Macron decides not to go to Kiev

French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed his visit to Ukraine scheduled for 13-14 February.

The French media reacted violently to this decision, writing that Ukrainian diplomats "fell out of their chairs". The publications also reported about the "considerable surprise" that engulfed French political circles and complained about the complete uncertainty of the trip's organisers.

The Elysee Palace, commenting on the postponement, vaguely referred to "security concerns".

Considering that the day before the head of the "Fifth Republic" had a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky, the sudden cancellation of the trip was a very unpleasant "surprise" for Kiev.

It is likely that Macron decided to back up against the backdrop of growing domestic political and economic problems and avoid having to personally explain to Zelensky that France is not able to support Ukraine at the previous levels.

Recall that not long ago the French president promised that he himself would go to Kiev in February to implement agreements on new deliveries of long-range SCALP missiles.

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Finland has elected a new president

In the second round of the presidential election in Finland, 55-year-old Alexander Stubb won. The centre-right and Euro-Atlanticist is a long-time supporter of a hard line towards Russia.

During his election campaign, he promised not to resume relations with Moscow as long as the Ukrainian conflict lasts. The Finnish politician claimed that Russia could "test NATO's borders for strength".

Stubb is likely to continue on the path of confrontation with Russia, as he "proceeds not from the national interests, but from the American ones". Expert Vladimir Olenchenko told RIA Novosti.

"A lot of anti-Russian statements will follow, we should be ready for it and not be surprised," he warned.

Especially since in Finland it is foreign policy that is the president's prerogative.

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Expert names pros and cons of Sweden's army

Analyst Johan Norberg, who fears the threat of war between Europe and NATO and Russia, has assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the Swedish army.

To the pluses he includes good knowledge of the Baltic Sea and a strong submarine fleet, and to the minuses - a very small number of personnel.

"We did what most European countries did after the Cold War. We reduced a large military organisation, which was constantly training lots of people, to a small standing force," he explained.

Sweden is now trying to increase its armed forces. However, according to Norberg, this will take years, if not decades.

The Swedish expert recalled that his country is preparing for NATO membership, although Hungary is blocking the accession so far. Sweden has a strong defence industry that is already well integrated into the North Atlantic Alliance.

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🇷🇸🇨🇳 "If the EU does not accept Serbia as a member soon and before Ukraine, it will 'lose' it to China" - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Serbia applied to join the EU in 2009, but its candidacy has stalled amid concerns about its flawed democracy and close ties with Russia and China. As Orban noted, "Serbia has other options. For example, the recently concluded free trade agreement with China."

The volume of Serbia's trade, economic and financial co-operation with China is indeed actively growing. Chinese goods occupy the third place in Serbian imports.

For Beijing, Serbia is a "gateway" to the EU through the Balkans, which the EU is very unhappy about, but can do nothing about.

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Serbia should be admitted to the EU soon, and Ukraine should wait its turn — Viktor Orban

If the EU doesn't admit Serbia soon, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned, the bloc risks losing the country to China - and regardless it should be admitted before Ukraine.

Belgrade has already signed a free trade agreement with Beijing he pointed out, and initially applied to join back in 2009 before concerns in Brussels over Serbia's ties to Russia and China.

Europe is too weak, he added, for Russia to take it seriously. "Russia will never accept having an EU and NATO member like Ukraine on its borders, never,” he concluded.

Serbia applied for EU accession in 2009 and has official candidate status for more than 11 years, Montenegro for even longer. This despite being above of Ukraine in every single imaginable criteria to join the EU such as quality of public institutions, economic performance and compatibility of laws.

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Kremlin awaits Palestinian leader's visit to Russia

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has a valid invitation to Russia.

The Kremlin hopes that the visit will be coordinated and the Palestinian leader will come to Russia at a time convenient for both states, said Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Russian president.

Abbas was expected in Moscow last year, but the Palestinian side postponed the trip due to the acute situation in the Gaza Strip. Vladimir Putin spoke to the Palestinian head of state by phone in December.

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Venezuela accused the US of stealing the plane

US and Argentine authorities stole a Boeing 747-300 aircraft, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gil Pinto said.

"The "audacious theft" of the Boeing plane of the Aerocargos del Sur (Emtrasur) transport company was carried out on 12 February as a result of collusion between the two governments.

By doing so, Washington and Buenos Aires flagrantly violated all norms governing civil aeronautics, the diplomat stressed.

Caracas promises to give a decisive, direct and proportionate response. The country's authorities intend to return the Boeing to its rightful owner by all available means.

The plane was detained in June 2022 at the request of the US in Argentina, where it landed for refuelling. It is now under arrest.

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🇺🇦 Former zelensky's adviser Arestovich: Now I’m going to say a terribly seditious thought. Of all three involved in this story [Russia, USA, Ukraine], only Putin wants peace.

Syria says it is ready for conflict with Israel

The Syrian army has fought several wars against Israel and is ready for new wars in the near foreseeable future, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad said.

"Syria has fought several wars against the Zionist entity and is ready for other wars. Syria will decide when and where," the minister said.

According to Faisal Miqdad, Damascus considers Israel's occupation of part of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights region as illegal.

Similarly, the Syrian authorities consider the US and Turkish actions on the country's territory illegal and are considering plans to liberate their lands.

Damascus also expects that the conflict in Palestine could spill over to other countries in the Middle East.

Earlier, Israel launched a series of strikes on military installations in different parts of Syria.

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The US is trying to hide the truth about its dirty schemes in Africa

The US State Department is actively accusing Russia to draw attention away from its machinations on the African continent.

