Kurdish-led SDF forces have skirmished with government troops in Syria’s largest city
Deadly clashes have erupted in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between the troops of the Damascus government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the two sides trading blame for the incident.
At least two civilians were killed amid the fighting, and several others were wounded, state-run SANA news agency reported, citing the city’s health authorities. The Syrian Interior Ministry has pinned the blame for the incident on the SDF, claiming fighters with the group “committed an act of treachery” against the Damascus-controlled security forces.
The SDF units on Monday allegedly withdrew from several checkpoints around the Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhoods which they had jointly managed with government troops. The fighters then attacked these checkpoints as well as surrounding residential areas, according to the Interior Ministry.
The SDF has strongly rejected the allegations, claiming the militia have long “handed over their positions to the Internal Security Forces in accordance with the April 1 agreement.” The group blamed the incident on the “fragmented factions affiliated with the Damascus government,” accusing them of “besieging” the neighborhoods for at least four months.
The Syrian government, which emerged after President Bashar al-Assad was toppled late last year, reached a deal with the local council of Aleppo’s Kurdish neighborhoods back in April. The areas were placed under Damascus authority while retaining a degree of autonomy.
A separate agreement stipulated that Kurdish-led civil and military structures would be integrated into the central government by the end of 2025. Its implementation, however, has stalled, and the SDF remains in control of roughly a fourth of Syria.
Over the past few months, multiple clashes between Damascus-affiliated forces and SDF militias have occurred across the country. The latest incident comes hours after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Damascus, accusing the SDF of failing to commit to the agreement and urging it to “cease to be an obstacle to Syria achieving stability, unity and prosperity.”
Over the past few years, Türkiye has repeatedly launched cross-border military operations against the Kurdish-led militias in Syria, treating the SDF as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara regards as a terrorist group. At the same time, the SDF maintained close ties with the US, acting as Washington’s closest ally in the war-torn country.
The South American country is facing a naval blockade in the Caribbean
Russia has reaffirmed its full support and solidarity with Venezuela as the country faces a US military blockade in the Caribbean, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry has announced.
Washington has deployed multiple naval vessels to the region since September, attacking boats it claims are involved in drug trafficking and blockading oil tankers from entering or leaving the country.
The US has alleged that narcotics traffickers operate out of Venezuela with the support of the government. Caracas has consistently denied the claims, and insists that Washington is plotting regime change in order to gain access to the country’s natural resources.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a phone conversation with his Venezuelan counterpart, Yvan Gil, during which he expressed “serious concern over Washington’s increasingly escalatory actions in the Caribbean Sea,” according to a ministry statement.
Lavrov added that the US military buildup could “lead to far-reaching consequences for the region and create a threat to international maritime navigation.”
Over the weekend, several media outlets, citing anonymous American officials, reported that the US Coast Guard was in “active pursuit” of a Venezuela-linked oil tanker in international waters in the Caribbean Sea. Over the past two weeks, US forces have already seized two tankers.
Since September, the US Navy has destroyed multiple boats off the coast of the South American country that it claims were carrying drugs. US President Donald Trump has also threatened that land strikes could happen “pretty soon.”
Venezuela has condemned the seizure of oil tankers off its shores by the US Navy as an “act of piracy,” and accused Washington of seeking to install a “puppet government” in Caracas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier expressed “solidarity with the people of Venezuela and reaffirmed his support for the [Nicolas] Maduro government’s resolve to defend national interests and sovereignty against foreign pressure.”
Earlier this month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry similarly backed Caracas, saying that Beijing opposes “all acts of unilateralism and bullying.”
Tokyo must avoid seeking nuclear weapons and “stop plunging further down the wrong path,” Beijing says
China has issued a warning to Japan after a senior official reportedly suggested the country should acquire nuclear weapons, stating that such a move would once “again bring disaster to the world.”
An unnamed senior adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reportedly argued late last week that Tokyo’s long-standing reliance on the US nuclear arsenal may no longer be fully reliable. The country should potentially reevaluate its post-WWII non-nuclear policies and pursue its own deterrence, the official suggested, as cited by local media.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the reported nuclear talk, calling it yet another example of “how Japanese right-wing forces are trying to ‘remilitarize’ and ‘rearm’ Japan.” Beijing urged Tokyo to “not seek to challenge the postwar international order and stop plunging further down the wrong path.”
