Trump's state of the union address appears to be wrapping up. If you blinked, you missed the short mention of the war in Ukraine.

He primarily spoke about domestic politics, immigration, and about the raid to capture Maduro toward the end. There was a short statement about Iran, calling for them to forever abandon the possibility of obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This was basically just an opportunity for Trump to take a victory lap on his most popular issues while scolding the Democrats for everything that ever went wrong. The speech was carefully crafted to avoid his unpopular issues and to shift the heat onto Democrats.

Honestly, I think the look of weakness and defeat on the Democrats' faces was probably a win for Trump after a difficult month of policy failures.

🌒@EastCalling

Missile strikes on targets in Kyiv, as captured from space, and the operation of the Ukrainian air defense system on the night of December 26 to 27, 2025.

From around 00:03, flashes can be seen on the outskirts of Kyiv, and from 00:06, the trajectories of flying ballistic missiles can be observed.

Source

🌒@EastCalling

Shot and left lying on the ground — TCC officers killed a resident of Krivoy Rog in attempts to mobilize him, Ukrainian blogs report.

Two people got into a fight with the military recruitment officers, then a shot rang out. One of the resisters fell motionless. Afterwards, TCC officers dealt with the woman who was screaming nearby — they grabbed and dragged her away from the wounded man.

Local media report that the father of the victim was injured, and the military recruitment officer also received a stab wound.

Source: Zvezda
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🌒@EastCalling

❗️Kiev received a warning from the USA about the inadmissibility of strikes on Russian energy infrastructure facilities, which could affect American interests.

Washington was dissatisfied with the strikes on the facilities of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which is partially owned by American companies Chevron and ExxonMobil.

Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, Olga Stefanishina, stated that she received a demarche from the State Department following the attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on an oil facility in the Black Sea at the end of last year. The head of the diplomatic mission disclosed this at a briefing, according to CNN.

We heard that the Ukrainian attacks on Novorossiysk affected some American investments that are carried out through Kazakhstan. And we heard from the State Department that we should refrain from, well, you know, from attacking American interests, she said.

Stefanishina added that Kyiv "considers this". According to her, the State Department's note noted that the US currently does not have such economic interests in Ukraine as in Kazakhstan.

Source: Военный обозреватель/ РБК
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😏

🌒@EastCalling

An F-16 crashed onto a highway in Turkey, and the pilot was killed:

"Contact with the Turkish Air Force F-16, which took off from the 9th main airbase in Balıkesir, was lost immediately after takeoff. The fighter crashed onto the busy Izmir-Istanbul highway. The aircraft was on a scheduled training flight and crashed due to technical problems."

Source: ПУЛ #3
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🌒@EastCalling

Ukrainian non-governmental organizations fear that the referendum on territorial concessions may not go according to Kyiv's plan. This is reported by the newspaper Junge Welt.

About 50 NGOs have called on Zelensky not to allow the holding of a referendum on territorial concessions, the publication notes.

Source: TASS
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🌒@EastCalling

The first guided munition with a flight range of over 100 km has been created in Russia, TASS was informed by the "Kalashnikov" concern.

The "Kub-10ME" is designed for high-precision destruction of unarmored and lightly armored military equipment, command posts, air defense facilities, and other targets.

Photo: Telegram channel of the "Kalashnikov" concern

Source: TASS
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🌒@EastCalling

London and Paris are manipulating the issue of nuclear weapons and flirting with it with the Kiev regime, Maria Zakharova stated on Sputnik radio.

However, she noted that in the global information trends, another "major news story has captured the planet in the last week" — the situation with the baby monkey in Japan.

Source: TASS
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Never heard of baby monkey, tbh.. anyone here did?
As to monkeys of larger size in Europe - we have a good term do describe them "Monkey with a grenade".

🌒@EastCalling

Only JD Vance and the head of the US National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are convincing Trump not to help Zelensky and not to attack Iran. This opinion was expressed in an interview with TASS by American analyst Andrew Napolitano.

Source: TASS
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🌒@EastCalling

❗️The FSB reported on the prevention of a terrorist attack at a military airfield in Krasnodar Krai: 
The detainee, acting on the orders of Ukrainian special services, planned to set fire to an aircraft. 

Source: РБК
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🌒@EastCalling

😳 Bill Gates admitted to cheating on his wife with two Russians. He clarified that they were not on Epstein's list of victims, so the Microsoft founder "did nothing illegal".

The Wall Street Journal cites a recording of Gates' conversation with the company's co-founders.

According to the newspaper, at the time of his communication with Epstein, the married billionaire was having two affairs - with a bridge player and a Russian scientist. At the same time, Gates claims that he did not visit the financier's island.

"I did indeed have affairs: one with a Russian bridge player, whom I met at bridge competitions, and the other with a Russian nuclear physicist, whom I met through business. I did nothing illegal. I never spent time with the victims, the women around Epstein," he said.

Gates called his communication with the financier a "huge mistake" and apologized to his foundation's employees for his ties with Epstein.

📍In the previously published files, it was stated thatBill Gates tried to hide his venereal disease from his wife after having an affair with "Russian girls" and asked Epstein for antibiotics for her. At that time, Gates called this information "absurd".

Source: Zvezda
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Looks like Epsteins case has pushed Overton's window even further.

