The body of pro-Putin regional politician Vladimir Egorov, 46, has been found after a suspected fall from a third-floor window.

The Tobolsk City Duma dropped to his death from the third-floor window of a home on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast, Russian Telegram channel Baza, which has links to Russian security services, reported.

Egorov, who was a member of Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party, was found dead on Wednesday, according to Russian state media.

One source said there was 'no visible sign of a criminal death on the [politician's] body'. Pathologists are to examine the cause of death.

A multipolar world is needed to ensure peace and stability, the Russian foreign minister says.

The West is sowing chaos around the world, fueling conflicts to satisfy its own needs at the exepense of others, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Lavrov's words came as countries including Russia, China and India are increasingly speaking out about the need for a model that would reshape global politics in a more fair and equitable manner.

2023 will be remembered as the year that the fearsome reputation of NATO's pricey, high-tech weaponry and military equipment came crashing down after running into the force of Russian arms. Sputnik asked five leading Russian and US military experts for their takes on the top five Russian weapons of the outgoing year.

The end of the Cold War brought with it the pinnacle of Pentagon hubris, with conflicts in Iraq in 1991, Bosnia and Kosovo in 1995 and 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq again in 2003 and Libya in 2011 seemingly proving the superiority of the weapons designs the United States and its allies developed in the 1980s to fight the Soviets in a World War III scenario that never arrived.

NATO defense analysts chalked down their conventional victories to superior technology and quality of their weapons, figuring that if an Abrams or Challenger 2 tank could single-handedly destroy dozens of Iraq's Soviet-era T-72 tanks with near-impunity and suffer almost no losses, that meant there was something right about Western tank designs, and something wrong with the Soviet (and by translation Russian) design philosophies. The same logic was applied across the board, from armor to aircraft to air defenses and virtually everything in between.

The US currency is being used to undermine the competitive rights of other countries, Russia's foreign minister says.

The US dollar is being used as an instrument for regime change and interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and "everyone" is "tired" of the greenback, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, stated on Thursday.

The global trend towards using national currencies in trade instead of the US dollar began to gain momentum last year after Ukraine-related sanctions saw Russia cut off from the Western financial system and also saw its foreign reserves frozen.

"Everyone is already tired of the dollar, which is becoming a tool of influence, a tool for undermining the legitimate competitive rights of countries in different regions, and a tool for interference in internal affairs and regime change," Russia's top diplomat said in an interview with Rossiya24 and RIA Novosti.

The leader of North Korea asked his armed forces to prepare for war with the US as he blamed Washington for the current tension on the Korean peninsula, state-run media said Thursday.

During the second day of the 9th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) on Wednesday, Kim Jong-un said the US is engaged in an "unprecedented" confrontation against North Korea.

Kim "set forth the militant tasks for the People's Army and the munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defense sectors to further accelerate the war preparations," the Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim.

For two years, Biden and Zelenskyy have been focused on driving Russia from Ukraine. Now Washington is discussing a move to a more defensive posture...

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine's goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia.

The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine's aim of forcing Russia's military completely out of the country. But along with the Ukrainians themselves, U.S. and European officials are now discussing the redeployment of Kyiv's forces away from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's mostly failed counteroffensive into a stronger defensive position against Russian forces in the east, according to the administration official and the European diplomat, and confirmed by a senior administration official. This effort has also involved bolstering air defense systems and building fortifications, razor wire obstructions and anti-tank obstacles and ditches along Ukraine's northern border with Belarus, these officials say. In addition, the Biden administration is focused on rapidly resurrecting Ukraine's own defense industry to supply the desperately needed weaponry the U.S. Congress is balking at replacing.

In a single move, Yemen's Ansarallah has checkmated the west and its rules-based order.

Whether invented in northern India, eastern China or Central Asia - from Persia to Turkestan - chess is an Asian game. In chess, there always comes a time when a simple pawn is able to upset the whole chessboard, usually via a move in the back rank whose effect simply cannot be calculated.

Yes, a pawn can impose a seismic checkmate. That's where we are, geopolitically, right now.

The cascading effects of a single move on the chessboard - Yemen's Ansarallah stunning and carefully targeted blockade of the Red Sea - reach way beyond global shipping, supply chains, and The War of Economic Corridors. Not to mention the reduction of the much lauded US Navy force projection to irrelevancy.

Yemen's resistance movement, Ansarallah, has made it very clear that any Israel-affiliated or Israel-destined vessel will be intercepted. While the west bristles at this, and imagines itself a target, the rest of the world fully understands that all other shipping is free to pass. Russian tankers - as well as Chinese, Iranian, and Global South ships - continue to move undisturbed across the Bab al-Mandeb (narrowest point: 33 km) and the Red Sea.

