Author: Stephanie Gauthier

Russia is reportedly facing a shortage of transport vehicles for its troops in combat zones.

Russian Troops Rolled Into Battle In A Yellow School Bus

— Forbes (@forbes.com) 2025-04-30T12:53:31.805Z

To alleviate this shortage, it would resort to all sorts of unusual means to move its soldiers, including Lada cars, golf carts and school buses.

In addition to these unusual means of transport, the use of motorcycles, electric scooters, a locomotive and antique vehicles from the 1950s would also be reported.

All of this equipment has reportedly been in use for some time, and some is said to have come from sources outside Russia, including China and Belarus.

The latest addition to the range of civilian vehicles requisitioned by Russian forces, a yellow school bus was reportedly recently spotted by a Ukrainian drone.

The vehicle, abandoned in a field near the front line in Donetsk oblast, eastern Ukraine, illustrates the increasing improvisation of Russian means of transport.

According to Forbes, since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian military vehicle losses are estimated at over 17,000 units.

Faced with an inventory at an all-time low, Russia is reportedly forced to modify civilian vehicles to move its troops in combat zones, despite their poor ability to cross terrain prepared for confrontation, such as trenches.

According to Forbes, billionaires suffer the effects of the Trump administration’s economic management in a variety of ways.

The Biggest Billionaire Winners And Losers Of Trump’s First 100 Days

— Forbes (@forbes.com) 2025-04-30T12:55:03.741Z

While some are managing to profit for the time being despite the financial hurdles of the tariff war launched by the president, others, including several present at his inauguration in January, have reportedly already lost billions since his return to the White House.

These marked fluctuations in the fortunes of billionaires are detailed in a Forbes article published to mark the first 100 days of Trump’s second term in the White House.

As markets fell sharply, particularly after the chaotic tariff announcement on April 2, on “Liberation Day”, some billionaires who publicly supported Trump may already be starting to regret their choice, having lost billions in just a few weeks.

Some billionaires who kept a certain distance in their support for Trump seem to be faring better.

This is the case of Bill Gates, who, while expressing concern about the Trump administration’s budget cuts, particularly to USAID, has reportedly seen his fortune increase by 2.5 billion since the president took office.

Billionaire Warren Buffett, who called Trump’s tariffs an act of war, has seen his fortune rise by nearly 20 billion.

For others, less fortunate, the billions have vanished in just a few months since Trump’s return to the Oval Office, while they proudly attended his inauguration just a few weeks ago.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly lost nearly 22 billion, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has seen his fortune shrink by around 35 billion.

Oracle’s Larry Ellison reportedly lost over 28 billion, while Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw their fortunes plummet by over 27 and 26 billion respectively.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is estimated to have lost nearly 25 billion.

The biggest loser of this chaotic start to his presidency remains Elon Musk.

His direct involvement in government budget cuts, which triggered major waves of protest, is said to have cost him more than $45 billion.

As the balance sheets for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency pile up, largely negative, particularly on the economic front, where his tariffs have caused chaos due to a misjudgment of their consequences, and the economy has contracted by 0.3%, the president is trying to shirk his responsibilities.

JUST IN: The U.S. economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, the first negative reading since the Covid pandemic.

— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) 2025-04-30T12:53:55Z

On Truth Social, he has once again found the ideal culprit to point the finger at, posting a message accusing Joe Biden of being responsible for this disaster.

“It’s Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s,” the president wrote on his social network, accusing Joe Biden of being behind the spectacular fall in the markets, including, it seems, the one triggered by his own tariff announcement on April 2, which caused a stock market collapse not seen since the Great Depression.

Recalling that he only took over the presidency on January 20, Trump is trying to reassure that the tariffs “will soon begin to take effect”, as he says companies will be moving to the US in record numbers.

Meanwhile, data for the first quarter of 2025 reveals a 0.3% drop in US gross domestic product (GDP), signalling the first economic contraction in nearly three years.

Trump blames Biden, not the tariffs. According to him, this first economic contraction “has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS”, and would only be due to the fact that Biden would have “left some bad numbers behind”.

Remember that under Joe Biden, the post-pandemic US economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.2%, compared with 1.8% under Trump, with 16.2 million jobs created between 2021 and 2024 (+11%).

Unemployment fell from 6.4% to a low of 3.4%, then to 4.1%, and inflation fell from 9.1% to 2.7%.

Billionaire and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has reached a historic milestone with the launch of his first 27 satellites in Amazon’s Project Kuiper, marking the start of a direct offensive against Elon Musk’s giant Starlink.

A batch of Amazon satellites is hitching a ride to low-Earth orbit, marking the biggest stride yet in the tech giant’s efforts to join a race to blanket the planet in connectivity beamed from space.

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-04-29T00:51:30.984Z

This colossal project aims to establish a collection of over 3,200 satellites in low-Earth orbit, with the ambition of competing in the strategic sector of global Internet via satellite.

The founder of Amazon wants to make his mark in a market hitherto largely dominated by Musk and his Starlink network, which boasts several million subscribers across the globe.

Although SpaceX has opened up a considerable gap, Amazon intends to prove that there is still time to reshuffle the cards in an exploding market.

Valued at over $10 billion, the Kuiper project is a veritable declaration of economic and strategic war on Elon Musk.

By positioning its satellites slightly lower than those of Starlink, Jeff Bezos aims to offer increased connection speeds and reduced latency, two major assets in winning over new customers.

To meet this challenge, Amazon has secured 83 rocket launches from several partners, including United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and Blue Origin, Bezos’ own space company.

