Tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside the National Assembly in South Korea. Police estimate that around 150,000 people took part in the protests. They demanded that lawmakers impeach President Yoon Seok-yeol.

Syrian opposition forces said they took control on Saturday of the southern city of Daraa on the Jordanian border, the site of an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. The withdrawal of government troops from this city 110 km from Damascus was reported by Reuters , Asharq Al Awsat , Al Hadath , AFP and a number of other media outlets. Videos on social media showed rebels on motorcycles and others mingling with residents on the streets.

Denmark handed over the second batch of F-16 fighters to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said , the planes are already in Ukraine. In total, Denmark was going to transfer 19 F-16 fighters to Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities announced the arrival of the first batch of fighters from Copenhagen and the Netherlands in August 2024. In the same month, it became known that one of the F-16s was lost, and the experienced pilot who flew it, Alexey Mes, was killed.

The Alternative for Germany party officially nominated its co-chair, 45-year-old Alice Weidel , as a candidate for German chancellor. Elections are scheduled for February 23, 2025. “We are the second most supported force at the federal level in the polls, and based on this, we are making our request for participation in government clear,” Weidel said .

In the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine, Russian security forces detained an “organized group of officials”, which, according to the FSB and the Investigative Committee, committed looting (clause “b”, part 4 of article 356.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) during hostilities.

Analyst Emil Kastehelmi from the OSINT group Black Bird Group sums up the results of the autumn campaign in the combat zone, pointing out that the Russian Armed Forces occupied more than 1.6 thousand square meters. km in the Ukrainian theater of operations and recaptured about 500 sq. km in the Kursk region . The main changes in the LBS occur in a 140 km long section in the Pokrovsky direction and in the Kurakhovsky operational area.

SpaceX has signed a contract with the Pentagon to expand Ukraine's access to a more secure, militarized version of its Starlink satellite network, deepening the company's involvement in the conflict despite its founder Elon Musk's controversial views on the war. Bloomberg reports this. The contract means that the 2,500 Starlink terminals already in Ukraine will have access to Starshield, a classified and encrypted signal through Starlink that is more difficult to hack or jam.

The Smolensk Regional Court sentenced a local resident accused of setting fire to a relay cabinet on a railway to seven years in prison. This was reported by the press service of the court. The convicted person must spend the first three years of his sentence in prison, the rest of the term in a maximum security colony. He was found guilty of sabotage by an organized group (clause “a”, part 2 of article 281 of the Criminal Code).

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot be found in Damascus, CNN reports , citing a source. At least, we are talking about at least all the places in the city where, in theory, he could be found. At the same time, according to official statements by the presidential administration, Assad did not leave the capital. Assad's presidential guard is no longer stationed at his usual residence, a CNN source said.

Heavy metal is crucial for the Kremlin. Exports of iron and steel — which totaled $20 billion in 2022 — help fund the state budget, and domestically, these products are used to make weapons and military vehicles. Alexey Mordashov's steel company Severstal has proudly presented “innovative armor steel grades” that can withstand a direct hit from a bullet fired by a sniper rifle.

I. o. Mayor of Saratov Pavel Surkov threatened administration employees with dismissal for New Year’s corporate parties “under the conditions of a special military operation.” This is stated in a message on his VKontakte page. “Now is not the time for mass city celebrations, much less New Year’s corporate parties. Those who do not agree with this and do not understand the responsibility that lies with employees of municipal authorities can look for another place of work,” wrote acting. O.

At the end of 2023, Danieli Volga had 155 employees, and judging from its ads on the recruiting portal HeadHunter, the business is far from dying out. In the parent Italian company's 2023 financial report , dated Mar. 7, 2024, Danieli Volga continues to be listed among Danieli's “production centers.” On page 17 of the report, the Russian company is said to have received some form of advances for future projects. The overall context is not lost on the authors of the report.

Corruption Andrey Zayakin December 7, 2024 The Insider's research on those who disappeared in the structures of Probusinessbank left without due attention the question: how true were the words of the bank's founders about their super-successful and progressive Russian businesses? Zheleznyak and Leontyev argued that the money withdrawn to the “external circuit” was returned to Russia and either put back into the bank or invested in real profitable businesses.

The South Korean parliament was unable to get the required number of votes to impeach President Yoon Seok-yeol, who had previously attempted to introduce martial law in the country, Yonhap reports . Only 195 of the 300 members of the country's unicameral parliament, the National Assembly, took part in the vote. In order for the vote to take place, the support of at least two thirds (200) of deputies was needed. 105 out of 108 deputies from the ruling party left the meeting room and did not vote.

The Russian Armed Forces have been set back by a ban on the use of personal vehicles at the front ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ) and a shrinking advantage in the weight of artillery fire over the AFU. Russia is currently estimated to be firing only 1.5 rounds for each Ukrainian round — at times, the Russian advantage had been more than 10:1. Russian forces had been compensating through the massive use of FAB bombs fitted out with UMPK kits.