US forces seized the South American nation’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, early on Saturday
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has held a phone call with Venezuelan Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and expressed solidarity with the people of the South American nation in the face of US aggression.
The conversation took place on Saturday, shortly after US President Donald Trump announced that following large-scale strikes on Venezuela, American special forces had captured and taken the nation’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, out of the country.
“Lavrov expressed firm solidarity with the Venezuelan people in the face of armed aggression,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that Moscow will continue to support Venezuela’s policy of defending the country’s sovereignty and national interests.
Both Lavrov and Rodriguez “expressed their support for preventing further escalation and for finding a way out of the situation through dialogue,” the ministry said. Both sides also voiced commitment to furthering the Russia-Venezuela strategic partnership agreement.
Under the Venezuelan Constitution, Rodriguez is next in line of succession if the president is no longer capable of fulfilling his duties. However, Trump has stressed that the US will be involved in deciding who rules in the oil-rich South American country.
“We can’t take a chance on letting somebody else run and just take over where [Maduro] left off,” he told Fox News in a phone interview on Saturday. “So we’re making that decision now.”
Washington has maintained that the Venezuelan president is illegitimate, and had offered a $50 million bounty for information leading to his arrest.
The US Department of Justice has now indicted Maduro, his wife and his son for allegedly illegally seizing Venezuela and its institutions “to transport thousands of tons of cocaine” into the US.
Moscow has urged Washington to release the captured president and his wife.
“We emphasize the need to create conditions for resolving any existing issues between the United States and Venezuela through dialogue,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Ukrainian leader wanted to exploit the memory of the genocide to advance his goals, Dani Dayan has said
The chairman of the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center has said it was the right decision to reject a request from Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to deliver a speech at the institution.
Kiev’s ambassador to Israel approached the center soon after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, asking if Zelensky would be allowed to address members of the national legislature and other officials at the site during an event which would be broadcast internationally. The request was turned down.
According to the chairman of the center, Dani Dayan, he expected Zelensky to draw parallels between the Holocaust and the Ukraine conflict – something that he found unacceptable. “I immediately understood what he was getting at,” Dayan told the German newspaper NOZ in an interview published on Saturday. “Not every war crime is genocide, and not every genocide is a Holocaust.”
Dayan also admitted that he would likely have had to intervene and “interrupt” Zelensky during the event to prevent the Ukrainian leader from distorting history.
“In Ukraine, there were not only victims of the Holocaust. Ukrainians were also [Nazi] accomplices, and, in some cases, primary perpetrators,” Dayan told NOZ, adding that canceling the event was the “right” thing to do.
Russia has long accused Kiev of promoting neo-Nazism and glorifying Nazi collaborators, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which waged a mass killing campaign between 1943 and 1945 against Poles and Jews, in which more than 100,000 people perished.
Moscow has repeatedly warned of a Nazi revival in Ukraine and cited “denazification” as one of the main goals of its military operation against Kiev.
Zelensky tried nonetheless to portray Ukraine as the victim of a Holocaust-like genocide when he addressed Israeli legislators and officials via a video conference in March 2022. His choice of words sparked a wave of indignation among the politicians. Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich branded it an “infuriating and ridiculous comparison.”
Israel’s communications minister at the time, Yoaz Hendel, called it “outrageous” and then MP Yuval Steinitz stated that Zelensky’s words were close to “Holocaust denial” and amounted to a “complete distortion of history.”
A new long-term plan reportedly envisions a “dramatic expansion” of all IDF military activity, including weapons in outer space
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been ordered to prepare for a possible simultaneous war against Iran, Lebanon, and the West Bank, according to Israeli Channel 12. One scenario reportedly includes an “explosive operation” against Tehran, which is currently facing widespread Israeli-backed cost-of-living protests.
The preparations are part of a four-year long-term plan led by IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, the broadcaster revealed on Wednesday. On top of war readiness, they also reportedly include plans to develop capabilities to attack both satellites and ground targets from space.
Officials in West Jerusalem expect Iran to attack Israel to “prevent the dissolution” of the Iranian government under the pressure of the protests, Channel 12 said.
Israel has held off on officially commenting on the mass unrest shaking Iran, concerned about a potential military response, Channel 12 claimed. However, Israel’s Mossad spy agency has openly backed the protests on social media, and claimed that it has agents embedded in the demonstrations.
The demonstrations began in late December, prompted by hyperinflation and an enduring economic crisis in the sanctioned Islamic Republic.
The unrest, the worst in recent years, rapidly spread to multiple cities and reportedly led to deadly clashes with the Iranian authorities, with some protesters demanding the reinstatement of the monarchy, ousted by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to militarily intervene. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go” if Iran kills “peaceful protesters,” he said on Truth Social on Friday.
