Moscow's forces are now improving their position everywhere on the battlefield, the defense minister has said...

Thwarting Ukraine's counteroffensive was the Russian military's main goal this year and it has been successfully fulfilled, Russia's Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said.

During a teleconference with top commanders on Tuesday, Shoigu said:

"Russian forces are steadily moving towards achieving the goals of the country's military operation in Ukraine. The 'main' goal in 2023 was to thwart the much-hyped counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, announced by Ukraine and its NATO allies. This task had been successfully fulfilled."

According to the minister, the key factors that allowed the Russian military to repel Ukrainian attempts to advance were:

"The creation of an effective system of defensive lines, the high combat capability of all units, the reliability and effectiveness of Russian military equipment.

"And above all, the skillful and decisive actions of the defenders of the Fatherland, who are acting selflessly to ensure the safety of our country and its citizens."

The New York Times is facing backlash after publishing an op-ed written by the Hamas-backed mayor of Gaza City describing the state of the Gaza Strip amid the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group that broke out in early October.

The news outlet published the op-ed on Sunday, written by Yahya Sarraj, mayor of Gaza, of which Hamas has been the de facto governing body for more than a decade. The essay laments the actions of the Israeli military, particularly after its invasion of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27 in retaliation to the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.

More than 20,000 people have died in Gaza since Israel began its counterattack, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, and troops have destroyed roughly half of the buildings in the area. But Sarraj faulted the Israeli military for something greater: the loss of the Gazan culture.

"The Israelis have also pulverized something else: Gaza City's cultural riches and municipal institutions. The unrelenting destruction of Gaza — its iconic symbols, its beautiful seafront, its libraries and archives and whatever economic prosperity it had — has broken my heart."

The West is rapidly degrading, while the economies of Russia and the Global South are growing, Maksim Oreshkin says...

The US insistence on sanctioning Russia has caused a downturn in the EU economy, according to President Vladimir Putin's top economic adviser, Maksim Oreshkin.

In an interview with Expert magazine published on Tuesday, Oreshkin said the sanctions imposed since February last year have caused the EU to lose both its energy security and a key export market.

Oreshkin pointed to the key factors underlying the EU's economic prosperity, outlined by the bloc's Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell. They include easy availability of energy resources from Russia, the use of cheap production in China, and access to the Russian and Chinese markets.

The use of techniques applied during the Maidan coup in Ukraine was "obvious," according to the Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman...

Attempts by protestors to storm the Belgrade city administration building on Sunday were part of a plot by Western countries to overthrow the Serbian government, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Thousands of pro-Western demonstrators attempted to break into government buildings in the capital on Sunday evening following the victory of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) over the pro-EU Serbia Against Violence (SPN) coalition in parliamentary elections.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has labeled the protests an attempted color revolution - a term used to describe movements funded and organized by Western countries, usually the US, aimed at toppling world leaders opposed to Washington's interests.

In a statement to TASS on Monday, Zakharova agreed with the Serbian leader's suspicions and said that "attempts of the collective West to shake up the situation in [Serbia] using the techniques of Maidan coups are obvious."

2023 may be defined for posterity as The Year of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership. This wonder of wonders could easily sway under a groove by - who else - Stevie Wonder: "Here I am baby/ signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours."

In the first 11 months of 2023, trade between Russia and China exceeded $200 billion; they did not expect to achieve that until 2024.

Now surely that's One Partnership Under a Groove. Once again signed, sealed and delivered during the visit of a large delegation to Beijing last week, led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and revisited and upgraded the whole spectrum of the comprehensive partnership/strategic cooperation, complete with an array of new, major joint projects.

Simultaneously, on the Great Game 2.0 front, everything that need to be reaffirmed was touched by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's detailed interview to Dimitri Simes on his Great Game show.

Add to it the carefully structured breakdown written by head of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin, defining 2024 as "the year of geopolitical awakening", and coming up with arguably the key formulation following the upcoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the steppes of Donbass: "In 2024, the Arab world will remain the main space in the struggle for the establishment of a new order."

