington Post, citing sources.

They also escorted at least one other vessel off the west coast of India.

General Dan Kaine suggested that this is just the beginning of a series of operations in the Indo-Pacific region against any vessels flying the Iranian flag or attempting to provide material support to Iran.
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One day, Trump will actually pass away (probably due to obesity complications). That funeral will be like a festival.

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Negotiations with Iran are underway.

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I can't believe this is still a thing...

For the record, 90% of Russian households have indoor toilets. Russia's population is 75% urban and 25% rural. 35 to 50% of rural homes do not have a toilet in the main living area, but in a separate building. This toilet is almost always a functionally modern toilet, but it is connected to a septic tank or cesspool due to the fact that municipal plumbing is difficult in very cold areas that deal with permafrost and freezing pipes. My brother and his wife live in Alaska and clear 200k per year in income, and they have a septic tank and use well water.

But nafos and western propagandists take the rural percentage, apply it to the whole country, and depict the statistic as meaning that half of the population is literally pooping in holes, because they are so poor and backward.

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Reuters confirms that the sanctions against Russia approved by EU ambassadors have removed a complete ban on maritime transport of Russian oil, which was one of the key restrictions in this proposal.

According to sources, the ambassadors agreed to the ban "in principle", but postponed any decision until further coordination with the G7 countries. In the event of a ban, this could mean the end of the G7 "price cap."

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For the first time, Germany has adopted a military strategy. Russia is named as the main threat in it, and a course towards creating the strongest army in Europe has been announced, DW reports.

The German military strategy and plan for the development of the armed forces were presented by Defense Minister Pistorius. The details are classified, but Pistorius spoke about the threat from Russia under Putin's leadership.

"Russia, through rearmament, is preparing for a military confrontation with NATO and views the use of military force as a legitimate tool for advancing its interests," said the German minister.

According to the presented concept, at least 460,000 German soldiers, together with their allies, should be able to resist a possible attack from Russia.

The document states that Moscow "is creating the prerequisites for a military attack on NATO countries" and is already conducting hybrid operations against them, including against Germany. Russia perceives the West as fundamentally hostile, seeks to undermine the unity of the alliance, separate the US from Europe, collapse NATO, and expand its sphere of influence.

"We are transforming the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional army in Europe. In the short term, we are enhancing our defense capability, in the medium term - striving for a significant increase in capacity, and in the long term - ensuring technological superiority," said Pistorius.

It should be noted that the Ukrainian army currently has twice as many soldiers as the planned German one.

Also, Zelensky has repeatedly proposed to Europe to use the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a base for European defense.

However, judging by the German strategy, Berlin sees not the Ukrainian, but its own army as key in the EU.
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So Germany, a country whose economy is stagnant where factories are shutting down left snd right, is going to rearm for an imaginary war with Russia. The polling suggests that the German citizenry is mostly opposed to this, and once cuts to social services kick in (Germans are very used to the government providing a generous safety net) this will only accelerate. AfD will most likely see their support grow.

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An amazing report by German researchers from RfBerlin on migration to Europe.

📈 The graph shows the number of immigrants in the EU (excluding Portugal for some reason). The most important events are clearly highlighted by the authors: the Syrian crisis and the war in Ukraine. The events in Libya (2011) were ignored, but a certain increase in the migration flow began even then.

Share of migrants by country:
🇩🇪 Germany — 21.2%
🇪🇸 Spain — 19.3%
🇪🇺 Europe on average — 14.2%
🇫🇷 France — 14%
🇮🇹 Italy — 11.8%

(for comparison, in Russia there are 3.9% non-citizens)

There are two key points:
1. Europe accepts those who don't really want to work.
2. Many migrants are given refugee status and are supported (=a burden on the budget and their own citizens), whereas in Russia, the bulk of migrants come to work.

The European social security system is facing a colossal "success" due to an aging native population, arriving foreigners, and rising prices amid closing factories. Somewhere in the middle of the process, they might decide to cut off support for those they let in, but I doubt they'll like that...

Source: ПЯТНИЦА Z
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More than ten countries have asked Washington to extend the temporary permission to purchase Russian oil, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the Senate.

"I was approached by representatives of more than 10 of the most vulnerable and poor countries in terms of energy, and they asked us to extend the decision to lift sanctions, and this is just for 30 days," he said.

According to Bessent, the requests came from finance ministers during the IMF and World Bank meetings held last week.

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You will be able to find the following East Calling exclusives with these hashtags:

#TheWiners

-for all of the content related to "The Winers" featuring Ryan

#VneshVrag

-for Mikhail Borkunov's posts (also his colleagues' works)

#EastCallingTranslations

-for Russian videos which Jelena translates herself.

