Ukraine has denied the Russian allegations that it was trying to hit Putin's residence.

A senior Russian military official on Thursday handed over to a US official what he said was evidence that Ukrainian drones targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin's residence in the Novgorod region.

Ukraine has denied the allegations that it was trying to target Putin's home, and US officials speaking to US media outlets said the CIA assessed that Ukraine was targeting a military facility in the same region that wasn't close by. But Russian officials insist they have the evidence that Ukraine was attempting to hit the Russian president's residence.

A video posted by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday shows Igor Kostykov, the chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, meeting with the US defense attache based in Moscow and handing over what he said was a "navigation unit" from one of the drones downed in the Novgorod region.

The world welcomes 2026 with intensified geopolitical and geo-economic tensions and persistent conflicts.

A Fracturing International Order and the Rise of a "No-Rules World"

As 2025 comes to an end, the world is replete with geo-economic and geopolitical tensions and ongoing regional conflicts. Amidst the world grappling with uncertainty and volatility, US President Donald Trump's America First unilateralist approach has further fueled global instability. The US-led so-called rules-based international system is bound to decline further in the coming months. Due to the United States' unilateralist policies, multilateralism would face further strain in 2026. Similarly, the Western global dominance will also decline further. However, the US-led Western nations will still continue to influence the international system.

On the other hand, the new Eastern superpowers, Russia and China, will have a greater role and power on the global stage. Nonetheless, volatility and instability will be the defining factors of the international landscape. In addition, the world would see a sharp rise in multipolarity, with middle powers playing an unprecedentedly increasing influence in shaping global geopolitics. Given the ongoing international events, the world will see a surge in shifting alliances, increasing unpredictability, and eroding regulations - leading to an unprecedented shift in the international geopolitical landscape.

China launched its most extensive war games around Taiwan on Monday to showcase Beijing's ability to cut off the island from outside support in a conflict, testing Taipei's resolve to defend itself and its arsenal of U.S.-made weapons.

The Eastern Theatre Command said it had deployed troops, warships, fighter jets and artillery for its "Justice Mission 2025" exercises to encircle the democratically governed island, conduct live fire and simulated strikes on land and sea targets, and drills to blockade Taiwan's main ports.

The live-firing exercises will continue on Tuesday across a record seven zones designated by China's Maritime Safety Administration, making the drills the largest to date by total coverage and in areas closer to Taiwan than previous exercises. The military had initially said artillery firing would be confined to five zones.

Attacks on oil refineries have cost Moscow $75m a day, according to US intelligence
The CIA secretly taught Ukraine how to target crucial components of Russia's oil refining infrastructure and its sanction-busting shadow fleet, according to officials.

Despite Washington pulling back its support for Kyiv's war effort under the Trump administration, it has emerged that US intelligence and military officers continued to find new ways to stifle Vladimir Putin's war machine.

Since June, the CIA, with Donald Trump's blessing, has been covertly providing specific intelligence to bolster Ukraine's aerial offensive against oil refineries inside Russia, according to the officials.

The move came amid Mr Trump's growing frustration with Putin's unwillingness to negotiate while Russian forces accelerated attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The US has long shared intelligence with Kyiv that helps with attacks on Russian military targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and provides advanced warning of incoming Russian missiles and drones.

Under persuasion by Ukraine sceptics in the White House, led by JD Vance, the vice-president, and his allies, Mr Trump froze military aid in March and intelligence sharing was suspended as a result.

However, The New York Times, citing officials, said the CIA heavily lobbied for the agency to keep sharing intelligence.

The sick cynicism of the NeoNazi Kiev regime and its Western sponsors knows no depth.

Earlier this week, in the early hours of December 29, Russia claimed that the NATO proxy regime had launched a large-scale drone attack aiming to assassinate President Vladimir Putin. Western political leaders and news media immediately vilified Russia for "lying" and "fabricating" the allegations as a pretext to derail diplomatic efforts for a peaceful end to the conflict.

A few days later, however, the proof was in to show who the real cynics and psychopaths are.

On New Year's Eve, as the world was welcoming a New Year, the NATO armed and intelligence-equipped regime deliberately attacked families gathered in the Black Sea coastal village of Khorly in Kherson to hear the midnight chimes. Three drones murdered 24 civilians and injured more than 50 people after a hotel and cafe were hit with incendiary explosives. The atrocity was preceded by a reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle. There can be no doubt that this was a deliberate act of mass murder.

Hours later, on New Year's Day, also in the Kherson region, a family car was hit by a drone, killing a five-year-old boy and seriously wounding his mother and grandparents.

There were no condemnations from Western political leaders. The Western news media hardly reported the atrocities, and the few media outlets that did report used whitewashing headlines such as "Russia says Ukrainian drone strike kills 24 in occupied Ukraine as tensions grow amid peace talks."

