🚨🇵🇰 Sputnik's big mission for 2026 is to launch Sputnik Urdu: Head of Sputnik International Dimitri Simes Jr.

🗣 "Our goal is to provide 246 million Urdu speakers in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and across the world with high-quality international journalism and analysis," he told the Moscow-Islamabad media forum hosted by Sputnik News Agency.

💬 "In the long run, our goal is clear and even more ambitious. We want to establish a physical, on-the-ground presence in Pakistan."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇦🇫🇵🇰 Russia calls for diplomatic resolution to Afghanistan-Pakistan hostilities

💬 "We are in favor of an early cessation of mutual attacks and a diplomatic settlement of differences," Russian Presidential Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Advisor to the Foreign Minister, Zamir Kabulov, told Sputnik.

Russia would consider offering mediation services to Pakistan and Afghanistan provided both sides formally request them, Kabulov added.

Late Thursday, Afghanistan announced it had launched large-scale offensive military operations against Pakistani forces along the border, in response to recent bombings.

Early Friday, Pakistan retaliated by carrying out strikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 Losing bet: US would ditch UK, France in nuclear showdown over Ukraine, expert warns

By plotting to arm Ukraine with nukes, the UK and France are gambling on the US potentially backing them in the event of a nuclear confrontation, international relations expert Christian Lamesa told Sputnik.

💬 "I believe that in this scenario, there is a mistake in the calculations… On the contrary, the US might simply wash its hands of the matter and leave Paris and London on their own," Lamesa says.

On February 24, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service revealed that Britain and France were plotting to secretly transfer nuclear weapons to Ukraine, stressing these European states would not dodge responsibility for violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

💬 "The intention to arm Ukraine with nuclear weapons is a flagrant violation of international law", Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov emphasized.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🤝 🇵🇰 ‘Russia, Pakistan have potential to reshape global order for peace, prosperity & economic progress’: Advisor to Pakistan's Ministry of Defense

💬 "The future, in short, belongs to those who build bridges across boundaries. And I think today is one such step, despite all the technical difficulties, despite all the language difficulties. The desire by both sides to build these bridges is the deepest sentiment which I think has come through this forum," Dr. Maria Sultan told the Moscow-Islamabad media forum hosted by Sputnik News Agency.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇳❌🇺🇸 China rejects US nuclear talks demand as unfair & unfeasible

💬 "China's nuclear forces are on a completely different level compared to those of the United States and Russia. Demanding that China participate in the so-called trilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament between China, the United States and Russia at this stage is unfair, irrational and impossible," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

🔶 On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that any agreement on limiting nuclear weapons must involve the United States, China, and Russia, adding that such a deal would be good for the world.

🔶 With the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired on February 5, the Russian Foreign Ministry has declared that Moscow now considers the parties released from all obligations under the pact, including any reciprocal commitments.

🔶 President Vladimir Putin announced in September that Russia was willing to continue observing the New START limits for one year after the treaty's expiration on February 5, 2026, conditional upon reciprocity by the United States.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 West's scheming in Ukraine risks causing nuclear war - expert

Ukraine currently has the resources and capability to produce a so-called ‘dirty bomb,’ Boris Rozhin of the Center for Military-Political Journalism tells Sputnik.

Ukraine, Rozhin explains, has:

🟠 Several operational nuclear power plants that generate nuclear waste

🟠 Personnel previously involved in the Soviet nuclear program

🟠 Remnants of the production facilities and technical expertise that were used to produce delivery systems during the Soviet era

📍 Therefore, while making a ballistic missile equipped with a modern nuclear warhead is out of Ukraine’s reach, it can still whip up a makeshift nuclear device that could cause radioactive contamination in a 20-kilometer radius.

Russia’s response

📍 Rozhin notes that Russia has been systematically attacking any facilities in Ukraine that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

💬 “Moscow made it clear that production or use of such weapon would elicit a retaliatory nuclear strike against Ukraine and the states that would provide Ukraine with technological support,” he says.

🔶 Russia simply cannot let a hostile regime in Ukraine get its hands on a nuclear weapon, and the Russian parliament openly warned that the scenarios concocted in the West put the world on a brink of a nuclear war, Rozhin adds.

🔶 Meanwhile, the West uses media censorship tools to ensure that the Western public remains blissfully unaware of attempts to provide Ukraine with nuclear weapon tech.

