Heading towards World War III?

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday backed plans to allow volunteers, including from abroad, to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine, where he has sent thousands of Russian troops in what he calls a ‘special military operation’ to help Donbass region. These fighters had fought along with Russia in Syria as well. Russia’s war against Ukraine has already entered its third week. So far, Ukraine has stalled Russian advances to their capital Kyiv. Ukraine has sought a no fly zone over the country to stop Russian bombing, but the west has denied it.

Russia says it has signed up some 16,000 recruits from the Middle East to fight with its forces in Ukraine.

Social media in Syria has been flooded with requests for people to join Russian troops in return for up to $7,000 for deployment.

One former Syrian regime soldier who has been offered thousands of dollars to fight in the war told BBC News Arabic that his country's broken economy means hundreds of Syrians are putting themselves forward.

www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-60931180

The Russian military has presented documents showing Ukraine’s interest in using drones to deliver weaponized pathogens developed in US-funded biolabs. Names of US officials involved in the biolabs projects, and the role the current US president’s son played in the program, were also made public during the special briefing on Thursday.

One of the key pieces of evidence was a letter from the Ukrainian company Motor Sich to the Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar Makina – makers of the Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci UAVs – dated December 15, 2021. The Ukrainians specifically asked if the drones could carry 20 liters of aerosolized payload to a range of 300 kilometers – putting them in range of a dozen major Russian cities and almost all of Belarus.

“We are talking about the development by the Kiev regime of technical means of delivery and use of biological weapons with the possibility of their use against the Russian Federation,” said Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces.

www.rt.com/russia/553067-ukraine-biolabs-hunter-biden-documents

A biolab in Ukraine has allegedly conducted unethical human experiments on behalf of the US government, Russia’s defense ministry claimed on Thursday, in its latest update on Pentagon-funded research in the country.

The allegations concern a laboratory located in Merefa, a city in Ukraine’s Kharkov region, located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of the provincial capital. The Russian military claimed that “American scientists from the lab” conducted a series of human experiments between 2019 and 2021, using patients at a psychiatric ward in Kharkov as subjects.

The research involved testing “potentially dangerous biological preparations,” the ministry claimed, without explaining what exactly was being tested.

www.rt.com/russia/553878-ukraine-biolab-human-experiments

Ukraine is expecting to be granted access to $400 billion worth of frozen Russian assets for the country’s reconstruction fund, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko, said in an interview with the local Ukraine 24 news outlet.

“We are talking primarily about the $300 billion frozen Russian Central Bank reserves… [and] the frozen assets of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, which includes several hundred people outside the country,”

www.rt.com/business/553166-russian-foreign-assets-ukraine

The recovery of the Russian ruble indicates that the West's sanctions on Moscow are not serving their purpose, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday. A large number of states, including all the EU's members, imposed restrictions on Russia after it attacked Ukraine in late February.

“I must say this very clearly: the sanctions we have imposed so far don’t work. The best evidence is the ruble exchange rate,” Morawiecki said on Saturday.

www.rt.com/russia/553175-poland-sanctions-russian-ruble

The US will be sending an additional $300 million in military aid to Ukraine, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced on Friday.

He added that the package will include laser-guided rocket systems, switchblade tactical drones which are capable of taking out armored vehicles, Puma surveillance drones, armored Humvees, ammunition, night-vision devices, machine guns, communications equipment, medical supplies, and other items.

www.rt.com/news/553167-us-ukraine-military-aid

British energy major Shell will not be able to buy Russian gas due to London’s anti-Russia sanctions, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the media on Saturday.

“London wants to be the leader of everything anti-Russian. It even wants to be ahead of Washington! That’s the cost!” Peskov outlined.

He was referring to the fact that the UK is the only country to have imposed sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, through which payments for Russian natural gas are made. The measure effectively denies Britain the ability to pay for the commodity.

www.rt.com/russia/553155-uk-wont-get-russian-gas