Ukraine's European benefactors made a big show of rushing military aid to Kiev in the early months of Russia's special military operation, but the torrent has waned to a trickle since then, with no new pledges being made in July. One military expert said Europe is running out of both equipment and willpower to support the "horribly corrupt regime."

Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, told Sputnik on Thursday that NATO's policy of giving Ukraine billions of dollars in weapons that so quickly get destroyed is "inefficient and counterproductive" from both a political and a national security point of view."

The more Europe invests its military capacity into Ukraine, the weaker Europe gets," Ritter said.

Washington has harmed the bloc to serve its own interests, a top Putin ally has warned

The United States has doomed the EU to hunger, cold and isolation by pressuring the bloc to cut its ties with Moscow, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Friday.

He wrote on Telegram that Washington would "stop at nothing to cling to its power over the world as it throws under the bus the citizens' welfare and the economies of European countries to achieve this end."

He noted that natural gas in the US costs $333 per 1,000 cubic meters. "At the same time, Washington sells it to Europe for a price which is 7.3 [times] higher, rendering the EU economy uncompetitive," he wrote, adding that the eurozone's annual inflation rate had hit a record 8.9%.

The Democrats' "Inflation Reduction Act" - which according to the Congressional Budget Office will raise taxes on the middle class to the tune of $20 billion - not to mention unleash an army of IRS agents on working class Americans over the next decade, was made possible by Bill Gates and (in smaller part) Larry Summers, who have been known to hang out together.

The bill, of course, was signed yesterday.

More and More Are Seeing Through the Lies

As Amnesty International confirms the inconvenient truths, which many independent journalists and political observers already knew, about the Ukrainian army's behavior in Donbass, it's worth examining how manipulating the truth has become — not only an everyday occurrence but a central element of the West's proxy war in Ukraine.

An increasing number of mainstream journalists, commentators and ordinary individuals who had rushed to "Stand with Ukraine " are finding the inconvenient truths about the Zelensky regime and its Army harder and harder to ignore.

Military-ruled Myanmar plans to import Russian gasoline and fuel oil to ease supply concerns and rising prices, a junta spokesperson said, the latest developing country to do so amid a global energy crisis.

The Southeast Asian country has maintained friendly ties with Russia, even as both remain under a raft of sanctions from Western countries - Myanmar for a military coup that overthrew an elected government last year, and Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a "special military operation".

Russia is seeking new customers for its energy in the region as its biggest export destination, Europe, will impose an embargo on Russian oil in phases later this year.

Aleksandr Darchiyev, Director of the North America Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with TASS a few days ago that declaring Russia a "state sponsor of terrorism" would mean "Washington crossing the point of no return with the most serious collateral damage to bilateral relations".

Recall that the US Senate recently passed a resolution calling on the State Department to recognise Russia as a "state sponsor of terrorism" because of "the events in Chechnya and military operations in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine". This initiative is also supported by the US House of Representatives. However, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the US administration believes that including Russia on the list of "countries that sponsor terrorism" will not have a real effect. Blinken also said that the measures already taken against Russia are almost equivalent to measures against any other "state sponsor of terrorism". Therefore, they say, we are talking about a "similar effect". Blinken also stressed that the State Department is studying this issue in order to determine how much the inclusion of Russia in the list of "countries that sponsor terrorism" will comply with American law.

The United States, according to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at one time admitted to financing the Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation and the Afghan Mujahideen during their war with the "Soviets" in the late 1970s and early 80s. The terrorists "thanked" their benefactors in a peculiar way. After September 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden became the United States' number one enemy. Other Western intelligence agencies have also collaborated with jihadists in the Middle East and other parts of the world, performing various "special tasks", preparing coups and creating hotbeds of tension in a number of countries. The United Nations subsequently designated some of these organisations as "terrorist" ones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the West is trying to contain the formation of a multipolar world by activating old conflicts to preserve its hegemony.

Speaking at the 2022 Moscow Conference on International Security, Putin said the Western countries are striving to hold the countries and peoples in chains of the neocolonial order.

"Their (Western) hegemony means stagnation for the whole world, for the whole civilization, (it means) obscurantism, the abolition of culture, and neoliberal totalitarianism," he said.

In an attempt to preserve their domination, the US and its allies rudely interfere in the internal affairs of the countries, organize coups, civil wars, provocations, use blackmail, and pressure to subdue states to its will, Putin added.

"In these conditions, we have decided to conduct a special military operation in Ukraine in full compliance with the UN Charter.

The Chinese envoy to the United Kingdom has warned that British and American interference on Taiwan could result in a war, claiming that Beijing's ties with London are now at a crossroads over the island.

In a Guardian op-ed on Tuesday, Chinese ambassador to the UK Zheng Zeguang offered his government's stance on the territorial feud, while declaring that Taiwan had become a "touchstone issue" for China, the US and the UK alike.

"Over the years, the US has been playing the 'Taiwan card' to contain China by approving arms sales to the island, upgrading its relations with the authorities there and hollowing out the one-China principle," the envoy wrote, referring to a policy that discourages foreign states from forming diplomatic relations with Taipei, which has long been self-governed.

'Taiwan independence' means war and will lead to a dead end. Opposing and defeating such attempts is meant to avoid war and safeguard peace and stability in the region.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has acknowledged flaws in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic and announced plans to restructure the agency, to rehabilitate its public image and better respond to future public health crises.

"For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations," CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday. "As a long-time admirer of this agency and a champion for public health, I want us all to do better."


The overhaul announcement follows an internal review that found the CDC's "rigid, compartmentalized bureaucracy" undermined its response to Covid-19 and slowed its data analysis and releases of public advisories. When pandemic guidance was offered, it was often "confusing and overwhelming," the review found.

China shipped in more than 80 tons of gold from Switzerland last month, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration. The volume is reportedly more than double the June total, and eight times more than in May.

The surge in gold imports to a five-year high indicates that Chinese demand for the precious metal is picking up, after a lull due to Covid lockdowns in the country's major cities.

"The market's still not great, but it's definitely a lot better than it was in April," Nikos Kavalis, managing director at Metals Focus consultancy, explained to Bloomberg.