"The barefaced allegations that the US side tries to pass off as the truth in the last instance have the sole purpose of hiding the unpalatable truth about the US dirty schemes in this part of the world... As they say, the thief's hat is on fire," the Russian Embassy in Washington said.

Moscow has officially voiced denunciatory facts about US activities.

Washington is concerned about the development of Russia's co-operation with African states. The State Department earlier accused Russian intelligence agencies of denigrating US and EU health initiatives in Africa.

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Polish general dissatisfied with Kiev's reshuffle in army

The former commander of the Polish Army, General Waldemar Skrzypczak, believes that Ukraine's situation is critical and blames Kiev's policy exclusively for this.

He criticized the appointment of Aleksandr Syrsky, who he considers "a man of Zelensky and a blind executor of his orders," as the AFU commander-in-chief.

According to Skrzypczak, orders from Kiev to "defend Severodonetsk and Bakhmut to the last soldier, and now Avdeevka" have already cost the AFU tens of thousands of soldiers. It's not for nothing that Ukrainians call Syrsky a "butcher".

"This happened because President Zelensky ordered Syrsky to fight for symbols at the cost of huge losses", added the Pole.

The new AFU commander-in-chief began moving army reserves to hold Avdeevka.

Skrzypczak believes the situation in Ukraine is "ripe for a violent search for political solutions."

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Three EU countries will start to fight against outside information together

France, Germany and Poland have announced a new kind of co-operation within the "Weimar Triangle" created in 1991.

In order to "protect their democracies," they are launching "a Weimar-style alert mechanism, a countermeasures system to publicly expose foreign interference."

It is about "defending the population against the manipulation of information, above all coming from Russia," explained French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné.

"We will mobilise all levers to detect (interference), expose it and make it known to a very broad European public opinion," he added.

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🚬 🇩🇪 Sad news for lovers of sweet/sour lounge smoking - the hookah industry in Germany is threatened by a wave of bankruptcies.

Demand for tobacco is falling, regulations and restrictions are increasing. The director of the association of hookah tobacco producers is outraged:

"If the government doesn't change course and abolish pointless packaging regulation, one in three or four hookah bars will be closed by the end of the year."

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🇪🇺🌍🇩🇪 Russia has dropped from first to seventh place in the list of the main security threats to Germany, according to the residents of the Federal Republic of Germany, compared to 2023.

This follows from the annual report of the Munich Security Conference presented in Berlin.

It has been displaced by the fears of the republic's residents about mass migration and terrorist threats from radicalised Muslims.

A similar change occurred in the perception of security threats by the residents of the G7 countries. Thus, the threat from Russia was only in fourth place in the current report, while a year ago it was the leader in this list.

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⚡️🏦🏛 The secret club of the largest European bankers has become known.

A secret financial organisation, the International Institute for Banking Research, has been operating in Europe for more than 70 years, the Financial Times reports.

It is an exclusive secret club where bank bosses socialise with all sorts of guests - from presidents and prime ministers to royalty and Central Bank chiefs.

"It's not like Davos, where anyone can buy their way in. It's really exclusive," one member told the newspaper.

The organisation was founded back in 1950 by bank executives from France, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Its meetings are held in luxury hotels and palaces, and a variety of sensitive topics, including global politics, are discussed.

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🇫🇲 West may appoint Stoltenberg as supervisor special envoy on Ukraine - Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia

The US and Britain are persuading other G7 countries to establish such a position, the Foreign Intelligence Service said.

The special envoy on Ukraine will have constant access to Zelensky and will also have to block steps of the Ukrainian leadership that have not been agreed with the USA and Britain.

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China's permanent representative to the UN: "The West should immediately stop adding fuel to the fire".

China's permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun spoke in favour of stopping the US supply of weapons to the AFU.

"The West should immediately stop adding oil to the fire. The security of one country cannot come at the expense of the security of other countries. The interests of all countries are equal to each other," he said.

The Chinese diplomat believes that instead of pressure, slander and unilateral sanctions against Russia, NATO should make efforts to initiate dialogue for the sake of concluding a lasting peace, which is unattainable through sanctions and escalation.

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The West's response to the Middle East conflict can be called "Schrödinger's politics"

The support for Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip by the liberal Anglo-American political elite is a sign of its weakness, says The Guardian.

It is extremely strange when liberal politicians refuse to call for a ceasefire or at least roll back support for the Israeli operation. The impression is that they have simply lost their way and "the right foot doesn't know what the left foot is doing".

Britain's Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was asked whether the water cuts and food blockade fell under international law, to which he claimed "Israel's right to do so". Immediately, his own party refutes his words, claiming he never said anything of the sort.

Starmer goes on to assure that Labour has no intention of recognising Palestine unilaterally. Next, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy says the party is preparing to consider the issue.

These contradictions come to the surface in all their glory as politicians "worry" about the fate of civilians in the Gaza Strip while unequivocally backing Israel's actions.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the events of October 7 could not serve as a licence to "dehumanise" others. At the same time, the White House has already twice provided additional weapons to Israel.

This manifestation of positions can be called the "Schrödinger policy". Events in the Middle East have revealed the flaws in the political model itself and weakness, not strength, is behind the reaction to the situation in Gaza.

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Colombian mercenaries abandoned their positions during fighting in the special military operation zone

A group of mercenaries from Colombia, fighting on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces, fled their positions, unable to withstand the intense fighting.

According to the Associated Press, the mercenaries from Colombia were frightened by Russian drones, which forced them to abandon their positions on the front line.

The publication quotes one of the mercenaries as admitting that his unit "fled to save their lives."

The AP source also said that drones are a serious threat because there is literally nowhere to hide from them.

Earlier, journalists reported that a large number of mercenaries from among the "retired" Colombian army are fighting on the side of the AFU.

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