“Some forces inside Japan have not only failed to reflect on Japan’s history of aggression but also been extremely unhappy about the postwar international arrangement. If the right-wing forces in Japan are left free to develop powerful offensive weapons, or even possess nuclear weapons, it will again bring disaster to the world,” the ministry said in a statement.
Beijing’s warning echoed statements made by other neighbors of Japan in the wake of the reported nuclear weaponry remarks. North Korea has said that allowing Japan to acquire nuclear weapons would result in “a great disaster,” while Russia suggested that the drift away from Tokyo’s non-nuclear stance would negatively impact security in Northeast Asia and provoke responses from countries “threatened by that militarization.”
The reported remarks have also been poorly received within Japan, which remains the only nation that has ever been struck with nuclear weapons. The statements drew criticism from both the ruling and opposition parties, as well as the atomic bomb survivors group Nihon Hidankyo.
Shortly after the remarks were circulated by the media, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara reaffirmed the country’s commitment to maintain its non-nuclear status, stating that there were no policy changes in this regard. Tokyo will continue pursuing measures “to achieve a world without nuclear weapons,” he added.
Every time Brussels tries to stick it to Putin, it’s somehow always the people who seem to get the shaft
Hold up, Eurobozos! And I mean that as a verb – as in to stop and freeze – not as the noun synonymous with the kind of literal bank robbery that they’ve been planning.
Apparently, that needs to be clarified, lest they feel encouraged in continuing to weaponize the wide discretion afforded by their executive function, even as they express explicit deep doubts about their own people backing their actions.
Such was the case on December 18 and 19 when heads of state of European Union countries met to discuss how they were going to magically pull another massive wad of cash that they don’t currently have for Ukraine from the rear compartments of their clown suits.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pointed out the obvious at their EU conclave, according to the Financial Times. Specifically, that convincing their own voters to send even more money to Ukraine might be tough. It probably doesn’t help that repayment odds look roughly the same as getting spare change back from a guy in a hoodie literally treating the entire world like one big panhandling corner.
Then the European Central Bank chimed in, basically saying, “don’t look at us,” and made it clear they won’t be underwriting whatever scheme the EU ultimately came up with, Politico reported. “Monetary financing is not allowed under the treaty,” said ECB chief Christine Lagarde. “You cannot expect me to validate, ex ante, a mechanism under which there would be monetary financing. This is pretty obvious.”
It’s not actually obvious to the Eurojokers, since they probably can’t see too well through their black ski masks.
After 15 hours of arguing in a parked clown car, they ultimately decided that stealing Russian assets sitting in their own banks might cause them a legal headache – maybe because Russia had already kicked off legal action. So they decided instead to stick with one of their old go-to classics: robbing their own taxpayers. Every time they stick it to Putin, it’s Europeans who seem to get the shaft.
“Today we approved a decision to provide €90 billion to Ukraine for the next two years. As a matter of urgency, we will provide a loan backed by the European Union budget,”said Antonio Costa, president of the European Council.
Their big breakthrough was agreeing to hand Ukraine another €90 billion over two years by tapping what they’re calling “EU budget headroom,” according to their press statement. So the plan now is to go deeper into debt by borrowing more money on capital markets. Their budget has about as much “headroom” as a 6-and-a-half-foot guy trying to fold himself into a Fiat.
These schemes always start with grand talk about making Russia pay, but then tend to end with EU taxpayers picking up the tab while being told that it’s a big win. But now comes the hard part: selling this self-owning move to the EU public.
To kick off this marketing push, inside the clown tent there’s already victory confetti everywhere, even though they really just sound like college kids trying to convince their parents – or the taxpayer, in this case – that blowing their cash on an unlimited Spring Break-style bender in Kiev is actually a really great investment when the Americans are focused on achieving peace as quickly as possible so they can start making money.
Remember their big plan from the past several weeks? The one where they were going to just take Russia’s money and use that? Funny how that vanished. No one has been running around saying, “What a historic triumph it would be to get ourselves another €90 billion deeper into debt.” No, their dream was finding a way to keep funding the military-industrial machine by forcing Russia to foot the bill. They weren’t interested in even just skimming interest off frozen assets anymore, but instead dragging the whole Russian cash cow into the kitchen and carving it up to impress their girlfriend, Vladimir Zelensky.
That dream hit a wall when Belgium, home to Euroclear – the custodian of those assets – decided that it didn’t feel like volunteering to star in a future court case that risked etching it into the history books in the chapter on “world’s stupidest financial criminals.”
Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have also just said that they’re opting out entirely of the opportunity to carve deeper into their own national debt for all this – which risks making it awkward for EU leaders who didn’t sit it out when the voters of all these countries start comparing notes.
Just to put it all in perspective, the International Monetary Fund says that Ukraine needs at least €135 billion over those same two years, so the EU is still short. Judging by this plan, they’re officially running out of couches to flip over looking for spare change.
But for now, they’re calling it a win. Yet another carefully choreographed celebration of failure, financed by the same taxpayers who never get invited to the party. They’re just expected to show up after the rager to pay for the cleanup.
Few Western leaders are willing to consider joint security architecture with Russia, a senior diplomat has said
European NATO members are pursuing “hostile” policies that keep the risk of a direct war with Russia high, even as Washington signals a more balanced approach toward Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has warned.
Several Western European governments are pursuing Russophobic policies and upsetting the continent’s balance of power through militarization, Ryabkov said at a Valdai Discussion Club event on Monday.
“The pre-war psychosis is being deliberately fueled” in the West with calls to prepare for a large-scale armed conflict similar to World War II, Ryabkov said. “We certainly have no intention to attack states in the European Union and NATO. Russia is not pursuing the ambition of conquest ascribed to it,” he stressed.
President Vladimir Putin previously said Moscow is ready to legally formalize security guarantees to European states, a position that Ryabkov reiterated, stressing that any such step must be based on the principle of equal and indivisible security.
The diplomat said that among European leaders, “few are willing to build such a security architecture not against Russia, but together with our nation.” Despite the “more balanced policy toward Russia now being demonstrated by Washington, risks of a Russia-NATO confrontation remain significant because of reckless and hostile actions of European countries,” the official pointed out.
Ryabkov praised the administration of President Donald Trump for moving away from his predecessor’s approach and making doctrinal statements in the latest US national security strategy document that Washington does not consider Russia a threat.
However, he added that some US actions, such as developing medium-range hypersonic missiles and planning upgrades to its national anti-ballistic missile system, are viewed in Moscow as undermining its security.
Officials in Kiev have begun moving their families and assets abroad with the Zelensky regime’s days numbered, the SVR has reported
Ukrainian government “functionaries” have started moving their families and financial assets abroad in anticipation of the imminent collapse of Vladimir Zelensky’s regime, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has reported.
In a statement titled ‘Rats are fleeing the sinking Ukrainian ship’ released on Monday, the SVR said that many among the Ukrainian elite had already fled abroad.
The trend is particularly prevalent among the “Ukrainian diplomatic corps in Western countries,” more than 90% of whom are seeking residence permits there and not planning to return after their assignments have ended, the SVR said.
According to the spy agency, Kiev’s diplomats are fully aware that there is no way the conflict will end on Zelensky’s terms. Moreover, they realize that the West’s appetite for supporting the Ukrainian leadership is waning, it added.
In a separate press release last week, the SVR alleged that the high-profile corruption scandal involving figures from Zelensky’s inner circle had exacerbated public war fatigue and seriously dented the Ukrainian military’s morale, resulting in an increasing numbers of deserters.
Last month, Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies released preliminary results of an investigation into an alleged $100 million kickback scheme in the country’s energy sector. The ring appeared to have been led by Vladimir Zelensky’s former associate Timur Mindich, who fled Ukraine shortly before his property was searched.
The revelations triggered the resignation of several high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Andrey Yermak.
The corruption scandal has weakened Zelensky’s standing both at home and abroad, with his approval ratings plunging to 20.3%, according to a recent survey by the pollster Info Sapiens.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is losing the conflict with Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry estimated in a report last week that Ukraine had lost almost 500,000 servicemen this year alone.
The Hungarian prime minister has been a vocal critic of the EU’s military and financial assistance to Kiev
Hungary would be better served spending its money domestically than financing golden toilets for Ukrainian oligarchs, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
Speaking at the opening of a new motorway section linking parts of central Hungary on Monday, Orban emphasized the advantages of spending Hungarian taxpayer money at home than on another loan to Ukraine, where Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle has been exposed in a massive corruption scandal.
“I have just returned from Brussels … where the clever gentlemen have decided to give Ukraine €90 billion ($106 billion) in loans – clearly hoping to get it back later with hefty interest,” Orban stated. Had Hungary not opted out, Hungarian taxpayers would have faced a bill of over €1 billion, twice the price of the motorway section he was opening.