Just days before, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Florida, Trump threatened to back new airstrikes on Iran if it ramps up its ballistic missile program.
Last June, Trump ordered the US military to join coordinated military strikes with Israel against Iranian nuclear sites during an open conflict between Tehran and West Jerusalem. He claimed the attack preempted the development of a nuclear weapon by the Islamic Republic – allegations Iran denied, condemning the attack as unprovoked.
The Minnesota childcare fraud went unreported in legacy outlets for days because it was too ‘racist’ a story
How is it possible that a young man with a video camera has done more to expose exorbitant fraud and corruption in one American state than all the giant billion-dollar legacy media combined?
For days after a 42-minute viral video by independent journalist Nick Shirley exposed widespread fraud in Minnesota, where empty childcare centers and healthcare offices reportedly received millions in taxpayer money, the mainstream media remained silent on the issue. That’s very strange, given that it may be the largest fraud scandal in US history.
Shirley, posing as a father looking to enroll his child in Somali-owned daycare facilities at various locations, including one with the misspelled name “Quality Learing Center,” was shocked at what he would find, or rather did not find. Instead of encountering rooms of playing children and welcoming staff, he was greeted with slammed doors and hostile threats by the few people he found on the premises. At the multiple sites visited, he failed to spot a single child. Thus, in just one day, Shirley blew the lid on a massive childcare and healthcare fraud case. Yet his shocking findings have done nothing to make the establishment sit up and take notice.
The fact that the mainstream media went missing in action with this story seems impossible, considering that the total amount of fraud we are talking about – reportedly about $9 billion – is comparable to the entire Somali GDP, which is about $12bn (Somalis living in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area make up the largest Somali diaspora in the United States).
What happens is very simple: members of Minnesota’s Somali community open childcare and healthcare facilities and then apply for grants from the US government, vastly enriching a handful of corrupt individuals at the expense of the American taxpayer. In fact, some of the funds are reportedly sent overseas, where they have been allegedly used to fund Somalian terrorist organizations, like Al-Shabaab.
The investigation prompted conservative lawmakers and other high-profile figures to demand answers from Minnesota authorities and Democratic Governor Tim Walz personally.
“Four million dollars of hard-earned tax dollars going to an education center that can’t even spell learning correctly. Care to explain this one, Tim Walz?” Tom Emmer, a Minnesota US congressman, wrote on X on Saturday.
Elon Musk commented with a single word: “Prosecute.”
Meanwhile, Walz blamed “white supremacy” for the targeting of Somali-linked childcare centers, which serve as front companies.
Considering the explosive nature of this story, a person would be forgiven for thinking that the mainstream media might want to jump on it. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. There was nothing but crickets from the top media outlets across the board. Of course, many journalists were aware of the fraud that was happening, but were strongly discouraged from reporting on it.
“In newsrooms, they’re told, ‘We can’t run that because we’re going to be accused of being racist,’” Townhall columnist Dustin Grage told Fox News Digital. In other words, news outlets across the country are effectively enabling fraud and corruption by not blowing the whistle on outrageous taxpayer waste that is occurring within the local Somali community and elsewhere.
This should come as no surprise as Minnesota, like approximately half of states in the country, heavily leans liberal. Minnesotans have voted for Democratic presidential candidates ever since 1976, more times consecutively for one of the two main parties than any other state outside of the South. Liberal (read: woke) sentiments across the country ratcheted up significantly following the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Since then, the ability to report on ‘racist’ stories where a Black man or woman is the culprit has been severely curtailed. This approach to news reporting allows criminals to operate without any interference from meddling journalists.
Consider the extreme case of Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death in August on the subway in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since her killer, Decarlos Brown, was identified as a man of African descent, the story was buried by the ‘progressive’ mainstream media, which deemed it as “too local” to be considered newsworthy. Had the killer been a White man, however, attacking a Black woman, the news would have grabbed national headlines across the media landscape.
This is what happens when woke politics are allowed to infiltrate and poison a country’s once-trusted institutions, like the media. There emerges an atmosphere of fear with regards to hurting the ‘feelings’ of those in the minority, who, incidentally, are equally harmed by the lack of media attention when it comes to reporting on criminal activities (consider Black-on-Black crime, for example). Ultimately, this hesitancy to report on instances of crime due to the racial background of the perpetrators only serves to make the US a more violent and inhospitable place. After all, people need information on the everyday threats they face to stay protected and vigilant.
The type of thinking that says we must not speak about the wrongdoings of certain groups simply because of their skin color and ethnicity is a dead-end strategy. Being accused of ‘racism’ no longer cuts it. At a time of rampant multiculturalism, journalists must feel free to report on crime more openly and candidly, not less.