🌒@EastCalling

Geran Chronicles:

The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine continues to churn out maudlin video clips 🍿
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What happened to "all missiles and drones neutralized?

🌒@EastCalling

Via Geran Chronicles:

Ukrainian soldiers sometimes have to cut off parts of their comrades' bodies on the battlefield so that their families can bury them and receive compensation for their deaths, and the deceased fighters do not remain on the lists of missing persons, - Daily Mail

"We suffered terrible losses and we couldn't always retrieve the bodies of the fallen during the retreat. Once, we were ordered to cut off the leg and arm of a relative of the brigade commander. This had to be done to prove that he was dead (and not 'missing in action') and his family could receive compensation. I see such things every night in my dreams," said a recently demobilized Ukrainian soldier due to health reasons.

Another soldier beheaded a dead comrade whose body was stuck in the debris under fire, so that his friend's mother could understand that her son was "really dead" and bury him - a part of him - according to Christian rites.

🌒@EastCalling

The member countries of the "coalition of the willing" secretly admit that plans to send troops to Ukraine will require the consent of Russia, reports The Daily Telegraph, citing sources.

Source: TASS
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🌒@EastCalling

The Trump “Route” or “Rut”?

Washington is primarily driven by the goal to gain control over Transcaucasian transport routes squeezing out Russia and China with its "One Belt, One Road" initiative.

Trump also expects the transit corridor to ensure efficient transportation of critical raw materials from Central Asia and the South Caucasus: uranium, copper, molybdenum, aluminum, antimony, silver, gold and rare earth metals. Considering the intensifying competition for supply chains with China, the Trump Route is supposed to play an important role in diversifying supplies.

Finally, TRIPP is regarded as an anti-Iranian project. Having leased part of Armenia's Syunik region for the development of the transit corridor, Washington has gained access to the Armenian-Iranian border. Iran views the initiative as a "geopolitical stranglehold" on Tehran and is determined to block the project with or without Russia's participation.

For decades Azerbaijan has relied on the Aras Corridor transiting northern Iran to reach Nakhichevan. The route enabled Tehran to generate considerable transit revenue and, considering the occasionally tense relations between Tehran and Baku due to the latter's ties with Israel, the route used to serve as an important lever in negotiations with Azerbaijan. However, weakened by the war with Israel and internal turmoil, Tehran is now hardly capable of resisting the implementation of the project.

According to Deputy Minister of the RF MOFA Mikhail Galuzin, Russia has "reserved" its position on the TRIPP initiative for a number of considerations, such as the use of the Russian railway gauge in the region; the deployment of Russian border guards on the Iranian-Armenian border; Armenia's membership in the EAEU which may be terminated in case customs control under the TRIPP project is exercised by the US; finally, the fact that until 2038, Armenia's railway network will remain under the control of the South Caucasus Railway (the Russian Railways' subsidiary).

However, American TRIPP initiators are unwilling to let the RF, Armenia's ally, participate in the ambitious project. PM Nikol Pashinyan suggested that Russia "voluntarily" hand over the concession of the Armenian railways to a third party, such as Kazakhstan, for example.

That doesn't sound like an on-the-spot decision, given that last September the US and Kazakhstan signed a $4.2 billion deal providing for Wabtec to supply 300 heavy-haul locomotives. At a summit with Central Asian states (C5+1) held in Washington two months later, Trump signed a number of other agreements including those on the extraction of rare earth minerals (REMs) worth more than $17 billion. It's envisaged that these REMs are going to be exported from Central Asia via the aforementioned Trump Route transiting Armenia.

What follows is that US rivals, Russia and China, should have no influence on the export of strategic resources. Therefore, Washington is using Armenia not only to prevent Russia's participation in the TRIPP railway segment, but also to end its concession agreement that has been ensuring Armenia's security since 2008.

Alen Simonyan was more direct about the issue. During his visit to Moscow he stated that Russia's participation in the TRIPP project was unacceptable as letting the RF in "would mean doing everything to prevent TRIPP from working." Put simply, the American reasoning rests on the assumption that in order to ensure the feasibility of the project, it'll be necessary to eliminate Russia's presence. Yet, rephrasing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's famous quote, a world without Russia would be no world.

A.V. Ananyev, former Senior Counsellor at the RF MOFA, #VneshVrag

🌒@EastCalling

- Ben, this is Valera, I need help!..
This is not a caricatural Ukrainian, but the Ukrainian ambassador to Britain

Source: ВО///ДЬ
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Klitchko's best student, no less.

🌒@EastCalling

Berbok mistakenly stated that Greenland is part of the European Union.

On ARD TV, she said that if Americans hadn't been told that "Greenland is also an EU territory", many in the US wouldn't have known this. The host corrected her, noting that Greenland is not an EU territory.

Source: TASS
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🌒@EastCalling

An ultimatum from the US to Kyiv would have ended the war in a day, told TASS the leader of the British Workers' Party, George Galloway:

"For this, he would only have to say to Zelensky: 'There's a plane at the airport, its engines are already running, the cargo hold is filled with all the money you've stolen. You can get on this plane and go to a very pleasant exile in Miami <...> But if you don't get on the plane <...> you'll end up - as Medvedev recently warned

Source: TASS
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The thing is, that neither the US, neither EU wants this conflict to end on Russian terms.

🌒@EastCalling