In November, Saudi Arabia became the main importer of fuel oil and vacuum gas oil from Russian ports, Reuters reports , citing data from traders and data from the London Stock Exchange Group. Reuters estimated that the total volume of fuel oil and vacuum gas oil that Russia ships from its ports rose six percent in November from October to about 4.26 million tons. Of this volume, Russia supplied 850 thousand tons to Saudi Arabia - an increase of 29 percent compared to the previous month.

The Federal Security Service claims to have foiled several assassination attempts on senior Defense Ministry officials involved in the war against Ukraine. Security forces reported that they detained four Russian citizens who were preparing murders on instructions from the Ukrainian special services. One of them tried to blow up the official car of an official, whose driver is his father-in-law.

Social anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova and linguist Daniil Skorinkin found out that a former graduate student from Yekaterinburg, Ivan Abaturov, was hiding behind the pseudonym of the famous Russian informer Anna Korobkova. This was reported by the BBC Russian Service.

Two employees of the Russian embassy in Argentina took turns refusing to get out of their cars at the request of the local police and undergo an alcohol test. One diplomat, stubbornly, sat in the car for about an hour, the other for three hours, reported the Argentine publication Clarin. The police raid, which traditionally checks drivers in Buenos Aires after Christmas Eve, was broadcast by several television channels, including TN.

A taxi driver crashed into a group of pedestrians in New York on Christmas Day. As a result, at least six people were injured, Fox News reported . The city police department clarified that the incident occurred in the center of Manhattan. The car drove into a group of people in Herald Square at the corner of 6th Avenue and West 34th Street. This place is noted to be popular with Protestants and Catholics who celebrated Christmas the day before. Police said the taxi driver was a 58-year-old man.

Maria Khairulina moved from Donetsk to Voronezh in 2017, when active hostilities were taking place in Donbass. She found a decent job and took out a low-interest mortgage on a three-room apartment, in which she lives with her mother, teenage son and big cat. Now she works as the head of the marketing department and is trying to save, but she cannot save, since Maria needs to pay off loans, prepare her son for admission to university, and also help her sick mother.

A Taiwanese man pretended to be three different people and was able to deceive the scammers who had previously stolen more than $20,000 from his father. This was reported by the South China Morning Post. According to the publication, the man's father became a victim of online investment fraud. He was convinced to invest 700 thousand Taiwan dollars in cash (21.4 thousand US dollars).

Advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine Mikhail Podolyak called the Western allies’ proposal to lower the conscription age in Ukraine from 25 years to 18 years illogical. He spoke about this in an interview with Kholod. Podolyak noted that the discussion about lowering the conscription age in Ukraine speaks of “the desire of [Western countries] to avoid difficult issues.” He added that the Ukrainian army needs, first of all, weapons, which should be more high-tech than Russian ones.

They want to oblige mobile operators to freeze money in subscribers' accounts and cut off their communications at the request of the court, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Customs Service or the prosecutor's office. This is how the authorities want to protect Russians from fraud, Vedomosti writes with reference to the Government bill.

Chinese authorities, amid a demographic crisis, have stepped up a nationwide campaign to persuade single people to date, get married and have children. The Financial Times (FT) writes about this. “China faces three major challenges: aging, low birth rates and low marriage rates. There are fewer children and more elderly people. The speed and scale of China’s aging is unprecedented,” says renowned Chinese economist Ren Zeping.

The willingness to support Ukraine until it wins the war with Russia has sharply declined among Europeans. This is evidenced by data from a YouGov survey, the results of which are published by The Guardian. The survey was conducted in December in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and the UK. Its results showed that the public's desire to support Ukraine to victory has fallen sharply in all seven countries over the past 12 months.

President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping will simultaneously face five challenges in the future, one of which is a possible rapprochement between Moscow and Washington after US President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Bloomberg writes . Thus, after the inauguration, which will take place on January 20, an escalation of tensions in Chinese-American relations is possible. Trump previously promised to increase duties on Chinese imports to 60%.

The cause of the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane in Kazakhstan was a Russian surface-to-air missile launched at the airliner in Chechnya. A source in the Azerbaijani government told Euronews about this. According to the source, the damaged plane was prohibited from landing in Russia, despite the pilots' requests for an emergency landing. The news is being updated... In order not to miss the main materials of “Cold”, subscribe to our social networks!

Experts have named five consumer trends in the coming 2025, which, in their opinion, can attract buyers. They argue that marketers should pay attention to the popularity of TikTok shopping, video podcasts and sports broadcasts. The Wall Street Journal writes about this. According to experts, food has now become a status symbol on social networks, along with clothing.

In the Russian life safety textbook for the ninth grade, authored by Vangorodsky, Kuznetsov, Latchuk and Markov, schoolgirls are given recommendations on how to avoid violence, and they claim that many related incidents are the fault of the girls themselves. This is described in the section “Safe Behavior of Girls,” noted the head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, in her Telegram channel.