Confronted with such detailed geopolitical fine-tuning, it's no wonder the imperial reaction was apoplexy - revealed epidermically in long, tortuous "analyses" trying to explain why President Putin turned out to be the "geopolitical victor" of 2023, seducing vast swathes of the Arab world and the Global South, solidifying BRICS side by side with China, and propelling the EU further into a black void of its own - and the Hegemon's - making.

Putin even allowed himself, half in jest, to offer Russian support for the potential "re-annexation" of country 404 border regions once annexed by Stalin, eventually to be returned to former owners Poland, Hungary & Romania. He added that he is 100% certain this is what residents of those still Ukrainian borders want.

Were that to happen, we would have Transcarpathia back to Hungary; Galicia and Volyn back to Poland; and Bukovina back to Romania. Can you feel the house already rocking to the break of dawn in Budapest, Warsaw and Bucharest?

Then there's the possibility of the Hegemon ordering NATO's junior punks to harass Russian oil tankers in the Baltic Sea and "isolate" St. Petersburg. It goes without saying that the Russian response would be to just take out Command & Control centers (hacking might be enough); burn electronics across the spectrum; and blockade the Baltic at the entrance by running a "Freedom of Navigation" exercise so everyone becomes familiar with the new groove.

The United States has sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships loaded with weapons and military equipment to Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7, according to Israeli media on Monday.

The US military assistance includes artillery shells, armored vehicles and basic combat tools for soldiers, Yediot Ahronoth newspaper reported.

Israel's Defense Ministry estimates the cost of the current war on the Gaza Strip at around 65 billion shekels ($17 billion).

The Indian Navy has dispatched guided missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea after an attack on an Israel-linked chemical tanker off its coast, the Ministry of Defence said.

Three stealth-guided destroyers were deployed "in various areas of the sea" to "maintain a deterrent presence" considering the "recent spate of attacks in the Arabian Sea", the ministry said in a statement late on Monday. It was also using long-range maritime patrol aircraft for "domain awareness", it said.

The United States claimed that the December 23 strike on MV Chem Pluto in the Indian Ocean was "fired from Iran", an accusation that Tehran has dismissed as baseless.

Officials say vessels switch off radios to avoid detection, but Iranian vessel enables Houthi drones and missiles to accurately target ships.

Iran is providing real-time intelligence to Yemen's Houthis that the rebels are using to direct drone and missile attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing Western and regional security officials.

According to the officials, a surveillance vessel controlled by Iran's paramilitary forces in the Red Sea is gathering tracking information and passing it to the Houthis, who have used it to attack commercial vessels passing through the Bab el-Mandeb strait in recent days.

The Colorado Supreme Court, acting as supplicants for the enemies of Donald Trump seeking the most extreme remedy for driving the former president into the ditch, may have just unwittingly gifted the former president a Rocky Mountain high - in the polls.

This time, four left-wing Colorado justices attempting to kneecap Trump were not even going to wait on due process - the very foundation of law - to effectively declare Trump guilty of insurrection, a crime for which he has not, repeat not, even been charged. After believing their attempts to wipe Trump off the ballot would be a knockout punch, it is the left that is about to get walloped to the canvas with a right hook.

But how, you say, is this good news for Trump? Let us count the ways. First, we know that every time he has been targeted and indicted based on novel legal theories never before applied, his popularity has only increased. Second, this decision provides him with yet more valuable and indisputable evidence - perhaps the best yet - supporting his claim of persecution by the establishment left. He can enjoy that benefit without the liability of actually being banned from the ballot once the U.S. Supreme Court likely shoots down the Colorado ruling, thus bringing similar efforts in other states to a halt.

The perils of urban warfare, coupled with operational issues within the army, appear to be hobbling Israel's advance.

The Israeli army's reaction to the Hamas attacks of October 7 has so far gone through four distinct phases.

The first, which started within hours of the incursion into the territory of Israel, was mostly aerial bombardment as revenge and preparation for next steps. The second phase saw the infantry and artillery enter the northern areas of the Gaza Strip from three directions, advancing towards Gaza City to cut it off from the remainder of the Palestinian territory.

In the third phase, Israel's army completed the encirclement at the fringes of the city, making some limited advances, probes towards the centre. In the current, fourth phase, Israeli soldiers are making slow progress towards the centre of Gaza City, engaging in proper urban fighting.