🇦🇱👶 Albanian births in the first quarter are down by an incredible ~15%. Albania saw only 5,164 births in Q1 of 2023 compared with 6,056 recorded during the first quarter of last year. Likely approaching Italian level TFR.

⚫️ Even when taking Albania’s high emigration rate into consideration TFR was 1.4 last year and will likely be sub 1.3 this year. @BirthGauge makes these adjustments and estimated 2022 Albanian TFR at 1.4 rather than the official sub 1.3 for that year.

⚫️ So any way you slice it Albanian TFR is in really bad shape. The country’s population is likely to go below 2M before 2050 and Albanian politicians are largely ignoring this demographic crisis.

- Aaronal16

🇷🇸🇦🇱 Serbia has played the long game and won, with most recent data suggesting their TFR is around 1.7 per woman as compared to Albanian fertility crashing to lowest low levels.

With Albania and Kosovo seeing low fertility and mass emigration, restoring control over Kosovo will come naturally soon enough.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 American news outlet 19FortyFive: The Ukraine War Is Now Going Russia’s Way

▪️ Based on a likely fire superiority of 10-to-1 on the Russian side, Ukraine no doubt suffered considerably more casualties in those fights than the Russians. But even if the cost were equal, Russia has millions more men from whom to draw more fighters and a major domestic industrial capacity to produce all the ammunition they may require.

▪️ Even bigger than the dearth of ammunition and equipment for Ukraine, however, is the number of trained and experienced personnel they’ve lost. Many of those skilled troops and leaders simply cannot be replaced in the span of mere months.

“I assess there is currently no likely path for Ukraine to achieve a military victory. Continuing to fight in that hope may perversely result in them losing even more territory.”

- Link to archived article

🇺🇸🏦 The 3-Month Treasury Bill yield has moved up to 5.40%, its highest level since January 2001. A year ago it was at 1.03% and two years ago it was at 0.01%.

- Charlie Bilello

🇺🇸🏦 U.S. Debt Crisis

“The government has always raised the debt ceiling in the past - and likely will again. What matters here is the amount of time it takes to do so. The longer the resolution to raise the debt ceiling is pushed back, the higher Treasury rates will jump. But why does this matter to you? Well, it all boils down to confidence—investors' confidence in the United States' ability to honor its debt obligations.

If that confidence wavers, debtholders will demand higher rates to compensate for the perceived risk. And guess what? Those rising Treasury rates have a direct impact on mortgage rates, pushing the dream of affordable housing further out of reach.”

- Genco Substack

🇷🇺🇺🇦 The defeat of the Ukrainian 155-mm howitzer M777 with the help of the Lancet kamikaze drone

🇺🇲 Biden and Congress reached an agreement to raise the US national debt ceiling for two years.

This was announced by the representative of the Republican majority in Congress Kevin McCarthy.

That is, the default in America is postponed.

🇺🇦 “I would like to talk with you in about 6 months. I’ll go to Yalta (Crimea) … turn on my phone there and we will talk about the free Crimea.” — Podolyak on 27th November 2022, exactly 6 months ago.

What happened khokhols? 🤡

🇮🇷🏳️ In the Russian-speaking tg-segment, the news that "the Taliban has declared war on Iran" has gone massively. In reality, no one declared war on anyone.

What is actually happening:

1) Border clashes took place;
2) There is at least one dead on both sides;
3) A number of Taliban commanders have threatened Tehran with various punishments if it "continues to test the patience of Afghanistan."

Against this background, a lot of fakes have already been thrown in. In particular, footage from last year's military exercises in the Kandahar region is being passed off as the transfer of armored vehicles to the Iranian border.

The situation in this region is, without a doubt, extremely complex and explosive, and a full-scale conflict would indeed be beneficial for the States. It is all the more important to filter information, and not to disperse outright fakes in pursuit of hype.

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡Night UAV attack in Zhytomyr hit an infrastructure facility: after powerful explosions, a strong fire broke out
▪️The city authorities report the damage to the object.
▪️The stories of residents about a powerful fire may indicate that a fuel infrastructure facility was hit.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Footage of infrastructure facilities hit this morning in Zhytomyr appears on the network .

After arrival, as can be seen, the secondary detonation begins. According to one version, a warehouse with depleted uranium ammunition was hit.

🇺🇲❗️Speaker of the US House of Representatives McCarthy said that on May 28 he would finally agree with Biden on all the details of the agreement to raise the national debt ceiling

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Vibration and tremors that residents of Kiev felt last night after Russian missile strike

What was hit is still unknown

🇹🇷Erdogan is gaining 53.4% of the vote in the second round of presidential elections after processing 82% of the ballots, - Yeni Şafak newspaper.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is behind Erdoğan with 46.6%.

🇹🇷⚡️Erdogan is gaining more than 54% of the vote in the elections in the second round, according to the preliminary results of the Turkish Central Election Commission.

🇹🇷⚡Recep Tayyip Erdogan retains the presidential post following the results of the second round of voting.

🇶🇦🇭🇺🇹🇷 Emir of Qatar and Prime Minister of Hungary have already congratulated Erdogan on his victory

🇹🇷 Erdogan's supporters take to the streets.

🇹🇷⚡️Erdogan declares himself the winner of the Turkish elections