What's a lazy couple of billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars when there's a war in Eastern Europe to fight? That question was answered Thursday when the Defense Department revealed it can send more weapons to Ukraine without Congress spending approval after the Pentagon overestimated the value of the arms it has already sent Kyiv by some $3 billion.

AP reports the error was caused when officials wrongly used valuation for new equipment, rather than for used equipment drawn from U.S. stocks, to assess the cost of weapons already despatched to the war zone.

The poor accounting methodology has been exposed as the Pentagon faces increased pressure by Congress to show accountability for the billions of dollars it has sent in weapons, ammunition, equipment, and training to Ukraine and as some lawmakers question whether that level of support is sustainable, as Breitbart News reported.

The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed phone records of a phone belonging to President Joe Biden that Hunter Biden's business paid for, according to Peter Schweizer, Government Accountability Institute president in an interview on Tuesday.

Schweizer said in an interview with 77 WABC's Cats & Cosby that it was discovered on Hunter Biden's laptop that he was paying a phone bill for his father from 2009 to 2017, which encompassed the time Biden was vice president.

"We obtained that phone number and we've shared it with individuals and the Oversight Committee in Congress is going to subpoena those phone records. And what's important here is that's not a government phone, this is not Joe Biden's private phone that he's paying for himself. It's actually [Hunter] Biden's business that paid for it," Schweizer said.

Russia's ethnic and cultural diversity is an "all-conquering force" that many people outside the country fail to grasp, President Vladimir Putin has said. He added that attempts to sow discord within Russia or misrepresent it as a colonial power are doomed to failure.

Putin made the remarks on Friday during a virtual meeting with a body that advises him on ways to support ethnic minorities and ensure positive relations among the myriad groups represented in the country.

"Our nation was built on the value of multinational harmony. It's the most important foundation of our consolidation, which only becomes stronger in the face of foreign pressure and threats," the Russian president said.

Without stating specific countries, Putin dismissed Russia's adversaries as "people with neocolonial thinking, dimwits in fact, who do not understand that this diversity makes us stronger."

"When they talk about us, they think about themselves and imagine that we are like them. They say Russia has to be partitioned into dozens of small states. The goal is clear - to subjugate them, exploit them and use them for profit," Putin claimed.

The Russian Interior Ministry on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, the British lawyer currently acting as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

In March, Khan sought the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the children's rights commissioner, for the alleged war crime of "unlawful deportation and transfer" of children from "occupied areas of Ukraine" to Russia.

The ICC had acted on claims by the government in Kiev that Russia's evacuation of children from civilian areas that were under fire from Ukrainian forces amounted to forcible transfer of population, which was defined as a crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Over the last week Ukrainian officials have been insisting that the long-promised counter-offensive is delayed until the West can pony up more tanks, ammunition, artillery and other weapons. But, there has been a noticeable uptick in Ukrainian attacks on Russian positions. These assaults apparently were carried out as a symbolic gesture to appease Western demands that Ukraine do something to the Russians.

You can tell that the Ukrainian attacks have been a bust by the very subdued reporting of the activity in the Western press. John Helmer of Dances With Bears provides a grim summary of the effort:

On May 12, in the first day of their scheme, 1,725 Ukrainian men were killed on the Donbass front. This is the worst day's military casualty rate since the US coup in Kiev launched the war in February 2014.

According to the Financial Times, this killing didn't happen. Instead, the headline reads: "Ukrainian counter-offensive takes shape with the first gains around Bakhmut." The Washington Post announced likewise: "How Ukrainian forces denied Russia victory in Bakhmut by Victory Day". The New York Times repeated: "Ukraine's Advances Near Bakhmut Expose Rifts in Russian Forces". According to this propaganda, these successes were bloodless on the Ukrainian side.

A NATO forces veteran observes: "An entire regiment has been destroyed. This is cynical trading in flesh.

In fact, what happened on the battlefield was dozens of Ukrainian troop movements in different directions along a front of more than ninety kilometres.

According to the NATO veteran, "this is more propaganda offensive than real offensive. They scraped together enough gear, ammunition and manpower to make a barely audible tactical bang. It's a punch with nothing behind it. Those guys are already dead. This isn't even wishful thinking. It's cynical trading in flesh."

The 69th Bilderberg Meeting, a secretive conclave of global power brokers, has kicked off in Lisbon, Portugal, with issues on the agenda including transnational threats, artificial intelligence, and America's leadership in world affairs.

This year's meeting, the latest in a series that began in 1954, continues to blur the lines between open diplomacy and clandestine elitism as political leaders brush shoulders with industry bigwigs, media barons, and finance tycoons.

"It's a really high-octane list, leaning heavily into the Russia/Ukraine conflict and the future of NATO," journalist Charlie Skelton, who's in Lisbon to cover this year's event, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

As usual, the details of their discussions remain obscured by the "Chatham House Rule," a protocol that gives participants the discretion to use the information gleaned from the talks but forbids the identification of speakers or participants, ensuring anonymity.

Susan Schmidt examines the highlights and lowlights of the new Special Counsel report on Trump-Russia.

Special Counsel John Durham's "Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns" trickled out yesterday afternoon, hitting journalist inboxes just after 3:00 p.m. A quick read revealed the following key takeaways:

1. There was no valid predicate for the investigation, and the FBI knew it.

From the report:

It is the Office's assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division Report says that the investigators "repeatedly ignore[d] or explain[ed] away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign... had conspired with Russia... It appeared... there was a pattern of assuming nefarious intent." An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not.

The US Department of Defense has discovered an accounting error that could result in more weapons, ammunition and equipment being available for Ukraine than was previously expected, Reuters reported on Thursday.

The agency cited a Senate aide and a Pentagon official - both anonymous - who said that the US military had "overestimated the value" of some of its hardware that was sent to Kiev by "around $3 billion," implying that less money has been spent on arming Ukraine than was previously calculated.

The Pentagon used the current replacement costs for equipment taken from its stocks, rather than factoring in the original purchase price and depreciation, according to the agency's source. The DOD is reportedly taking steps to notify Congress of the "accounting adjustment."

The battle for Artyomovsk may soon end in Moscow's favor, local authorities and media believe

Russia appears set to take full control of the Donbass city of Artyomovsk, which Ukraine calls Bakhmut, according to officials, media reports and the boss of the private military company Wagner Group.

"Wagner is pushing forward for real, day and night," acting head of the Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

He acknowledged that the situation remained tense and that the Ukrainian military was sending reserves into battle, but described the full capture of the city by Russia as "potentially very close."

Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Wednesday that Russia had frozen in late April the bank accounts of its embassy in Moscow and consulate in St. Petersburg.

"The accounts of the Finnish missions in Russia are frozen and cannot be used at the moment," Haavisto told a press conference, adding that Finland had been in contact with Russian authorities.

"A note was sent to Russia on this issue. Russia has not yet given an official explanation why the accounts have been frozen," Haavisto said.

The foreign minister noted that Finland had not frozen the accounts of Russian diplomatic missions in Finland.