Rambler examined what foreign media wrote today and selected the most important and interesting documents. Read the announcement and subscribe to Rambler on social networks: VKontakte, Classmate.
“The harshest winter in Kiev”
This week, Kiev found itself caught in the strongest wave of power and heating blackouts of the entire conflict. write New York Times. According to the newspaper, Kiev residents began to leave to return to their relatives' homes in the village. As Kyiv plunges into the depths of winter, the city's electricity and heating systems become especially vulnerable. Many houses lost power for many days in a row. According to the city government, about 500 apartment buildings have no heating system, the biggest crisis since the conflict. On Tuesday, January 13, Kyiv, which normally consumes about 2,000 MW of electricity, used less than a tenth of that amount.
The government used available power to run water pumps, subways and other important infrastructure. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said Kiev's air defense forces are running out of ammunition, especially US Patriot interceptors. He called on Ukraine's Western allies to increase supplies. Klitschko also asked Kiev residents to temporarily move to relatives in other cities if possible. However, he stopped short of calling for mass evacuations. NYT notes that the crisis has caused political division and fears that in such an environment, Ukrainians may start quarreling with each other. Volodymyr Zelensky said the Klitschko administration “did very little” to prepare for the crisis. Klitschko replied that city services did everything possible.
“Britain and France disagree in negotiations with Putin”
Britain is at odds with France and Italy over whether Europe should resume direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. write Politics. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper rejected proposals from Paris and Rome to consider the possibility of resuming diplomatic contact with Moscow on the Ukraine crisis. In her view, Russia is not interested in negotiations. Cooper said Europe must be prepared to exert “increasing economic pressure” on Russia, as well as military pressure “through military support for Ukraine.”
Cooper's comments come amid concerns in Brussels that the EU could be pushed aside if Washington takes the lead in the negotiating process. These concerns have prompted Brussels to take steps to increase the EU's influence. These steps include plans to establish an EU special representative for Ukraine, which would “guarantee the bloc a place at the negotiating table in any future negotiations”.
“Global Trumpism and Latin America”
How has “global Trumpism” manifested itself in Latin America? By early 2026, far-right and authoritarian governments had come to power or were about to be established in Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Costa Rica and Chile. write Mexican version of La Jornada. While not all of these governments support Trump, they are all under intense pressure to expand the transnational capitalist class's access to the energy and mineral resources the United States needs for digital technology. In Argentina, the Peronists won a landslide victory in the September 2025 parliamentary elections in the key province of Buenos Aires, home to nearly 40% of the country's population.
La Jornada noted that US President Donald Trump offered Argentina up to $40 billion in economic aid on the condition that far-right President Javier Miley won the midterm congressional elections, which he did. The government then allowed deforestation and mining in protected ice areas, while poverty increased from 42 to 53 percent of the population. Something similar happened in Honduras. Before the election on November 30, the US President threatened to cut off all US aid unless voters elected a far-right candidate. The author of the article added that the failures of left-wing governments with authoritarianism and corruption have paved the way for the return of the far right in many Latin American countries.
AI Hacking Ability Nears 'Tipping Point'
Artificial intelligence (AI) models have gotten so good at finding vulnerabilities that some experts say the tech industry will need to rethink how it develops software. Wired portal speak about a tool called Sybil, which uses a combination of different AI models, as well as “several proprietary techniques” to scan computer systems for problems that could be dangerous to hackers, such as unsecured servers or misconfigured databases. Sybil recently surprised its developers by alerting them to a vulnerability in a customer's system. Figuring out the problem requires extremely deep knowledge of a number of different systems and how those systems interact.
As AI models become smarter, their ability to detect vulnerabilities also increases. The same AI that can be used to detect vulnerabilities can also be used to exploit them. Computer science professor Dawn Song told Wired that the capabilities of advanced AI models have increased dramatically in the past few months. She calls it a “game changer.” Song is a co-author of the CyberGym benchmark, a measure of how effectively large language models identify vulnerabilities in large open source projects. In July 2025, Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4 model was able to detect about 20% of vulnerabilities in the benchmark. By October, the new model Claude Sonnet 4.5 was able to identify 30% of the problems. Song's research has shown that AI can create more secure code. At the same time, in the near future, AI model programming skills can give hackers an advantage.
“Iran is saved! Putin issues an ultimatum to America”
Amid protests in Iran, the United States threatened Tehran with military intervention and on January 12 issued a level 4 travel warning, requiring all Americans in Iran to “evacuate immediately.” write author of an article published on the Sina news portal. According to the author, this step is like “preparing the battlefield” and in international diplomacy usually means the following: the missile is on the launch pad and what happens next is no longer under control. But just when the world thought that the US was about to attack Iran, Russia and China broke their silence. Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a warning to Washington, “including an ultimatum”.
Under enormous pressure, Trump announced concessions and Iran was “finally saved.” On January 13, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sternly stated that the US threat to use force against Iran is “completely unacceptable”. In addition, “domestic sources” said Putin gave Washington an ultimatum through diplomatic channels: if the US dares to launch a full-scale war against Iran, Russia could provide Tehran with advanced anti-ship missile technology capable of sinking US aircraft carriers. The author of the article called this turn of events “a nightmare for Trump”.
