Russia

China did not need to fire a shot in Ukraine to come out ahead; it only had to wait while the West bled will and capacity and Russia slid, predictably, into Beijing’s pocket.

BRICS navies are flexing off South Africa as the U.S. shifts Army forces toward the Indo-Pacific, Trump escalates rhetoric on owning Greenland for Arctic defense, and Taiwan searches for a missing F-16V while grounding its fleet for safety checks.

Maduro remains in U.S. custody as Venezuelans celebrate and stabilization plans take shape, RAF Typhoons struck an ISIS weapons cache in Syria, Wagner continues fueling Sudan’s RSF proxy war, and gunmen killed at least 30 in a raid in Nigeria.

Delta Force with DEVGRU support removed Nicolás Maduro as the U.S. moves toward prosecution and a short stabilization plan, Iran threatened U.S. forces after Trump warned Tehran over killing protesters, and Russia claimed Huliaipole while Ukraine and independent mappers describe a heavily contested gray zone in Zaporizhzhia.

Iran escalated its rhetoric to “total war,” Russian forces drew outrage by using horses in frontline assaults, the Department of War flagged hazardous operating zones north of Venezuela amid rising regional pressure, and a gunman attacked a sheriff’s office in Wallace, Idaho, wounding three before police killed him.

Russia battered Kyiv with a winter missile-and-drone strike as Canada announced new Ukraine aid ahead of Florida talks, Thailand and Cambodia moved to lock in a ceasefire, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland sparked a regional flare-up, and Yemen’s south shifted as the STC expanded while the Houthis held the north.

China sanctioned 20 U.S. defense firms and 10 executives over a record Taiwan arms package, Russian “hillbilly armor” got chewed up by Ukrainian drones near Pokrovsk, and the Department of War had to tell troops in Bahrain to stop ordering sexual wellness products that local customs keeps seizing.

Armed with amphibious rifles, Russian Spetsnaz turn the waterline into a kill zone instead of a transition point.

After a deadly ambush near Palmyra, US forces hit more than 70 ISIS targets across central Syria in a heavy retaliation strike meant to keep ISIS cells from regrouping. Russia is pounding Odesa while massing forces near Pokrovsk, and back home a Bellevue officer-involved shooting is under review by King County’s independent investigators as both the officer and suspect recover.

Trump’s National Security Strategy reads like a needless pickaxe to America’s European alliances while offering a transactional “reset” with Russia that risks trading long-standing democratic commitments and regional stability for short-term political and economic convenience.

Floods in Washington, a brutal drone-and-missile strike in Ukraine, and a new UK intel superstructure all point to the same truth: when things go sideways, it’s the quiet professionals on watch, on shift, and on the ground who keep people alive. And on the Army National Guard’s 388th birthday, the message is simple: everyone loves the Guard the moment the mission gets real, because these citizen-soldiers show up, do the unsexy work, and hold the line.

Ukraine is plugging more women into the drone fight on the front line, while back home Pete Hegseth is pushing U.S. industry to crank out weapons faster for the next war, and Poland is set to grab about 250 U.S. Strykers for a buck each to beef up NATO’s eastern flank.