🇷🇺🇺🇦 Scouts of the Southern Military District during the battle for Marinka

🇷🇺❗️In proportion to external threats, the strength of the Russian Armed Forces will be increased to 1,500,000 military personnel - Shoigu

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Satellite image of the Avdveeka coking plant, from where the Russian Army is knocking out the Khokhols

🇮🇱🇱🇧 The sides continue to exchange blows on the border between Lebanon and Israel. These images show IDF aircraft and artillery hitting Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. This includes the destruction of a Hezbollah missile launcher.

🇺🇲🇮🇱 Biden is urging Israel to reduce the intensity of hostilities in the Gaza Strip "in about three weeks" - that is, in mid-January.

This was reported by The New York Times, citing sources.

Although officially the United States continues to say that only Israel chooses the timing and format of its military operation, privately American officials are putting pressure on the Israelis to reduce the number of attacks on the enclave.

Washington believes that "Israel will be less secure if its military operations convert more Palestinians into supporters of Hamas."

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin came to Israel the day before with the same message.

Instead of a "high-intensity" phase of the war, Israel is encouraged to carry out more focused, intelligence-based missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, destroy tunnels and other militant infrastructure and rescue hostages.

Let us recall that earlier the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France demanded that Israel cease fire in the Gaza Strip due to growing casualties and the humanitarian crisis.

🇺🇦 Vladimir Zelensky at a press conference in Kiev said that the military informed him of the need for additional mobilization of another 450-500 thousand people in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and asked for almost 13.5 billion dollars for these activities.

🚢 🌍 🛢 "The Red Sea Crisis is coming at a really nice time given the breakdown of relations between Russia and Europe. Petroleum flows through the Suez Canal are more than twice what they were before the Russo-Ukrainian war began."

📎 Big Serge

🌐🚢 $35 billion. BILLION. In a few days. When you look at trade statistics sometimes you forget that there are physical ships moving the physical goods. Inflation is coming back folks.

📎 Philip Pilkington

🚢 🇮🇱 🇾🇪 "Israel's Eliat Port, due to the attacks has suffered an 80% drop in revenue after the Houthi blockade. Looks like the Houthis are getting what they wanted..."

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231219-israel-revenue-from-eilat-port-drops-by-80-due-to-houthi-red-sea-attacks/

📎 AyazK

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Ukrainian sources suggesting that the AFU needs 20,000 replacements per month to keep their existing formations combat task capable. Insanity.

📎 Big Serge

🇷🇺🇺🇦 20,000 irrecoverable losses per month...

If we assume that they're averaging this year's rate, and assume that Mediazona catches 1/4-1/5 of Russia's irrecoverable casualties, then we're easily looking at an irrecoverable casualty ratio of 1.5-2:1 in Russia's favor in 2023.

📎 TNG5

🇺🇦🇺🇸 Former commander of US forces Europe Ben Hodges says Ukraine needs to start drafting women and rounding up every Ukrainian refugee who fled the country
(see the "path to 2025" section). "If the Germans could do it in '44, so can Ukraine". Psychopathic and delusional.

When the foreigners directing your war start blithely talking about how you can clear a minefield with enough 18 year old girls it's time to start planning your coup.

📎 The American Sun

🇺🇸🪖 ⚡️🇺🇸 The United States increasingly seems to be sleep walking into a crisis the likes of which it has not seen since the late 1850s…

🇺🇸🗳️ U.S. States with pending Trump ballot removal cases. 2024 is going to be pure chaos.

⚓️ 🇺🇸 🇾🇪 The Washington Examiner reports that the United States and the United Kingdom have moved sensitive air and naval assets near Yemen. These movements indicate preparation for possible strikes against Houthi forces in that country.

🔶️ The Washington Examiner is not disclosing the identity of the military forces now positioned closer to Yemen, but they include both strike and supporting platforms the deployment of which has not publicly been disclosed

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/new-force-movements-suggest-us-and-uk-strikes-against-houthis-increasingly-likely

📎 Faytuks

🇾🇪🇺🇸🇬🇧 “What’s the worst that could happen?”

🏳️‍🌈🇷🇺❗️US officials propose that the G7 consider the option of transferring blocked Russian assets to Kyiv in tranches through the World Bank or the EBRD - media

🇷🇺 The Kingisepp Machine-Building Plant is building for the Russian Defense Ministry a small series of unmanned combat carrier boats "Dandelion" of 10 units for testing in combat conditions.

As stated, the drone will be able to reach speeds of up to 80 km/h, cover up to 200 km and carry up to 600 kg of payload.