Amazon faces a major challenge: Elon Musk and SpaceX have a head start of several years in deployment, operational experience and profitability.

In an attempt to destabilize the empire that Musk has consolidated with thousands of satellites, Bezos will have to rely on innovation, flawless execution and an offensive pricing policy.

The confrontation between Bezos and Musk for domination of the space Internet has only just begun, but so has the balance of power between two of the most powerful billionaires of our time.

Tensions over tariffs have gradually shattered Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s interest-based relationship with US President Donald Trump, especially since the start of his second term.

White House accuses Amazon of "hostile and political act" after reported plan to display the additional cost of tariffs next to the price of items cnn.it/42AIysC

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-04-29T13:55:44.619Z

Trump accused Jeff Bezos of being “hostile and political” toward his administration after Amazon announced its intention to transparently post tariff hikes imposed by the Trump administration.

The platform plans to itemize the amounts, allowing consumers to see first-hand that the majority of the price increase on their Amazon bill is caused by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

When the Trump administration was asked whether Amazon’s initiative seemed to demonstrate that the tariffs were indeed being borne by American consumers, a claim repeated for weeks by Democrats and the countries targeted by these taxes, the question visibly angered the White House.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted sharply, accusing Jeff Bezos and Amazon of hostility and political maneuvering: “This is a hostile and political act on Amazon’s part”.

Claiming to have just returned from a phone call with the president on the subject, Karoline Leavitt said the administration was questioning Amazon’s motives behind the move.

She added that this was hardly surprising, relying on a Reuters article to back up her words.

Although the Trump administration frequently accuses Reuters and other media outlets of spreading false information, this time it was happy to cite a 2021 article claiming that Amazon had partnered with a Chinese propaganda outlet.

The Chinese government returned Trump’s favorite phrase by labeling him “fake news”, after the latter suggested that talks were underway between the two countries to end the tariff war he himself started.

Chinese officials have insisted that no tariff negotiations are occurring, even as President Trump — whose trade war has rattled financial markets and threatened to disrupt huge swaths of trade — suggested on Friday that he has been in touch with Xi Jinping.

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-04-25T15:46:13.269Z

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jaikun called Trump’s repeated statements this week that China and the US would be “actively” discussing trade issues “fake news”.

Trump even said, in response to questions from reporters, that two representatives had met to begin discussions.

However, according to ABC News, he refused to reveal the identity of the participants in these alleged negotiations, while China continues to claim that Trump is telling lies.

Later, in an interview with The Times, Donald Trump maintained that discussions were underway between China and the US, going so far as to claim that President Xi had personally called him on several occasions to raise the issue.

On the Chinese side, the authorities deny that they are “actively negotiating” with the United States, claiming that no consultations or negotiations on the tariff issue are underway.

This statement strongly calls into question the progress in negotiations that Trump claims to have made.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denounces Trump administration ad campaign as “discriminatory propaganda”.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government plans to ban advertisements from the Department of Homeland Security, which show Secretary Kristi Noem warning migrants not to enter the United States illegally.

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-04-24T01:13:18.310Z

Sheinbaum announces her intention to ban an ad featuring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Kristi Noem, who crossed the border into Mexico to send migrants a threatening message: “We will hunt you down.”

The ad prompted Sheinbaum to announce reform proposals to prohibit foreign governments from disseminating what they consider political or ideological propaganda in Mexico.

The ad featuring Kristi Noem, broadcast notably during a prime-time soccer match, was described by Sheinbaum as “discriminatory propaganda”.

Claudia Sheinbaum claims that the same American propaganda ad was also broadcasted on radio and relayed on social networks.

She insists that Mexico “does not agree” with this propaganda targeting the migrant population.

According to CNN, the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security are reportedly rejoicing in the supposed effectiveness of the ad, claiming that there would be a general drop in border crossings, without specifically targeting Mexico.

No hard evidence has been presented, however, to directly link the drop in crossings to the ad campaign, rather than economic tensions, including tariff wars.

These tensions coincide with a clear drop in interest in staying in the United States, seen worldwide, including at the Canadian border. This trend was accentuated after several of Trump’s offensive statements about Canada, which led many Canadians to boycott the United States.

While Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine on his first day as president, weeks have passed with no clear outcome in sight.

Five days before his 100th day in office, President Trump is frustrated his efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine have so far fallen short, and has privately told advisers that mediating a deal has been more difficult than he anticipated, sources told CNN.

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-04-24T23:54:21.589Z

According to a CNN source, frustration is starting to set in for the president, who now privately admits that a peace deal in Ukraine has been more difficult than he anticipated.

In private discussions, Trump would express his frustration and acknowledge that he had underestimated the depth of animosity between Putin and Zelensky, which he believed would explain the slow pace of negotiations.

Trump would express surprise at Ukraine’s refusal to accept the peace plan proposed by his administration, a plan that includes no concessions from Russia, while demanding that Kyiv renounce the occupied territories and its plans to join NATO.

Meanwhile, Russian bombing continues, including a recent strike on Kyiv that prompted Trump to post on TruthSocial: “Very bad timing”, before adding: “Vladimir, Stop!”.

Recently asked by a reporter about Putin’s concessions, suggesting that Trump’s plan favored Russia, Trump replied that Putin’s real concession was gonna be “stopping the war” and not to seize Ukraine in its entirety.

Let’s recall that since President Trump launched mediation efforts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been willing to consider a peace agreement, provided Ukraine’s sovereignty is respected.

However, Russia has responded evasively, rejecting several American proposals and continuing its attacks, notably on Kyiv, which is complicating negotiations.