They want the war to continue in Ukraine, no matter what they say: Viktor Orban

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in an interview said, “Everyone says they want peace in Ukraine, but there’s still war. That means someone is lying,” he said, accusing some parties of having a vested interest in prolonging the bloodshed. “They want the war to continue, no matter what they say.”

Orban has called for an in-person meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, describing it as the only realistic path to ending the Ukraine conflict.

The conflict will not stop until the Russian and American presidents sit down at the negotiating table,” Orban added. He expressed hope that such a meeting could lay the foundation for a broad agreement addressing not only Ukraine, but also global trade and arms control.

F-16 fighter jets to be based in Ukraine — White House

WASHINGTON-F-16 fighter jets to be transferred by the West to Kiev will be based inside Ukraine, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

“The F-16s will be based in Ukraine,” he said.

The official didn’t provide details when asked whether the F-16s in Ukraine’s possession will take off from NATO bases when operating against Russian forces.

Sullivan refused to say how many fighter jets will be transferred to Kiev in total, and exactly when they could start combat missions.

“Those are just things I can’t share for operational reasons. What we have said is that the transfer is underway, and that Ukrainian pilots will be operating in theater this summer in F-16s,” he said.

According to the official, this equipment will help Kiev “defend the forces on the front line and also help Ukraine as it seeks down the road to take back territory.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that deliveries of new weapons, including F-16s, to Ukraine would not change the situation on the battlefield, but would lead to a prolongation of the situation. He also noted that the fighter jets, if Ukraine comes to operate them, will burn just like any other much-touted Western military equipment.

Paris justifies nuclear ties with Moscow

France will not withdraw from a contract with Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom for reprocessing uranium, as doing so would be beneficial for Moscow, the French energy transition minister has claimed.

Under the 2018 deal, regenerated uranium from France is delivered to Russia, where it is enriched and then sent back. The recycled uranium is used to run France’s nuclear power plants.

Terminating the contract would generate higher compensation for the Russian government than merely continuing imports at a minimum level, Agnes Pannier-Runacher told the BFM Business channel on Tuesday.

In March, Greenpeace reported that France had tripled imports of Russian enriched uranium in 2022. According to the organization, the deliveries confirmed France’s dependence on the Russian nuclear industry, which has not been targeted by Western sanctions.

Pannier-Runacher later denied that the operation of France’s nuclear power plants depended on Russia, noting that France resorted only “to a very modest extent to natural uranium enrichment services in Russia, as well as conversion and re-enrichment services for reprocessed uranium to improve cycle efficiency.”

France “could totally do without it as this last activity can be entirely substituted by natural uranium,” the energy minister told Montel News at the time.

Statistics showed that last year the French energy corporation EDF purchased 153 tons of uranium enriched in Russia, the same level as in 2021. Russia accounts for 15% of enrichment activities for EDF.RT

Europe is bleeding over the sanctions on Russia: Hungarian PM

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has repeatedly called for “the failed policy of Brussels” to be changed, noting that the sanctions “didn’t fulfill the hopes that were pinned on them,” while Europe is “slowly bleeding.”

The European Union has exhausted its options for further economic restrictions against Russia. But even after the ten rounds of sanctions in response to the Ukraine conflict and currently working on an eleventh package of punitive measures against Moscow, EU officials have admitted that those parts of the Russian economy that were left unsanctioned are parts that one or more EU member states “can’t live without,” and thus measures targeting them would be vetoed.

One of the EU officials told that“We are done, “If we do more sanctions, there will be more exemptions than measures.” Officials have admitted that the embargo harms the EU and West more than Moscow.

Newly planned restrictions could reportedly target Russia’s nuclear fuel and services exports, but those would be opposed by some member-states, such as France, Hungary, and others.

Ukraine will disappear: Medvedev

Ukraine is a mistake created by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that Ukraine will disappear because its Western backers, the rest of the world, and even its own citizens have no need for the troubled country to keep existing.

“Why would Ukraine disappear? Because nobody needs it,” Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, wrote in a post on the VK social network on Saturday.

The EU doesn’t need Ukraine because supporting the country amid the conflict with Russia “on the order of their American mentor, plunged the Europeans into a real financial and political hell,” he insisted. Detrimental anti-Russia sanctions, spiking inflation, high energy prices, and the “decay” of businesses have already led to protests in various parts of the continent, the official pointed out.

“The prospect of decisively planting Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the neck of the shriveling EU” is real and, if it happens, it’s going to signal the demise of the bloc, Medvedev warned.

Kiev’s prime backer, the US, doesn’t need Ukraine either, because most ordinary Americans have no idea where it’s located and consider it “some abstract part of Russia,” the post read. They wonder “why the establishment in the US isn’t trying to deal with inflation and [the lack of] jobs or emergencies in their home states, but is instead occupied with this 404 country,” the former president wrote, referring to the “404 error” protocol in network communications.

Former president urges Russians to pirate Western content
Only “political demagogues” in Washington, “who have long conceded their impotence and dementia, are trying to make PR gains from military and sanctions campaigns,” he added.

Africa and Latin America reject Ukraine because the “billions that the US is wasting on senseless battles somewhere in Ukraine would’ve been enough to fund many social-development programs” in those regions, Medvedev wrote.

Asian countries don’t need Ukraine because, through the example of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, “they see how the technologies of ‘color revolutions’ are being developed to eliminate the largest competing powers. They understand what scenario the collective West, led by the US, has prepared for them in case of disobedience,” the official explained. Besides, Russia is much closer to such nations as China and India in a geopolitical sense and has historically proven to be their reliable partner, he added.

Medvedev also claimed that Russia doesn’t need Ukraine because the country is “a mistake created by the collapse of the Soviet Union,” .