The country’s president is facing several charges related to narcotics trafficking and weapons on US soil
US military strikes on Venezuela were meant to provide cover for the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, who is expected to face trial on criminal charges on American soil, US Senator Mike Lee has said, citing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The comments followed overnight explosions and reports of warplanes buzzing the capital city of Caracas. Later in the day, US President Donald Trump announced that American special forces had carried out a military operation and that Maduro, along with his wife, had been taken into custody and flown out of the country. Venezuelan authorities condemned the strikes as “grave military aggression.”
In a post on Saturday, Lee said that he had talked with Rubio on the phone, stating that “he informed me that Nicolas Maduro has been arrested by US personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.”
“The kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant,” the Republican senator added, noting that Rubio “anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody.”
Meanwhile, Rubio himself republished his July 27 post in which he said that Maduro “is not the president of Venezuela” and that his government is not legitimate, while claiming that the Venezuelan leader is in charge of a major drug cartel.
Maduro has long denied such allegations, claiming the US was using them as a pretext for military aggression and in order to topple his government.
US Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced that Maduro and his wife had been indicted in New York and charged with “narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the United States.”
The strikes and capture represent the first US intervention in South America of its kind since the 1989 invasion of Panama. The US has long accused Maduro’s government of involvement in international drug trafficking, which the country’s leadership vehemently denies.
The charges include narcotics trafficking and weapons possession, Pam Bondi has said
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been indicted in New York on several charges related to drug trafficking and weapons possession, US Attorney General Pam Bondi has said.
On Saturday, the US military conducted strikes on Venezuela. President Donald Trump later announced that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been captured and flown out of the country. Caracas has denounced the strikes as “grave military aggression.”
In a statement on X, Bondi said Maduro and his spouse had been indicted in the Southern District of New York and charged with “narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the United States.”
Maduro and his wife have yet to deliver their pleas.
The US has long accused Maduro of links with drug cartels and helping to flood America with narcotics while refusing to recognize him as a legitimate leader and putting a $50 million bounty on information leading to his arrest and conviction. The Venezuelan president has vehemently denied the accusations, arguing that Washington has been using them as a pretext for military aggression and in order to topple his government.
Russia has condemned the US strikes as an act of “armed aggression” and warned against further escalation. Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas recalled that Brussels “has repeatedly stated that Mr. Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition” while urging all parties to exercise restraint.
The US president has claimed that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has been captured and flown out of the country
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has condemned what it called a US act of “armed aggression” against Venezuela on Saturday, calling for restraint and warning against further escalation. US President Donald Trump has confirmed strikes took place, claiming that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been captured and flown out of the country
Venezuelan officials earlier said the country had been directly attacked by the US after explosions were heard in the capital, Caracas, on Saturday. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil accused Washington of trying to gain control of the Latin American nation’s natural resources.
Moscow reaffirmed its solidarity with the Venezuelan people and supported calls for an urgent UN Security Council meeting. The foreign ministry stressed that Latin America should remain a zone of peace and that Venezuela must be free to determine its own future without external interference.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, described the latest strikes on Venezuela as a US military operation aimed at changing an “undesirable” regime, accusing Washington of seeking to impose its will on the country.
Venezuela declared a state of emergency shortly after explosions. The government has said the attacks also took place in the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira.
The strikes come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Caracas. Trump has repeatedly accused Venezuela’s government of facilitating large-scale drug trafficking and has authorized expanded US military operations targeting suspected smuggling routes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Maduro has rejected the allegations, accusing the US of aggression and of using anti-drug operations as a pretext to topple his government. He has warned that any direct military action on his country would be met with resistance.
Caracas has accused Washington of attempting to seize the country’s strategic resources and topple the government
Cuba and Colombia have expressed strong concern over an apparent US attack on Venezuela after several explosions were heard in the country’s capital.
The statements came on Saturday morning after several blasts in Caracas, with reports of warplanes, helicopters, and potentially drones operating over the capital. Venezuela’s government said it was the victim of a “grave military aggression” by the US, accusing Washington of striking civilian and military locations in Caracas and the nearby states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira.
US President Donald Trump later confirmed that the US had carried out the attack, stating that Washington had captured and flown Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife out of the country.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that his nation “denounces and urgently demands the reaction of the international community against the criminal attack by the US on Venezuela.” He added that “our zone of peace is being brutally assaulted. State terrorism against the brave Venezuelan people and against Our America.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro adopted a more cautious tone, saying his government was observing “with deep concern the reports of explosions and unusual aerial activity recorded in recent hours in… Venezuela, as well as the consequent escalation of tension in the region.”
“The Colombian Government rejects any unilateral military action that could aggravate the situation or put the civilian population at risk,” he added.