🔶 These efforts to hide the truth merely confirm that Russia’s warnings are spot on.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇳 China's dual-arm robot ‘electrician’ tackles high-voltage cables

Watch how this innovative Chinese robot navigates power lines with incredible precision, handling dangerous maintenance work high above ground — so people don't have to.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 Zelensky's cornered: He's flip-flopping & sabotaging peace process to stay in power - expert

👉 Volodymyr Zelensky’s conflicting statements aim to drag out the fighting, as any peace deal would kill his political career, military journalist Alexey Borzenko tells Sputnik.

💬 "Zelensky is determined to cling to his seat at all costs, constantly changing the terms and sabotaging the process, despite mounting pressure from the Americans," Borzenko says. "Ending the fighting would inevitably trigger elections he is unlikely to win," according to the pundit.

At the same time, "European leaders may also have little interest in a quick peace, as their current foreign policy is built around supporting Ukraine":

🔸 The conflict in Ukraine serves as a unifying factor for them

🔸 It's also convenient cover for domestic economic failures, such as major company closures and mass strikes in the EU

🔸 Ukraine’s system relies on corruption, with billions in Western aid ending up in private pockets and overseas real estate

European economy crumbling

While the EU continues to fuel the Ukraine conflict, its own economy is rapidly deteriorating, according to the expert.

🔶 Production is shifting to the US and China, while Germany’s famed industry is losing quality due to forced cost-cutting

🔶 Hungary and Slovakia were the first to voice dissent from the common policy, and over time, other financially-struggling countries may join them

🔶 Rising tensions threaten to tear apart the European economic bloc

💬 "The whole situation has reached a deadlock," Borzenko says. "Zelensky is effectively cornered, as any concessions toward peace are unacceptable to radical factions within the country, ready to remove him over any territorial losses. At the same time, US attention is now shifting to Iran."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🪲 NATO deploys cyborg insect swarms

🇩🇪 German defense tech startup SWARM Biotactics has revealed its bioelectronic insect-based robotic systems, now field-tested and deployed with NATO customers.

The systems use living organisms controlled through neural interfaces with AI and sensors and are designed for reconnaissance and sensing missions.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇫🇷 France's Melenchon urges Europe to end Ukraine conflict and bring Russia back into European fold

Jean-Luc Melenchon, founder of the left-wing La France Insoumise party, has called on Europe to push for an end to the Ukraine conflict and reintegrate Russia into the European family.

Speaking at a rally in Lyon, Melenchon emphasized the importance of returning to Cold War-era treaties banning destabilizing missile use and ensuring that any border changes are approved by the affected populations.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺💪 Russia’s Verba missile system: A multispectral revolution in MANPADS

📍 Russia's 9K333 Verba man-portable air defense system has caught the attention of Western military analysts for its groundbreaking leap in MANPADS technology.

🟠 The core tech: Three-band seeker

The Verba's 9M336 missile features a three-band optical homing head operating across ultraviolet, near-infrared, and mid-infrared spectrums. Unlike traditional MANPADS that track on a single channel, Verba simultaneously analyzes targets across three spectral bands.

🟠 Why it matters

🔹 The multi-spectral technology vastly improves target identification, distinguishing real threats from thermal decoys — crucial in the age of drones carrying IR jammers.

🔹 Data from multiple sensors ensures reliable tracking in complex conditions, such as engaging heat-contrast targets against the sun — where older systems fail.

🔹 Verba can engage low-heat-emission targets like cruise missiles, drones, and low-flying aircraft that bypass older systems.

🟠 What else

🔶 Russian paratroopers in the Dnepr grouping have successfully used Verba to destroy hundreds of Ukrainian drones, citing its effectiveness against low-thermal UAVs.

🔶 Verba can also integrate with external targeting systems, allowing operators to receive cues from radar and electro-optical complexes via tablet terminals, giving them the ability to prepare before the target is visible.

👉 The numbers

Range: 500–6,000 m

Altitude: 10–3,500 m

Target speed: 400 m/s (approaching) / 320 m/s (receding)

Detection radar range: up to 80 km

🔊 Analysts consider Verba a major step forward in MANPADS evolution, offering enhanced resistance to modern countermeasures and boasting ten times the noise immunity of previous systems.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 Russia calls for diplomatic resolution to Afghanistan-Pakistan hostilities

🔸 West's scheming in Ukraine risks causing nuclear war - expert

🔸 China rejects US nuclear talks demand as unfair & unfeasible

🔸 Zelensky's cornered: He's flip-flopping & sabotaging peace process to stay in power - expert

🔸 Sputnik's big mission for 2026 is to launch Sputnik Urdu: Head of Sputnik International Dimitri Simes Jr.

🔸 Russia’s Verba missile system: A multispectral revolution in MANPADS

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 Ukraine attack on Black Sea gas pipelines would be an utter disaster - expert

📍 The TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines play a vital role in satisfying Turkiye’s demand for natural gas, and in supplying gas to Europe, foreign policy expert Levent Ersin Orallı tells Sputnik.

