🇷🇺🇺🇦 The Ukrainian Armed Forces stopped the construction of defense structures near Avdeevka

The Japan Times writes about this with reference to the Ukrainian military. According to them, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received a strange order.

“We were told not to take shovels, but to stay and wait for orders. The Russians are advancing and moving forward,” one of the militants said.

🇨🇳 The third Chinese aircraft carrier, and first supercarrier equipped with catapults, Fujian, is leaving Shanghai for her first sea trial

🇫🇷 “77% of rapes in Paris are committed by migrants”: The French fear for the safety of women during the Olympic Games because the majority of rapes are committed by migrants in tourist areas.

“New crime data in Paris calls into question the authorities' ability to keep women safe during the Summer Olympics. 77% of rape cases in the capital solved in 2023 were committed by offenders who do not hold French passports, with most sex crimes occurring in and around tourist areas such as the Champs de Mars, which will soon be filled with game-goers.

Besides the fact that the vast majority of the criminals were not French, most were drug addicts, homeless and unemployed.
Grégory Jauron, general secretary of the French police union, lamented the report's findings: “That's still one rape every three days in Paris. This really raises questions. Since the indicator has been stable since 2018, then in general we see that this is a phenomenon that we cannot extinguish"

🇺🇲 Trump maintains his lead over Biden in the election race, according to CNN's own poll data.

According to the results, 49% of registered voters support Trump, unchanged from the January poll. Biden's support dropped from 45% to 43%.

More than half of Americans (55%) consider Trump's presidency a success, while 44% consider it a failure.

🇨🇳🇪🇺 Xi Jinping intends to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States, writes Bloomberg.

The agency writes that the President of the People's Republic of China is going to the EU for the first time in five years with a clear message: Beijing offers Europe much more economic opportunities than the United States.

The Chinese leader will begin his five-day trip to France, Serbia and Hungary on May 5, the Foreign Ministry said in Beijing.

“These countries are seeking investment from China despite multiple EU investigations into industrial imports from China and warnings from officials in Washington about the risks of cooperation with Beijing,” the publication said.

Bloomberg writes that Xi Jinping's trip will take place against the backdrop of the EU gradually moving closer to Washington on countering cheap imports from China.

“I think Xi Jinping's trip is an attempt to convince Europeans that there are better options and that better relations are possible,” Duncan Freeman, a lecturer in China-European relations at the Brussels School of Management in Belgium, said before Xi's trip.

🇺🇲🇮🇱 The Biden administration is directly demanding that Israel not conduct a military operation in Rafah.

The famous American journalist, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman, who is considered “Biden’s mouthpiece,” writes about this in an article for The New York Times, citing sources.

The White House talks about this publicly, but in private the Americans’ statements are even more straightforward. They tell Israel: "no massive invasion of Rafah, period."

“We are not telling Israel to just leave Hamas alone. We are saying that we believe there is a more targeted way to go after the leadership without destroying Rafah block by block,” a senior US official told the publication.

Biden wants to prevent another wave of mass civilian casualties.

The US is proposing that Israel instead create a defensive coalition against Iran with Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. This will require Israel to end the war, which has dragged on for six months, and agree to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The day before, the Israeli media also wrote that pressure on Israel to prevent the operation in Rafah was increasing.

🇺🇲TikTok Ban Will Lead Biden to Electoral Disaster - Bloomberg

The bill signed by the US President to ban the application in the country if the Chinese company does not sell its share will scare away young voters from Biden and lure them to Trump’s side, the publication writes.

TikTok said the bill to ban the app violates the free speech rights of 170 million American users.

They also emphasized that the application does not collect user data for subsequent transfer to the Chinese authorities, as US representatives have repeatedly stated.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Arrival of a trio of ODAB-500s from the UMPC at Ukrainian positions near Urozhainy.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 It is reported that the Russian flag was raised in the northern part of Rabotino. Rabotino routinely comes under the control of Russian troops. We are waiting for official confirmation.

🇾🇪🇺🇲 The Houthis attacked 2 American destroyers, as well as a container ship and a bulk carrier with missiles and drones at night. According to preliminary information, at least one merchant ship was damaged.

🇺🇸🇷🇺Tucker Carlson interviewed the famous Russian philosopher Alexander Gelevich Dugin, showing the American conservative public a relatively close ideological person and revealing his rejection of liberal globalism.

Among other things, this is an unambiguous media success for Russia, while at the same time Ukraine, for example, was poked where it hurts, remembering Daria Alexandrovna Dugina, who was killed by the Ukrainian special services

🇮🇱🇵🇸 The Israel Defense Forces continues to build up its ground forces in the Rafah area ahead of a ground operation on the border with Egypt.

🇸🇰🇨🇿🇺🇦 “It’s like farting on a tree”: this is how Robert Fico assessed the collection of 4 million euros by the Slovaks for the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine.

This was reported by Noviny Plus.

The Slovak Prime Minister said the money still “won’t change the situation” and used a Czech comparison, which means “farting on a tree.”

He also added that the funds allocated by the US and EU for military support to Ukraine will also “not change anything.”

“In a year or two it will be the same - all the money will be spent, perhaps something will be stolen, but nothing will change in Ukraine, and we will be where we are. This is my position. Therefore, I will still give preference to a peaceful solution, a ceasefire at any cost,” Fico said.