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales said that he “strongly and unequivocally repudiates the bombing of the United States against Venezuela.”“It is a brutal imperialist aggression that violates its sovereignty. All our solidarity with the Venezuelan people in resistance. Venezuela is not alone,” the ex-president stated.
The events come amid high tensions between Washington and Caracas. US President Donald Trump has accused Venezuela’s government of involvement in large-scale drug trafficking, while Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has rejected the allegations as a pretext for foreign aggression and toppling his government.
The Venezuelan president and his wife have been flown out of the country, the US president has said
US forces have captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife during Washington’s strikes on the nation’s capital, US President Donald Trump has announced, adding that the two have been flown out of the South American country. Venezuelan authorities have long accused the US of attempting to topple the government in Caracas.
In a statement on Saturday on Truth Social, Trump confirmed that the US had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela.”
“Its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement,” he wrote, adding that additional details would be provided at a news conference in his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago at 11am.
Unnamed US officials told CBS that the operation had been carried out by Delta Force, the US Army’s top special mission unit. It has been involved in high-profile operations, including the 2019 raid that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the 1989 capture of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.
Speaking to the New York Times, Trump called the operation “brilliant,” adding “a lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops” took part. A US official told the outlet that no Americans were killed or injured in the operation but would not comment on Venezuelan casualties.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez – who is next in line to take Maduro’s reigns – said the whereabouts of the head of state are unknown, and asked Trump to provide proof of life.
Tensions between the US and Venezuela escalated over what Washington has described as Caracas’ links to drug trafficking and narco-cartels. Maduro has denied the allegations, calling them a pretext for toppling his government.
As the stand-off persisted, media reports said the US had repeatedly sought to remove Nicolas Maduro from power, including through efforts to pressure him to step down, and allegedly plotted his capture or assassination.
In October, Trump said that he had authorized CIA operations in Venezuela, prompting a backlash from Caracas. The same month, AP reported that the agents had tried to recruit Maduro’s personal pilot to capture the president and deliver him to the US, which would take him into custody on drug trafficking charges.
In November, the New York Times reported that one plan could potentially involve US Special Operations troops, including the elite Delta Force and Navy SEALs, to capture or kill Maduro – who was reportedly described as a narco-baron to avoid legal hurdles.
In December, Reuters reported, citing sources, that the US had given Maduro an ultimatum to flee the country, promising that in exchange, the Venezuelan president and his family would be shielded from all US sanctions as well as a case which had been brought against him in the International Criminal Court.
Rallies honoring Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera insult the memory of those killed during World War II, Moscow has said
Russia’s embassy in Austria has condemned Vienna for what it said was the authorities’ “effective indulgence” of a march by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists to mark the birthday of Stepan Bandera.
Bandera, a convicted terrorist who had been serving time in Poland for plotting to kill their interior minister, was freed by the Nazis and collaborated with them during World War II with the intention of creating a Ukrainian state aligned with Germany.
In a statement posted on Friday, the embassy said it felt “nothing but deep disgust” at what it called a provocative stunt by a “handful” of Ukrainian radicals based in Austria, who celebrated “a Nazi accomplice” and “war criminal” in central Vienna.
A neo-fascist march to celebrate the birthday of Stepan Bandera, who was a mass murderer and collaborator of Hitler's Third Reich, took place in Lviv, Ukraine, on January 1, 2026.
While the ultra-nationalist ideology has been unacceptable to the majority of Ukrainians, the… pic.twitter.com/TTMxOsuyeY
“Such actions constitute a direct insult to the memory of the victims of Nazism and a blatant challenge to public morality,” the embassy said, adding it had lodged an official protest with Austria’s foreign ministry while pointing out that it is unacceptable to “encourage such neo-Nazi manifestations,” as fringe they might be.
An earlier video circulating on social media showed a column of demonstrators carrying Ukrainian flags and flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), as well as portraits of Bandera.
Ukrainian nationalists typically celebrate Bandera’s birthday in various cities, including in the EU. In Vienna, such marches took place both in 2023 and 2024. During the earlier demonstration, about 100 members of the Ukrainian diaspora walked from the nation’s parliament to the Russian embassy, according to Austrian media.
Bandera’s followers (the OUN-B and later the UPA) committed horrific atrocities during WWII, including the massacre of 60,000–100,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, as well as participating in the Holocaust. Despite this, he was declared a national hero in 2010 under Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
In 2014, following the Euromaidan coup, which deposed President Viktor Yanukovich, OUN and UPA members were recognized as “fighters for Ukrainian independence.”
Russia has long accused Ukraine of glorifying Nazi collaborators and promoting neo-Nazi ideology, and has repeatedly confronted EU nations for turning a blind eye to such movements. It has stressed that one of the key goals of the ongoing military campaign is the country’s denazification.