Only the Hegemon is disturbed by this challenge to its 'rules-based order.' It is outraged that western vessels delivering energy or goods to law-breaking Israel can be impeded, and that the supply chain has been severed and plunged into deep crisis. The pinpointed target is the Israeli economy, which is already bleeding heavily. A single Yemeni move proves to be more efficient than a torrent of imperial sanctions.

It is the tantalizing possibility of this single move turning into a paradigm shift - with no return - that is adding to the Hegemon's apoplexy. Especially because imperial humiliation is deeply embedded in the paradigm shift.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the record, is now sending an unmistakeable message: Forget the Suez Canal. The way to go is the Northern Sea Route - which the Chinese, in the framework of the Russia-China strategic partnership, call the Arctic Silk Road.

For the dumbfounded Europeans, the Russians have detailed three options: First, sail 15,000 miles around the Cap of Good Hope. Second, use Russia's cheaper and faster Northern Sea Route. Third, send the cargo via Russian Railways.

Rosatom, which oversees the Northern Sea Route, has emphasized that non-ice-class ships are now able to sail throughout summer and autumn, and year-round navigation will soon be possible with the help of a fleet of nuclear icebreakers.

All that as direct consequences of the single Yemeni move. What next? Yemen entering BRICS+ at the summit in Kazan in late 2024, under the Russian presidency?

Farting against the wind.

Journalistic malpractice

I wonder how much this guy was paid for writing this. There are a lot of junior high school students who could use the money and would do just as well. Hey, New York Times — buy me a coffee!

In my previous articles I have said that the Russians are not going to negotiate with the West or with Ukraine. They are not going to give up territory - instead, they will continue taking territory that belongs to them historically. Why negotiate with people who only understand the language of force?

The idea here in this New York Times article is simply that the Ukraine should keep on fighting without any territory at all - which means in exile, maybe London or Washington or some place with better weather. A bit like Batistas fleeing to Miami thinking one day they could oust Castro.

Dream on!...

The Western media keeps on spewing this stuff — whoring the government line. It's a bit like elevator music — you don't really listen to it — it just covers the sound of machinery working in the background. It lulls you as you wait for your floor.

Nothing happening until the fat guy farts.

It is clearer by the day that the West is desperate. Sadly, you can't always ignore the farts — which in this case include the message that the Russians are losing Bigly. Something is rotten in Denmark? Not "something" — someone. Not Copenhagen - Washington.

We've been told repeatedly that the goal of Israel's operation in Gaza is to "defeat Hamas". But is that true? We don't think it is. We don't think that any reasonable person would attempt to eradicate a militant organization by laying to waste vast swaths of the country while killing tens of thousands of innocent people. That is not how one garners support for one's cause nor is it an effective strategy for defeating the enemy. Instead, it is a policy that is guaranteed to horrify allies and critics alike greatly undermining the operation's chances of success. And that's why we don't believe that Israel's attack on Gaza has anything to do with Hamas. We think it's a smokescreen that's being used to divert attention from the real objectives of the campaign.

And, what might those "real objectives" be?

The real objectives relate to an issue that is never discussed in the media, but is the primary factor driving events. Demographics.

As we all know, Israel's long-term plan is to incorporate Gaza and the West Bank into Greater Israel. They want to control all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The problem is, however, that if they annex the occupied territories without disposing of the people, then the Palestinian population will equal or exceed that of the Jews which would lead to the demise of the Jewish state. That is the basic problem in a nutshell. Check out this article that helps to explain what's going on:

Question: The launch of the special military operation in Ukraine and ensuing developments, including an unprecedented deterioration of our relations with the West, was the main event of the outgoing year. Do you think the conflict in Ukraine can last a long time, say, five years? What should we brace for? Is a direct military confrontation with the countries that support Kiev possible?

Sergey Lavrov: The actions of the countries of the collective West and Vladimir Zelensky, who is controlled by them, confirm the global nature of the Ukraine crisis. It is no longer a secret that victory over Russia "on the battlefield" is the strategic goal of the United States and its NATO allies. They see it as a mechanism to significantly degrade or even destroy our country. Our opponents are ready to do much to accomplish this goal.

The United States is the main beneficiary of the military conflict as it seeks to reap biggest benefits from it in economic and military-strategic terms. At the same time, Washington is addressing an important geopolitical goal, which is to destroy the traditional ties between Russia and Europe and to overpower its European satellites even more.

The United States is doing everything to draw out and exacerbate this conflict. The Pentagon is openly planning more orders for the US defence industry for years to come, keeps raising the bar for military spending to cover the needs of the Ukrainian forces and wants other members of the anti-Russia alliance to do the same. The Kiev regime is deliberately flooded with the most advanced weapons, including samples that have not yet been put into service in the Western armies apparently in order to see how they will do in combat conditions. The volume of military aid provided to the regime has exceeded $40 billion since February, which is comparable to military budgets of many European countries. We are also aware of the fact that the US political circles are increasingly thinking about drawing Ukraine into NATO using every available avenue.