#MaratBattlefieldSummaries

-for the reports from Marat Khairullin

#EastCallingInterviews

-for our exclusive interviews with our special and often recurring guests.

#MomentofZin

-if you like to laugh



We may add more later!

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- Master Frodo is it Mordor?
- Worse.. It's Lithuania

Source: Лорд Дюшес
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Russia wants to stop oil supplies from Kazakhstan to Germany via the "Druzhba" pipeline on May 1 this year, Reuters reports, citing three industry sources. Last year, about 43,000 barrels of oil per day were supplied from Kazakhstan to Germany via the "Druzhba" pipeline.

If the Russian authorities decide to take this step, the pipeline, which was started to build in the 1960s to supply oil to the COMECON countries, will be shut down. At a minimum, its northern branch, which has been supplying the refinery in Schwedt (of which Rosneft was a shareholder) for decades, will cease to function.

From a political point of view, this step has long been overdue; it should have been taken immediately after the nationalization of Rosneft's assets in Germany in September 2022. However, at that time, economic factors prevailed, and the Russian side decided to "let the matter slide" regarding the nationalization of the refinery in Germany.

Moreover, to maintain supplies to the refinery, the "Kazakhstan scheme" was devised to replace invoices for Urals crude oil: the oil itself remained the same, but legally it changed its country of origin. This scheme allowed both Russian and European companies, which regularly paid for the supplies, to circumvent European and American sanctions.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold", and the timing is extremely well chosen: the world is plunging into an oil crisis, for which Europe is completely unprepared. All European countries (members of the OECD, where about 450 million people live) have only 179 million barrels of oil in strategic reserves (SPR). This is even less than in Japan alone (121 million people and 263 million barrels).

The microscopic SPR reserves in Europe are a consequence of the many years of reliable Russian oil supplies to the region. "All was quiet" for decades, and no one in their right mind believed that the energy flow from Russia would ever really disappear.

The Schwedt refinery, with a capacity of 11.6 million barrels per day, was not the most profitable enterprise in Germany anyway: economies of scale did not allow it to compete with the latest mega-refineries in China, the USA, and India. Nevertheless, its importance is strategic: it supplies fuel to Berlin, Eastern Germany, and Western Poland. With the shutdown of the "Druzhba" pipeline, the refinery's utilization will decrease, and there may be fuel shortages in the region, particularly of kerosene and diesel.

Source: Графономика
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Actually, it's a logic move, if so. They produce drones for Ukraine and in general, plan to make war against Russia. Why would Russia allow infrastructure with their participation to supply oil to the potential adversary?

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Novak: Kazakhstan's oil will be redirected from "Druzhba" to other routes from May 1

The volumes of Kazakhstan's oil, which previously went to Germany via the "Druzhba" pipeline, will be directed to other logistical routes from May 1, 2026. This was announced by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak to journalists.

“Indeed, from May 1, the volume of Kazakhstan's oil supplies, which previously went to Germany via 'Druzhba', will be redirected to other logistical routes, to free ones. This is due to the technical capabilities we have today,” he said.

The deputy prime minister noted that the issues of redirecting flows are being handled by the Russian Energy Ministry and Transneft.

Earlier, Kazakh Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhev told journalists that the republic had received unofficial information about the impossibility of transporting fuel via the "Druzhba" pipeline in May. According to him, this is most likely due to recent strikes on Russian infrastructure.

Alexander Novak also expressed his opinion on the potential of the pipeline system itself.

“In our opinion, this infrastructure is the most efficient for supplying energy resources to Europe. And, of course, with normal relations, it should be used to the fullest. And this is beneficial for both suppliers and consumers,” the deputy prime minister said.

However, he noted that at the moment, "Druzhba" is not fully loaded due to the decisions of European consumers.

“But, unfortunately, not through our fault - European countries have refused Russian oil. 'Druzhba' is not working at full capacity. In particular, this is Germany, Poland has refused, a number of other countries,” Novak explained.

He added that oil supplies via pipelines are more economically advantageous than by sea.

“This is an important direction. It's not for nothing that it was built, because it's an effective opportunity to supply energy resources by pipeline, rather than by more expensive sea transport,” the deputy prime minister emphasized.

The national operator of Kazakhstan, KazTransOil, ensures the transit of oil through the territory of Russia via the pipeline system of PJSC Transneft. Then the raw material is pumped through the territory of Belarus via the "Gomeltransneft Druzhba" system to the "Adamova Zastava" delivery point for further delivery to a refinery in Germany.

The transit is carried out within the framework of the intergovernmental agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia of June 7, 2002. In 2025, Kazakhstan supplied 2.1 million tons of oil to Germany via "Druzhba", and in 2026, the authorities of the republic planned to increase the supply volumes to 2.5 million tons, and then to 3 million tons.

Source: ИнфоТЭК
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