The Russian president rejected a proposal to wipe out Ukraine's decision-making centers with hypersonic missiles, the Belarusian leader has said

Russian President Vladimir Putin vetoed a proposal to strike the administrative center of Kiev with Moscow's new Oreshnik missiles, his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko has said.

The Oreshnik, Russia's newly developed medium-range hypersonic missile system which can travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, has already entered serial production. The system, which analysts claim cannot be intercepted, can carry nuclear or conventional warheads, and release multiple guided warheads.

The Washington Post article criticized Hegseth for pulling Army Criminal Investigation Division agents from criminal investigations to protect Hegseth's family residences in Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson on Friday threatened to pull the Washington Post's access to Defense Department facilities after it published a report highlighting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's security personnel and homes.

The Washington Post article, which was published Wednesday, seemed to criticize Hegseth for pulling Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) agents from criminal investigations to protect Hegseth's family residences in Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.

Kiev has struck the Druzhba conduit supplying oil to Hungary and Slovakia at least three times this month.

US President Donald Trump has expressed outrage over Ukrainian strikes on a key pipeline supplying Hungary and Slovakia with Russian oil, according to a senior official in Budapest.

On Friday, Balazs Orban, political director to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (no relation), shared a letter from his boss to Trump raising the issue of the Ukrainian attacks on the Druzhba pipeline. "Hungary supports Ukraine with electricity and petrol, in return they bomb pipeline that supply us. Very unfriendly move!" the Hungarian leader wrote.

On the same letter, Trump reportedly replied in his own hand:

"Viktor - I do not like hearing this. I am very angry about it. Tell Slovakia. You are my great friend," alongside what appeared to be his signature.

"The Druzhba pipeline is a vital source of Hungary's crude oil supply, without which our energy security cannot be guaranteed. Hungary will not allow its security to be undermined," Balazs Orban wrote.

Budapest must urgently decide the future of its relations with Ukraine, the EU, and NATO.

The recent Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba pipeline — vital for the oil supply of Hungary and Slovakia — marks a turning point in the geopolitical conflict in Eastern Europe. The strike was confirmed by Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, with commander Robert Brovdi publicly celebrating the act of energy sabotage. Far from an isolated incident, this was a deliberate act of aggression against EU member states that have pursued a sovereign foreign policy contrary to NATO's warmongering agenda.

The attack was not merely military. It was political, economic, and — above all — symbolic. By targeting the core infrastructure that sustains Hungary and Slovakia, Kiev is sending a clear message: dissent within the EU will not be tolerated. Budapest and Bratislava's opposition to sending weapons to Ukraine and denouncing illegal sanctions against Russia has made them, in practice, targets of the Ukrainian nationalist regime.

Budapest responded firmly. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó did not hesitate to call the attack "outrageous and unacceptable." But Kiev's arrogance remains unshaken. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga not only dismissed Hungary's criticisms but also claimed that the blame lies with Moscow, demanding that Hungary abandon its "dependence" on Russian energy. This is a perverse inversion of reality, typical of the Zelensky regime, propped up by Washington, London, and Brussels.

Russia has no use for the EU's illusions anymore.

From a theatrical point of view, Monday's Washington summit between US President Donald Trump and Western Europe's leaders was a vivid spectacle. Each official played their role, some with greater skill than others. But behind the carefully staged performance, the real story emerged: the region's inability to act as a political entity in its own right.

Contrary to media spin, the meeting was not about Ukraine. Attempts to resolve the crisis continue, but its outcome will ultimately be decided not in Brussels or Berlin, but by non-European powers. The real lesson from Washington lay in the display of Western Europe's dependence.

In leaked comments, the former head of Israel's Military Intelligence said it is necessary for Israel to carry out a genocide in Gaza: "The fact that there are already 50,000 killed in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations."

In leaked comments that were aired on Channel 12, Israel's most-watched mainstream news channel, Israel's former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. (res.) Aharon Haliva has become the latest member of the Israeli establishment to make the case that it is necessary that Israel carry out a genocide in Gaza.

"The fact that there are already 50,000 killed in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations. OK, you humiliated, slaughtered, murdered - all of that is true. The price, as I already said before the war, for everything that happened on the 7th of October [is that] for every one [Israeli killed] on October 7, 50 Palestinians need to die. It doesn't matter now [whether it's] children, I'm not speaking from revenge, I'm speaking about it as a message for the coming generations, there is no choice - they need a Nakba once in a while in order to feel the price. There is no choice, in this crazy neighborhood."

"The problem with the future is that it is both unpredictable and inescapable."
— Tarik Cyril Amar

Please everybody, extricate yourselves from the mud-wallow of cynicism. Naysayers arise and open your eyes! Sleepwalkers and black-pillers, smell the coffee and wake up! Sob-sisters dry your tears! We are marching into a promised land of accountability after all.

