TV News LIES

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said his main aim in Ukraine after 30 months of fighting was to capture the eastern Donbas area -- and claimed that Ukraine's Kursk counter-offensive had made that easier.

Putin was speaking a day after Russia attacked Ukraine's western Lviv region with deadly strikes, and after recent advances by Moscow's forces in the Donbas.

Since the start of its offensive in February 2022 when it failed to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Russia has adapted its aims, concentrating instead on trying to conquer eastern Ukraine.

While Ukraine's surprise push into Russia's Kursk region last month caught Russian forces off-guard, Putin stressed that the move had failed to slow Moscow's advance in occupied Ukraine.

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A state-controlled Russian media outlet provided nearly $10 million to “covertly finance and direct” videos produced by a Tennessee-based online content company, the Justice Department alleged, identified by media reports as U.S. right-wing social media network Tenet Media.

A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday (available at this link) charged two employees of RT, formerly known as Russia Today, of using “fake personas and shell companies” to carry out a “secret influence campaign in the United States.” The duo “operated under covert identities” at an American company identified in court documents as “U.S. Company-1.”

CNN and other media outlets said they confirmed that the company in question is Tenet Media, whose affiliated personalities include Benny Johnson and “Culture War Podcast” host Tim Pool, both of whom have millions of followers on YouTube and other platforms.

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In August, a 10-month-old baby in Gaza was partly paralysed from polio, the first confirmed case there in 25 years. The paralysis is probably permanent, and there are no treatments for polio.

We have a safe and effective vaccine to prevent serious disease, but the ongoing war in the region has meant vaccination campaigns have stopped. A polio outbreak seems inevitable given that the disease spreads through dirty water and rubbish, which surrounds those living in tents in camps.

Fortunately, a series of nine-hour pauses over sequential days has been agreed so that children can be vaccinated as part of an emergency UN health campaign. The first of these three-day periods concluded on Tuesday; the next will continue to the end of the week. But whether the fighting will stop completely is a major worry: Israeli forces have attacked hospitals, schools, aid trucks and UN workers in the past.

UN agencies like the World Food Programme are no longer sending staff into Gaza after Israeli forces opened fire on a marked World Food Programme truck – even after the vehicle had received clearances from Israeli authorities. It’s all very well agreeing a pause on paper; the true test will be whether it is honoured in real life.

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