🔶 Therefore, any attempted attack or sabotage on these pipelines could trigger an irreversible chain reaction in the economy, including the disruption of supply, price fluctuations, industrial production decline and an increase in the cost of electricity.

🔶 A threat to the pipelines is also a challenge to the international law and the security of power supply, and such threats are unacceptable for Turkiye, says Orallı.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇮🇷Trump on Iran:

They should make a deal, but they don't want to quite go far enough. It's too bad.

Look, we've been playing with them for 47 years, and that's a long time. They've been blowing the legs off our people, blowing the face off our people, the arms.

They've been knocking out ships one by one. I mean, every month there's something else, so you can't put up with it too long.

We're not happy with the negotiation. They just don't want to say the key words, "we're not going to have a nuclear weapon." They have to say, "we're not going to have a nuclear weapon," and they just can't quite get there.

They want to enrich a little bit. You don't have to enrich when you have that much oil. So I'm not happy with the negotiation.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇮🇷Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi on Iran-US negotiations:

If there is a deal, there will be full access.

I see no reason why there is no access to be given even to the United States itself.

Within 90 days, we can really address completely the question of the stockpiles.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🌍🌍🌍Institutions like the BRICS would allow Ecuador to move away from a renewed Monroe Doctrine, says an Ecuadorian expert

Given Ecuador's high level of debt, the country should open itself to other international alliances and, instead of the IMF, seek closer ties with organizations like the BRICS or the China Development Bank, Luis Arturo Murillo, an analyst specializing in international cooperation in the public and private sectors, told Sputnik.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💬Russia ready to cooperate with Latin America on use of Mir cards - Foreign Ministry

Russia is ready to cooperate with Latin American countries on the use of the Russian Mir payment system, stated Alexander Shchetinin, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of Latin America.

"The Mir payment system is being accepted in a number of countries. This is positive. We are ready to continue cooperation with other countries that would be willing to hold relevant consultations and negotiations. I believe that if and when such progress is made, we will tell about this in a timely manner."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇬🇧🇫🇷UK & France trying to lick their wounds with nuclear plans in Ukraine - Ethiopian scholar

◻️Commenting on the Russian MFA's accusations that London and Paris were planning to supply Ukraine with nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs,” Dawit Mezgebe Tsegaye, a lecturer at Dilla University, told Sputnik Africa that the two countries had already suffered significant setbacks in the conflict.

▫️Many of their military advisers have been lost, with some coming under Russian control and others seriously wounded, he said.

"Their superior complex has been totally shattered. Therefore, this is the last resort they have."

◻️According to Tsegaye, the UK and France have repeatedly positioned themselves as obstacles to peace efforts.

"The British and the French, they tried everything they can to convince Americans and the Trump administration to continue this war, but this war cannot continue as it is," he said.

◻️On the other hand, they may be trying to prevent a serious defeat in Ukraine with their exposed plan, Tsegaye argued.

"They lost trust in the leadership in Ukraine, in the military. [...] The last ticket they are having is to arm Ukraine with nuclear weapons. But again, this tells you that the level of military defeat, the strategic military defeat, they are sensing."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨Seven of eight crew on plane that crashed in Bolivia survived - firefighters

◻️Seven of the eight crew members on a cargo plane carrying banknotes that crashed in Bolivia survived and were taken to hospitals, the local fire service said on the Unitel television channel.

◻️On Friday, a Bolivian Air Force plane crashed and struck vehicles in the city of El Alto on a highway near the airport. At least 15 people were killed.

◻️Police in El Alto used tear gas to disperse local residents who were collecting money near the crashed plane, El Deber newspaper reported.

◻️Unitel reported that Bolivia's Central Bank and local police were burning the bills the plane had been transporting amid ongoing attempts by Bolivians to reach the site of the tragedy and retrieve the banknotes.

◻️Bolivian Central Bank head David Espinoza said these banknotes were not legal tender as they were not in circulation yet.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🇮🇷US seeks to wipe out Iran - expert

If a war between the US and Iran does break out, there are three possible scenarios, Jordanian political analyst and former MP Nidal Al-Ta’ani tells Sputnik:

🔸 An all-out attack on the Iranian government by the US

🔸 A US attack meant to subjugate Iran and deprive it of strategic armaments such as hypersonic missiles

🔸 A military action meant to force Iran to quit the anti-Israel axis of resistance

Al-Ta’ani also notes that Jordan is not going to participate in this escalation that threatens to push the region into World War III.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt