Trump has repeatedly announced plans to speak with the Russian president in recent weeks | Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a telephone conversation with his US counterpart Donald Trump, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "The telephone conversation between President Putin and US leader Donald Trump has just ended," Peskov said. "It was a very long phone call, it lasted almost an hour and a half," he added.

■ Russia, US to immediately start talks on Ukrainian settlement — Trump (TASS)
■ UPDATED 3:00 PM EST -- TRUMP HAS SPOKEN TO PUTIN - AGREE TO PEACE TALKS ! (Hal Turner) | 💬 I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects. We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering, that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, “COMMON SENSE.” We both believe very strongly in it.

Glenn Diesen | My Encounter with these “NGOs” ■ USAID, NED and other NGOs also operate in countries allied with the US to prevent dissent and preserve bloc discipline. The Ukraine Crisis Media Centre wrote an entire article smearing me in its project of “shady horses of Russian propaganda”, which listed false accusations such as being a “defender of Russia’s aggression”. The evidence for the absurd accusations included my conversations with Professor John Mearsheimer and former US Senator Ron Paul, which are labelled Kremlin “mouthpieces” by this NGO.[2] The Norwegian government (my own government) is also listed as a donor to this project of intimidation and smears. ■ The US foreign ministry, the National Endowment for Democracy, and my own government also finance the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, another “human rights NGO”, which has pursued a project of systematic intimidation against me for the past 4 years. Their tactics against me include regular smear pieces in the media, almost weekly tweets labelling me a propagandist for Russia, letters and phone calls to the head of my university to end my position as a professor, calls on other academics to go against me, efforts to cancel me from events where I have been invited to speak, etc. After successfully whipping up hatred in the public, the police advised me to hide my address and phone number. At this point, an employee at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee published a picture of my house on social media. These are the activities that my own government finances under the guise of supporting an “NGO” that promotes democracy and human rights. In response to the purge of academic freedom, I am now in the process of acquiring another citizenship to relocate to a country where civil society is not outsourced to fake NGOs pushing war propaganda and censorship.

The president has said he hopes the release of an American national will mark the “beginning of a relationship” to end the Ukraine conflict | US President Donald Trump has said that Moscow agreed to release Marc Fogel, a former US Embassy employee and teacher sentenced to 14 years in prison on drug trafficking charges, as part of a “very fair and reasonable deal” without asking “much” in return. ● The Kremlin has not yet commented in the development, but the White House praised the move as a “show of good faith” after US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff brought Fogel back to the US on Tuesday.

■ FACTBOX: Russia releases US citizen Marc Fogel from custody (TASS) [...] Fogel worked as a teacher at an Anglo-American school in Moscow and was previously an employee of the US embassy. He was an official diplomat until May 2021, along with his spouse. Fogel was detained upon arrival in Moscow on an August 14, 2021 flight from New York. Customs officers stopped him at Sheremetyevo airport when he was passing through the green corridor. The search of his luggage revealed marijuana and cannabis oil. The court sentenced Fogel to 14 years in prison for drug smuggling. Last December, the Russian Supreme Court refused to consider Fogel's appeal.

■ US to release Russian citizen ‘in coming days’ – Kremlin (RT)

A satirical petition from Denmark, which owns Greenland, has garnered 200,000 signatures as Trump doubles down on plans to take the island. | Denmark clapped back Wednesday at US President Donald Trump who has called for Canada to become the 51st US state, plans to take over the Panama Canal, floated US ownership of Gaza, and is attempting to buy Greenland. Now, more than 200,000 Danes have signed a satirical petition to buy California from the US. The petition reads:

💬 “Have you ever looked at a map and thought, ‘You know what Denmark needs? More sunshine, palm trees, and roller skates.’ Well, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make that dream a reality,” the petition reads. “Let’s buy California from Donald Trump!”

The West has decided to combat Russian oil exports by physically removing tankers of the so-called “shadow fleet” from routes in the Baltic Sea. | The former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and foreign agent Alfred Koch, who fled to Germany, stated this in an interview with TV presenter and foreign agent Yevgeny Kiselev, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

💬 "It seems to me that they have touched the right nerve. They have been probing for a long time, setting some price ceilings and so on. The Russians bypassed them. Then they realized that the main thing is to mechanically block Russian exports. Saudi Arabia will like this, because it removes volumes from the market that can be replaced by their own production without lowering the price. Simply, the profit that Putin received will be received by Saudi Arabia. And Russian oil must be mechanically blocked. Now the Danish Straits are starting to stir, a tanker exploded in Ust-Luga and ran aground," Kokh rejoiced.