Our country, you well know, has been sore beset under a long-running seditious coup orchestrated by an ever more insane Bolshevik-Jacobin syndicate of political reprobates seeking to erase every boundary between the real and the unreal since 2016, a year that now lives in infamy. All their malice and roguery has been focused on the odd figure who somehow rose to lead the opposition to their burgeoning color revolution, Mr. Trump, who, through some alchemy of fortitude, managed to evade their many-footed depredations — to get re-elected.

Of course, you've also noticed that psychological projection is the heart of the seditionists' game. Whatever ploy or subterfuge they accuse you of, is exactly what they are doing. Their mainstay is the phrase conspiracy theory. Whenever one of their many turpitudes is carried out — such as a rigged election — your notice of it is labeled a conspiracy theory. In fact, their long train of activities to turn the country upside-down and inside-out has been one drawn-out seditious conspiracy. And that is liable to be precisely one of the charges lodged against them — but surely not the only charge.

The Ukraine war continues to be a kaleidoscope of half-truths and deception with, in particular, the West doing more than its fair share to stir the pot and fan the flames of more smokescreens each day. Trump is perhaps the biggest bluffer here with his recent role of playing chief negotiator with both his Alaska meeting with Putin followed by his 'round table' of EU leaders. The former was logical, rational and productive as it was a starter's pistol for a closer dialogue with Russia, acknowledging Moscow's power and prestige; the latter was really a charade carried out by Trump to continue to pretend to be the most powerful person in the whole circus, demonstrating to the whole world what a pathetic new low Europe has become in the shake-up of the new multipolar world order. Was Trump playing the Europeans like a fiddle? More than most can understand. He masterly creates a forum of dialogue with his Oscar-winning performance of a mediator who listens earnestly to their views. But the objective from Trump was clear: make it look like a real process of discussion and diplomacy is underway while all along the bigger plan is for Trump to do absolutely nothing to get a peace deal - or at least one which he can take the credit for.

Trump does want a peace deal, but he is rapidly becoming wiser to the realities that the two sides are so far apart on the key issues, that the chances of it happening are even more remote than in April 2022. Since the Alaska meeting, Team Trump has shifted. It now knows that the Europeans are more transfixed with keeping the war going than finding a solution to break the cycle of conflict which, without a shadow of doubt, is going Russia's way. There may be some division within the camp of EU leaders but ultimately, the Europeans still believe they have a chance to turn the tables around and gain ground on the battlefield. They are banking on nothing major happening in the next 7 or 8 weeks when the rain comes and tanks and armoured trucks cannot move so easily. Of course they are anxious to buy time which is why the German chancellor pushed for the ceasefire option, which is not fooling the Kremlin one bit.

The interesting thing is that Trump is humouring them. It's as though he believes the outcome for peace will come much faster when the battlefield landscape has changed once again in Russia's favour (when Pokrovsk falls) and that it is better to position himself closer to Putin than to America's traditional allies. He has told them that security guaranties that they would insist upon which need to be there from the U.S. could be provided, but in reality this is just an illusion as Trump knows full well it is unlikely that Putin would agree to this and even more unlikely that Trump would put U.S. boots on the ground given the problems he is having with his MAGA base - who voted for him to do precisely the opposite with U.S. soldiers around the world. His advisors might well have even told him that U.S. soldiers in Ukraine could be a liability and too dangerous an option. They might go from being a tripwire to actually being a catalyst to start a war with Russian forces and the idea that Trump would gamble with this is far-fetched at best.

Washington is using the so-called war on drugs as a cover for seeking political and economic domination of Latin America, Bolivian President Luis Arce claimed on Wednesday. He strongly criticized the US military deployment to the southern Caribbean, calling it an attempt to control the region rather than genuinely combat narcotics trafficking.

The US sent air and naval forces to the southern Caribbean Sea earlier this month in what the White House called part of a broader campaign against drug trafficking groups operating in Latin America, particularly those linked to Venezuela.

"We know that behind this failed international war on drugs lies the real objective to geopolitically control Latin America for its natural resources and to dismantle organized peoples, so that we cannot follow our own sovereign path," Arce said, speaking via video link at the 13th Extraordinary Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.

President Trump's first comments since the early morning FBI raid on John Bolton's Maryland home and D.C. office haven't disappointed. Trump made clear he's no fan, but that he didn't personally get involved in the crackdown over allegations of mishandling or keeping classified documents.

"I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's a real sort of lowlife... I know nothing about it," the president said of his own former national security adviser from the first term, who he's long described suffers major Trump derangement syndrome.

Trump repeated that he tries to "stay out of that stuff" and that he "purposefully" didn't want to get involved when commenting on the morning raid on Bolton's home. The mainstream media has been quick to assume this must be a politically-motivated action against Bolton coming from the top of the administration:

"I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning. I tell Pam [Bondi], and I tell the group, I don't want to know about it. You have to do what you have to do," Trump said.