Russia reacts strongly to the idea of the US seizing ANY Russian assets it can find to be turned over to the Ukraine….
They are talking about severing ties with the US….
They seem to implying that NO settlement would be done with Ukraine if the US goes ahead with seizures….
This IS aimed straight at President Biden who tends to NOT want to take strong Foreign Affairs action…..
And?
Works against the feelings from American lawmakers and public for a settlement of the conflict that has had the US send Billions in aid to Ukraine….There IS a American Presidential election coming and Donald Trump, running against Biden, is sure to be more sympathetic to the Russian President’s goals than Biden and Europe…
The Dutch are looking to send the first wave of American built F-16’s to Ukraine soon, with Ukraine trained pilots….
It appears that Europe and Russia are stocking up short and medium range missiles….
Poland maybe sending Ukraine aid money….
Drone wars continue …..
A plea below for the US to NOT walk away from supporting Ukraine against Russia….
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Russia may sever diplomatic ties with the US if Washington confiscates Russian assets frozen over the Ukrainian conflict, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, as saying on Friday.
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Russia will never leave in peace any country that seizes its assets, the Kremlin said on Friday, saying it would look at what western assets it could seize in retaliation in such a scenario. The Kremlin was commenting on an idea being actively discussed in the west, where some politicians have suggested that frozen Russian assets worth $300bn be handed to Ukraine.
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The Dutch government will send an initial 18 F-16 jets to Ukraine,President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Friday following a conversation with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte.
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Russia is ready to swiftly respond in kind to Washington deploying short- and medium-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said.
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The Kremlin accused the Wall Street Journal of publishing “pulp fiction” on Friday after it reported that the death of the mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash had been orchestrated by a Russian security official, Nikolai Patrushev.
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A top Russian diplomat has said Moscow and Washington were still engaged in sensitive negotiations over a prisoner exchange, but accused the US side of leaking details to the media.
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The United States said on Friday it would place sanctions on foreign banks that supported Russia’s war in Ukraine, in a new bid to exert economic pressure on Moscow as it diversifies from the west to China.
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The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, visited Kyiv on Friday to present an aid package for Ukraine on his first official foreign visit, a ministry spokesperson said.
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, held a telephone call with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Friday to discuss ways to de-escalate the conflict in Gaza as well as humanitarian relief efforts, the Kremlin said.
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The renowned Russian writer Boris Akunin, who was declared a terrorist by Moscow and became the target of a criminal inquiry this week, says he fears the moves signal a new milestone in the country’s history under Vladimir Putin. “Putin’s regime has clearly decided to take a very important new step on its way from a police, autocratic state to a totalitarian state,” Akunin, who lives in exile, told Agence France-Presse…..
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Ukrainian officials continue to warn that Russia maintains its maximalist objectives and additional goals for territorial conquest in Ukraine, despite recent comments made by Western officials suggesting that Russia is already defeated. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated on December 22 that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has lost Ukraine altogether” and can “no longer achieve its war goals,” which is a “major strategic defeat.”
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Allowing Russia to win its war in Ukraine would be a self-imposed strategic defeat for the United States. The United States would face the risk of a larger and costlier war in Europe. The United States would face the worst threat from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a victorious Russia would likely emerge reconstituted and more determined to undermine the United States — and confident that it can. A Russian victory would diminish America’s deterrence around the world, emboldening others with an explicit or latent intent to harm the United States. A Russian victory would create an ugly world in which the atrocities associated with Russia’s way of war and way of ruling the populations under its control are normalized. Most dangerous of all, however, US adversaries would learn that they can break America’s will to act in support of their strategic interests.