The Royal Guards and other military units (about 5 thousand people in total) arrived by train in London this morning to attend the Coronation of King Charles III. They marched from Waterloo Station and crossed Westminster Bridge. In total, together with the police, 9,000 security officials will participate in the solemn ceremony and ensure order.

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Americans discuss how to protect democracy in Taiwan.

US House of Representatives Seth Moulton:

“We have to make it clear to the Chinese that if they invade Taiwan, we will blow up the chip manufacturer TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductors).”

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Michel Flournoy:

- Hahaha. No no no. If you do that it will cause two trillion dollars in damage to the global economy.

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What the Ukrainian military wanted to do will remain a mystery as "Lancet" was on it's way to 🔥

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PMC "Wagner" will receive the necessary shells, said Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“The bottom line is the following — they promise to give us as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue further actions, they swear to us that everything will be put up on the flank so that the enemy does not cut us off. We are told that we can act in Artemovsk as we see fit, and they give us Surovikin as a person who will make all decisions in the framework of the military operations of the Wagner PMC in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense,” Prigozhin said.
Translated from Donetsk stringer
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Senior Ukrainian officials fear counterattack may not live up to hype

The Washington Post
“The expectation from our counteroffensive campaign is overestimated in the world,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview this past week. “Most people are waiting for something huge,” he added, which he fears may lead to “emotional disappointment.”

The planned counterattack — made possible by donated Western weapons and training — could mark the most consequential phase of the war, as Ukraine seeks to snatch back significant territory and prove it is worthy of continued support.

Offensive military operations typically require overwhelming advantage, and with Russian forces dug into heavily fortified defenses all across the 900-mile-long front, it is hard to gauge how far Ukraine will get.

The buildup ahead of the assault — the details of which remain secret — has left Ukrainian officials grappling with a difficult question: What outcome will be enough to impress the West, especially Washington?

Some fear that if the Ukrainians fall short, Kyiv may lose international military assistance or face new pressure to engage with Moscow at a negotiating table — not on the battlefield. Such talks would almost certainly involve Russian demands for a negotiated surrender of sovereign territory, which Ukraine has called unacceptable.

“I believe that the more victories we have on the battlefield, frankly, the more people will believe in us, which means we will get more help,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview Monday with The Washington Post in his heavily fortified headquarters building.

#TransFormatorBuzzes : 💤
So, it has not started yet, but Kiev is already trying to downplay the results of the counteroffensive. Basically, its main significance is in a media picture to beg for more help. People dying on the battlefield do not count.
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Read the full version here

Russia for the first time since 2014 returned to the top ten largest economies in the world

MOSCOW, May 7 — RIA Novosti. For the first time since 2014, Russia returned to the top ten largest economies in the world, according to RIA Novosti calculations based on data from the World Bank and national statistical services.
At the end of 2022, Russia produced goods and services worth 2.3 trillion dollars, which allowed it to take eighth place in this indicator. The last time the country was in the top ten in 2014 was ninth with a GDP of $2.05 trillion. In 2021, she was ranked 11th.

The United States remained the world's largest economy last year with a nominal GDP of $25.46 trillion. In second place is China (17.94 trillion), and Japan traditionally closed the top three (4.17 trillion).
Germany remained fourth (4.07 trillion), while India occupied the fifth line (3.4 trillion). Britain retained sixth place (3.07 trillion), France remained seventh (2.78 trillion).
Canada was ninth ($2.14 trillion), while Italy ($2.01 trillion) dropped from eighth to tenth in a year. At the same time, South Korea fell out of the top ten, which lost three positions at once and became 13th.
The ranking of countries by GDP was calculated on the basis of the latest annual or quarterly data provided by national statistical offices in national currencies and, if necessary, recalculated in dollar terms at the average exchange rate for the corresponding period. For 2021, World Bank data was used.

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