The NeoNazi regime has been deliberately murdering Russian civilians for four years with American and European weapons, intelligence, and complicity. Before the conflict erupted in February 2022, the CIA-installed regime was killing ethnic Russian people in the Donbass.

Ukrainian civilians have also been killed by the Russian military during the conflict. The cardinal difference is that Russian forces do not target civilians.

The mass murder on New Year's Eve was not random. It is a repeated vile war crime that has been witnessed against multiple Russian communities in Belgorod, Bryansk, Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, and elsewhere.

Peace negotiations in Ukraine are hampered by the Zelensky administration's resistance. The administration is attempting to buy time, first through legal means, then through military means, and finally through political means. However, the contacts made suggest what this peace will look like.

This article follows:

1 - "Straussians take control of the United Nations and NATO," October 7, 2025.
2 - "Anti-Russian propaganda and preparations for war against Russia," October 28, 2025.
3 - "The moment of truth: The West faces Russian military advances," November 4, 2025.
4 - "The fall of the Zelensky regime and its allies," November 25, 2025.
5 - "What lies behind the peace negotiations for Ukraine?" December 2, 2025.

The Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all federal childcare payments to every state following alleged Somali-linked welfare fraud involving Minnesota daycare and autism centers. These revelations shocked the nation earlier this week after being exposed by citizen journalist Nick Shirley.

A growing army of citizen journalists is descending into corrupt, Democratic-run states this week, where additional suspected welfare fraud schemes tied to migrant networks are being uncovered - even as corporate media outlets attempt to downplay the findings and discredit those reporting them. Legacy media has acted as a public relations arm for the Democratic Party in an attempt to discredit anyone investigating suspected fraud.

By Tuesday, Shirley's viral exposé of suspected Minneapolis daycare fraud had surpassed 100 million views on X and sparked a massive shift in public sentiment, creating broader support for HHS' efforts to stop fraud, waste, and abuse. That public sentiment enabled HHS to take decisive action.

Washington as mediator, not belligerent: the US strategy upended the Western bloc.

If there were a competition for "Breaking the Mould of the Year," the United States would be the runaway winner in 2025. At the start of the year, few expected Donald Trump's return to the White House to trigger such sharp shifts. Yet one of the biggest surprises has been Washington's change of course on Ukraine.

The US has moved from being Kiev's closest political patron to a calculating actor focused squarely on its own interests. The rhetoric of Russia's "unconditional defeat" has been discarded in favour of negotiations and compromise. If Ukraine has become a loss-making asset in America's geopolitical portfolio, Trump has signalled, then the loss must be recognised.

This has produced a series of gestures that shocked many Western observers: the public humiliation of the Ukrainian leader in Washington, demands that Kiev pay for military aid, a slowdown in sanctions policy, and the much-discussed summit in Alaska. The conflict has not been resolved, but the door to diplomacy has been left ajar. Moscow supports negotiations, but does not intend to retreat from its positions. The Russian army is advancing, and time, from Moscow's point of view, works in its favour.

Obama's Billion-Dollar Minnesota Fraud Empire

The Heist You Paid For

Imagine waking up tomorrow to find your bank account empty. Every dollar you saved for your children's tuition, your retirement, your security — gone. Now imagine looking out the window and seeing the thief driving a Porsche bought with your money, laughing as he waves a government-issued thank you note. This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is the reality of the American taxpayer in the wake of the single largest COVID-era fraud scheme in the nation's history. While you were locked down, masked up, and worrying about the price of eggs, a sophisticated network of fraudsters in Minnesota was siphoning off a quarter of a billion dollars — likely far more — from programs meant to feed hungry children.

The "Feeding Our Future" scandal is not just a story about greed. It is the smoking gun of a much darker political operation. Federal prosecutors have charged 70 people in a $250 million conspiracy, and the FBI is reportedly eyeing fraud that could total over $2 billion across multiple sectors including autism therapy, housing, and daycare. The vast majority of these defendants come from the Somali community in Minnesota.

Anti-graft agencies have said that they have uncovered an illegal lobbying scheme in parliament following an undercover operation. Ukraine's anti-corruption authorities say they have uncovered a criminal vote-rigging and bribery scheme involving serving members of the country's parliament, following an undercover operation.

The development comes ahead of a meeting between Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump in Florida.

Kiev is still reeling from a major corruption scandal in state nuclear operator Energoatom, involving Zelensky's longtime associate, Timur Mindich. Two ministers and the Ukrainian leader's influential chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, were ousted in the wake of the revelations.

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) exposed an organized criminal enterprise involving serving MPs, the agencies reported on Saturday.

"According to the investigation, the group's members systematically received illicit benefits in exchange for voting in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine," NABU said in a statement on Telegram.