The world will continue to teeter on the brink of disaster until Moscow receives the security guarantees it demands, Dmitry Medvedev believes | Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and current deputy chair of the country's Security Council, has issued a reminder of the dangers of nuclear brinkmanship amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In a lengthy article in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, he summarized his thoughts on how the year 2022 has changed the world order forever. 💬 “The only thing that stops our enemies today is the understanding that Russia will be guided by [the doctrine] on nuclear deterrence. And if there is a real threat, we will act,” Medvedev wrote in the article published on Sunday night. In such a grim scenario there will be nobody left to argue about whether that was “a retaliatory strike or a preventive one.” “Therefore, the Western world is balancing between a burning desire to maximally humiliate, dismember and destroy Russia, on the one hand, and the desire to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, on the other,” he explained. Until Russia receives the security guarantees it has demanded, the world “will continue to teeter on the brink of World War III and nuclear catastrophe,” Medvedev wrote, noting that Moscow is doing “everything we can to prevent it.” ● Russia presented a list of security proposals to the US and NATO last December, including urging the West to impose a ban on Ukraine entering the military bloc, while insisting that NATO should retreat to its borders of 1997. After the US and NATO flatly refused, saying they would only be interested in limited strategic arms control talks, it became obvious that Moscow had “no one to talk and nothing to negotiate about” Medvedev argued. And when in February “Ukrainian junkies announced their desire to revive their nuclear arsenal,” Moscow had no other choice but to act, he claimed. 💬 “Our world has changed, forever. And the main question remains… what kind of future begins today?” he wrote. “New disarmament agreements are currently unrealistic and unnecessary,” Medvedev reiterated. “The sooner the guarantees of maximum security that suit our country are received, the sooner the situation will normalize.”

■ The Risk of Nuclear Armageddon (Stephen Lendman)

Thomas Sheridan, Christian Morris, Greg Moffitt and myself [John Waters] engage in an epic conversation centred on the film Died Suddenly, the recently-released Stew Peters documentary about the poison-shot deaths and the emerging evidence from embalmers, undertakers and insurance brokers about the destruction of human life that has followed them.

● This is not a ‘review’ of the documentary so much as a discussion as to its implications heading off at multiple tangents. The discussion lasts almost two hours, covering all kinds of acute angles jutting out from the movie and its implications, including:

● Does evidence even matter anymore? Do facts matter? Is it possible for a piece of journalism, no matter how powerful or authoritative, to break though the massed ranks of liars now constituting the mainstream media, and hope to shatter the paradigm of the propagandised pseudo-reality? ● Is it possible that Died Suddenly will be the Trojan Horse to take the truth past the sentries into the heart of Western culture? ● Or, is the power of the orchestrated Groupthink sufficient to herd people into their required pens so that they will respond to each new intervention, no matter what its revelations, as the narrative demands? Can humanity develop quickly enough the new language it needs to deal with these and other confounding aspects of the present, continuing situation? What might be the implications of the answers to these questions for the condition of our freedom? What are the implications of the Covid episode for the cultural meanings that surround humanity and its mortal state?

● Died Suddenly appears to be reaching a respectably significant audience, despite being dismissed as both ‘conspiracy theory’ by the purchased media, and ‘controlled opposition’ by some of those who claim to oppose the Greatest Crime in History — a telltale paradoxical discordance that inevitably accompanies any genuine useful or threatening work in a time of near-universal industrial lying. ● Or, perhaps it’s really a sign of great potency when you are shot at by both sides.

The incident comes as Russia continues its special military operation in Ukraine, which was launched on February 24. | The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has stated that air defense systems downed a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over Russia's Engels Air Base on Monday. ● The MoD said that 💬 “on December 26, at about 1:35 Moscow time (22:35 GMT on December 25) the air defenses of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Ukrainian UAV as it was approaching the Engels military airfield in the Saratov region at low altitude.” ● According to the MoD, three Russian servicemen, who were at the airfield, had been fatally injured as a result of falling wreckage from the Ukrainian drone. The aviation equipment, inluding Russian strategic bombers, was not damaged in the incident, the MoD added. ● On December 5, the Ukrainian military tried to attack Russian military airfields in the Saratov and Ryazan regions with Soviet-made jet drones. The Russian air defense systems intercepted the UAVs, but three Russian soldiers were killed by falling debris from the drones. Two aircraft also received minor damages. On the same day, the Russian army launched a massive attack on infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.

■ Ukraine war: Drone attack on Russian bomber base leaves three dead (Ground News // Articles)
■ Three killed in Ukrainian drone attack on Russian airfield – MoD (RT.com)

China's military deployed to areas around Taiwan 71 planes and seven ships in 24 hours, according to the Taiwanese Defense Ministry. | Driving the news: The Chinese military's biggest incursion into Taiwan's air defense zone since Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the self-governing island in August occurred as Beijing denounced the U.S. over President Joe Biden signing into law Friday a defense spending bill that included provisions for Taiwan. ● The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a statement it detected 47 Chinese aircrafts cross the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am Sunday and 6am Monday local time. ● The Eastern Theatre Command of the Chinese Army said in a statement it conducted "joint combat readiness patrols and joint firepower strike drills" around Taiwan in a "resolute response to the current escalation of collusion and provocation from the United States and Taiwan."

45% of respondents to a YouGov survey spoke against delivering German Leopard 2 battle tanks to Kiev | Nearly half of Germans do not want to see the country’s Leopard 2 battle tanks handed over to Ukraine, a recent YouGov opinion poll has indicated. Kiev has been imploring Berlin for the hardware for several months now, to no avail. ● Media outlet Das Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), citing a YouGov survey, reported on Sunday that 45% of respondents opposed shipping Leopard 2 tanks to Kiev, while another 33% were in favor, with the remaining 22% undecided. ● The poll, commissioned by Die Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), also revealed that it is only among German Green Party supporters of the that the number of those backing sending tanks exceeds the number of skeptics, at 50% to 25%, respectively.

The fire spread so quickly that authorities had no other option but to let the fire burn the church to the ground. The absence of “reasonable causes” for the blaze that occurred during the Christmas service, coupled with yet another fire nearby, spurred suspicions of "foul play." | A preliminary investigation has been launched into a fire that completely destroyed a historic wooden church in the municipality of Rautjarvi in the region of South Karelia in southern Finland. The authorities said they had “reason to suspect” that the blaze that razed the Rautjärvi church was started intentionally, which is why the incident is being looked into as a case of aggravated property damage. ● According to the Police Department of Southeastern Finland, the fire in the Rautjärvi church broke out during a Christmas service on Sunday morning. While up to 40 worshippers had attended the service, everyone ended up being safely evacuated. The damage to the wooden church, however, was massive. The fire spread so quickly that authorities had no option but to let the blaze burn the building to the ground.