Russia to Deploy Game-Changing Weapon

Many have heard of UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles. Prepare yourself for the advent of the UUV, the unmanned underwater vehicle. If you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s not very exciting”, read on. Russia has completed production of the Poseidon, a nuclear capable super torpedo. The weapon measures 80 feet long, travels over 110 km/hr, and can reach a depth of 3000 feet. Designed to deploy on Russia’s Belgorod class nuclear submarines, it is not the torpedo’s size nor speed that is most frightening. It is its strength. Detonating with power 3300 times greater than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima, this weapon is designed to trigger a radioactive tsunami that will destroy coastal cities and make them uninhabitable for decades. This is a game-changing weapon. Listen to my Breaking News Update from Tuesday for more information.

Belarus’s Role in Russia/Ukraine Conflict Growing

Belarus has become a launching pad for Russian bombers and missiles, as was evidenced by a major attack last Saturday originating in that country. Many see Moscow pressuring Minsk to join the war, and many others see Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko all too eager to do so. Now the two countries have begun joint air force drills that will last until February 1. But before anyone gets too concerned about these drills, First Deputy State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council Pavel Muraveyko was quick to offer reassurance that the “exercise is purely defensive in nature.” This Belarusian fear of invasion is totally logical since the Ukrainians apparently don’t have enough to do already trying to get the Russians out of their country.

Massive Russian Cruise Missile Barrage Devastates Many Ukrainian Cities

After a nearly two-week layoff, Russia restarted their cruise missile attacks with an enormous barrage on Saturday. Cities throughout Ukraine were hit. The targets were both civilian and infrastructure-related, and the electrical supply to most citizens country wide was cut off. Particularly hard hit was Dnipro where a missile slammed into an apartment building, killing at least nine and wounding 64 more.

Ukrainian Cabinet Minister Killed in Helicopter Crash

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky and most of his staff were among those killed when a helicopter crashed near a kindergarten in Kyiv. The estimates of the dead are between 14 and 20, with at least one being a child. Eleven children were included among the 25 injured. While it is unclear whether the crash was due to fog or if it was a casualty of war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t prepared to make those kinds of distinctions. “There are no accidents at wartime,” he said. “These are all war results.”

US Ammunition to Ukraine can Degrade Russian/Israeli Relations

The United States keeps a large stockpile of military weapons in Israel in case they are needed in the Middle East. Of late, America has been dipping into it to send thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine. This has the very real possibility of further damaging the already deteriorating relations between Russia and Israel, even though Israel has nothing to do with the transfers. Evidence of the growing divide can be seen in yesterday’s minimization of the Holocaust by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when he accused the United States of assembling a coalition of European countries to solve the “Russian question” in the same way that Adolf Hitler had implemented a “final solution” to wipe out European Jews. 

Iran to Send Syrian Hezbollah Terrorists to Aid Russia

A Syrian opposition source has reported that Iran is about to send 150 Hezbollah operatives from Syria to Ukraine to assist the Russians in flying the drones that Tehran has supplied them. This Iran/Syria/Russia arms relationship figures heavily in what will be the third book of my Nir Tavor Mossad Thriller Series. Again, the novels and the news are paralleling each other, this time before the book is even completed!

Former Iranian Deputy Minister and British Citizen Executed

Former Iranian Deputy Defense Minister and British-Iranian Dual Citizen Alireza Akbari has been executed. After his arrest in 2019, he was convicted of being a spy for the UK. His execution has stirred up outrage in the international community, and particularly within the UK government. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that Akbari’s execution was a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime.” The former minister was also accused of involvement in the assassination of “Father of the Iranian Nuclear Program” Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

European Parliament Declares IRGC a Terror Organization

With an overwhelming 598-9 vote, the European Parliament Wednesday called on the EU to declare Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terror organization. Citing Tehran’s “terrorist activity, the repression of protesters, and its supplying of drones to Russia,” the legislative body urged this next step understanding that by taking it the EU would then consider it a criminal offence to belong to the IRGC, would freeze any of its assets held in the European bloc, and would deny the group funds from any EU citizen or business. 

Erdogan Blocking Approval of Nordic States to NATO

Turkey continues to play hardball with the NATO applications of Sweden and Finland. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the two nations of harboring Kurdish militants and those involved in the 2016 coup attempt against him. In comments on Sunday, Erdogan said, “For this to pass the [Turkish] parliament, first of all you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us.” Membership into NATO requires approval of all 30 member states, and, so far, Turkey and Hungary remain the lone holdouts.

Saudi Arabia Prepared to Break Free from the US Dollar

During an interview in Davos, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Finance Mohammed Al-Jadaan surprised the world’s oil industry by saying that they are open to the possibility of conducting oil trade in a currency other than the US dollar. “There are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in the US dollar, whether it is the euro, whether it is the Saudi riyal,” he said. This is another blow to the dominance of the dollar in world trade.

Israel Gets New IDF Chief of Staff

Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi was sworn in as the new chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Monday, taking over from Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi. In a time of transition from the destructive “government of change”, Halevi has promised to keep politics out of the IDF.

He also took the opportunity to send a warning to those opposing Israel, saying, “Our enemies should know: We can do what we say we will do, and we are ready to do much more than what we say.”