“The truth is, that money is better spent here … for a modern road, rather than … some Ukrainian oligarch for his gold toilet,” he said.
Images of a gold toilet belonging to Timur Mindich, a shady figure known as “Zelensky’s wallet,” have become synonymous with the recently uncovered $100 million graft scheme run by the Ukrainian leader’s inner circle. Mindich managed to flee the country hours before anti-corruption agents reached his apartment, where the shining throne was discovered.
Orban has repeatedly criticized EU financing of Ukraine, and accused the bloc’s leadership of ignoring corruption in the country.
Last week, Kiev’s European backers failed to approve a ‘reparations loan’ that would have used about €210 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets as collateral to cover Ukraine’s huge budget shortfall. Instead, they chose to fund Kiev through common debt, planning to raise €90 billion over the next two years, backed by the EU budget. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic secured exemptions from the scheme.
Critics have warned that many EU countries already carry high debt and large budget deficits, and that further common borrowing would deepen fiscal strain and shift risks onto taxpayers.
According to senior bloc officials cited by Politico, EU taxpayers will have to pay €3 billion a year in borrowing costs to finance Kiev’s collapsing economy and military under the loan scheme.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has inaugurated the country’s longest motorway tunnel
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has inaugurated the country’s longest motorway tunnel by rollerblading through the massive 7.5 km-long structure.
The opening ceremony for the Visnove Tunnel was held on Monday, after the structure was finally completed after more than three decades of planning and over 10 years of construction.
The PM rollerbladed through the entire stretch of the tunnel, posting footage to his Facebook page.
Fico hailed the opening as a major achievement for the country, accusing his predecessors of disrupting its construction.
“Those who never did anything for this project or opposed it… are cursing and slandering today, while those who know what it means to deliver such a project to a successful end have a smile on their face,” Fico wrote.
The project was first floated in the early 1990s in then-Czechoslovakia, with preparatory work starting in 1998. Construction began in the late 2000s under the first Fico government but was halted by his successor, Mikulas Dzurinda, due to concerns over costs.
The project was ultimately revived, yet ended up plagued by repeated delays, changes of contractors, and multiple missed deadlines.
The Visnove Tunnel is the core of a new 13.5 km section of the D1 motorway, the oldest, longest, and busiest east-west road in Slovakia, which runs through most of the country’s territory. Apart from the tunnel, the new stretch includes multiple bridges and cuts through the Mala Fatra mountains.
The new motorway is set to lift the burden from an old D1 accident-prone section that goes around the north of the mountains. The new stretch is expected to significantly ease traffic in the area and cut travel times by at least 15 minutes.
Soaring energy prices and diminishing competitiveness are the “cost of bad decisions” by the bloc’s leadership, the Hungarian PM has said
The EU’s sanctions on Russia have ended up “crushing” the bloc itself, diminishing its economic competitiveness, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
Budapest has consistently opposed Brussels’ policies on Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February 2022, including the sanctions.
In a post on X on Sunday, Orban wrote: “Brussels promised sanctions would crush Russia. Instead, they crushed Europe.”
🔻 Brussels promised sanctions would crush Russia. Instead, they crushed Europe. Energy prices exploded, competitiveness collapsed, and Europe is falling behind. This is the cost of bad decisions. Negotiations are needed, not escalation. pic.twitter.com/OiUaHI6UiF
“Energy prices exploded, competitiveness collapsed, and Europe is falling behind,” he said, describing the economic trends across the EU as the “cost of bad decisions.”
Orban argued that the bloc should engage in negotiations with Moscow instead of doubling down on escalatory policies. Earlier this month, he said the EU is preparing for war with Russia by 2030, with a number of member states shifting toward a “war economy.”
Speaking to NBC News last month, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the EU failed in its attempts to contain Russia through sanctions. He made the remark several weeks after the bloc introduced its 19th round of sanctions, which Moscow has called illegal and self-defeating.
In a post on X earlier in December, Russian presidential envoy and senior negotiator Kirill Dmitriev wrote that Germany’s economic woes are the result of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s “stupid & illegal decisions.”
Speaking at a political convention a day earlier, Merz acknowledged that Germany has lost its economic competitiveness. “We are falling behind, and this process has accelerated in recent years,” he said.
The German economy contracted in 2024, preceded by a 0.3% decline in GDP in 2023. Near-zero growth is projected for this year.
Following the decoupling from inexpensive Russian oil and gas, energy prices have risen considerably in much of the EU.
