By Ano Develay for TID

As is usually the norm in this conflict zone, we had not received prior notice as to the day’s schedule.

Our vehicle worked its way to a district outside Donetsk called Shakhtersk which bore the stigmata of nine years of shelling. The grim landscape of desolation stretched for miles on end until suddenly our convoy arrived at a nondescript location where a small crowed had gathered obviously in anticipation of our arrival.

Ismail Hakkı Pekin

After years of interruption of diplomatic relations and even more, armed conflict, the governments of Türkiye and Syria have started direct communication. Defense Ministers and heads of intelligence of both countries met in Moscow under Russian mediation – an act that constituted a major turn in West Asian politics.

By Lucas Leiroz, researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant

Ethnic persecutions have been commonplace in Ukraine since 2014, when the Maidan coup d’état established a neo-Nazi dictatorship that began an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Donbass region, exterminating the Russian population. Now, however, the Kiev regime’s blacklist of ethnicities appears to be expanding. Several sources report that Ukrainian citizens of Hungarian ethnicity are being systematically sent to the front lines of the current conflict. The objective would supposedly be to exterminate the Hungarian population inhabiting Transcarpathia, which raises concerns in the Hungarian government and increases the possibility of internationalization of the conflict.

On January 25 Germany and the United States decided to provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks totaling 45 (respectively: 14 + 31). Some European countries also intend to join these supplies that could reach around 300 main battle and light tanks during this year. The Pentagon official said that collected ‘the armor basket’ could include 300 tanks and ACV/APC during 2023. It will be 28^th ‘basket’ of lethal military supplies of the transatlantic alliance to Ukraine that started on a massive scale in 2022.