❗️ Russia’s MoD report on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️The Russian Army eliminated more than 40 Ukrainian military and foreign fighters in the Kupyansk direction;

▪️Russian troops destroyed seven Ukrainian command posts in the DPR, Kharkov, and Zaporozhye regions;

▪️Russian forces thwarted an attempt by the Ukrainian Army to counterattack in the South Donetsk direction, eliminating up to 50 Ukrainian servicemen;

▪️The Russian Army repelled three counterattacks by Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk direction, eliminating more than 30 Ukrainian servicemen;

▪️Russian forces thwarted counterattacks by three assault groups of the Ukrainian Army in the Krasny Liman direction, eliminating more than 50 Ukrainian servicemen;

▪️Russian troops destroyed a Ukrainian MLRS battery in the DPR;

▪️Russian air defenses intercepted two UAVs, two HIMARS rockets, and one HARM missile.

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🇺🇸 An average of 19% of American adults cited some aspect of government as the top problem, followed by inflation (16%) and the economy (12%), according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. The "government" is a broad category that includes a range of aspects, such as the president, Congress, party politics, or gridlock.

The poll found that Republicans are more likely than Democrats and independents to cite the government as the top problem.

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📹 Ukrainian troops shelled the center of Donetsk on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings, a Sputnik correspondent has reported from the scene.

Follow our LIVE UPDATES on the Ukrainian crisis

🇵🇰🇺🇸 Friend or Foe? Pakistan Rejects US Claims of 'Country of Particular Concern'

🗯️ "This conspicuous omission raises serious questions about the credibility and transparency of the entire process and makes it a subjective and discriminatory exercise," the Foreign Office's spokesperson, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said.

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Prodigal Son: Why EU Can't Help Turning to Russia's Gas Next Winter

💬 "Germany and France fought several bloody wars over coal deposits in Alsace-Lorraine only to find themselves allies again. Things change in international politics and I wouldn’t rule out restoration of Germany’s energy trade with Russia, though not to the extent of dependency we saw before the [Russo-Ukraine conflict]," Dr. Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and a senior adviser to the US Energy Security Council, told Sputnik.

Previously, Russia typically supplied about 40% of Europe's natural gas. Most of the commodity reached the Old Continent through gas pipelines going via Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic Sea. Deliveries last year amounted to around 155 billion cubic meters (bcm).

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21 Years Ago Today: US Rips Up ABM Treaty With Russia, Starting Slow Slide Toward Current Crisis

21 years ago, the US began to unravel the post-Cold War security environment by pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a 1972 agreement which limited the US and USSR’s ability to develop and deploy anti-missile defenses.

The fateful decision demonstrated to Moscow that Washington's rainbows and puppy dog promises of eternal friendship after the collapse of the USSR were a bluff, and prompted Russia to dust off development work on hypersonic weapons systems designed to preserve the global strategic balance.

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🇺🇸🌍 The US frames African issues as if it assumes “Africa is like one country,” Hermela Aregawi says

▪️She notes that if the US really was to “take the economic development needs of Africa seriously,” it could give the continent’s countries financial relief by reviewing its sanctions policy.

🗣“I mean, a third of the continent is under sanctions,” she adds.

▪️According to Aregawi, the US-Africa Leaders Summit “feels like an opportunity to talk high in the sky issues” and “probably not much will come out of it”

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🇷🇺🇮🇷 Moscow and Tehran are considering setting up joint ventures in Iran that would allow them to design and build airliners with 100 seats and fewer, Iranian Deputy Industry Minister Manouchehr Manteghi, Iranian media reported.

Manteghi said that talks were underway on the joint construction of Ka-226 utility helicopters in Iran and the construction of 100- to 150-seat civil aircraft by the Russian union of aircraft makers. Joint maintenance projects were also discussed.

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🔺 To kick things off, we are joined by Netfa Freeman to talk about the expectations of the US-Africa Leaders Summit taking place in Washington, DC
🔺 After that, George Koo joins us to discuss contrasting styles of diplomacy
🔺 And then Caleb Maupin will drop by to discuss why weapons of political destabilization do not work in Venezuela

All these, alongside other fascinating topics with Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon! Tune in to Radio Sputnik at 6pm EST|3pm PST|12am CET via the website or app

📻 Also in the United States at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

🇦🇷🇭🇷 Argentina advances to World Cup final after besting Croatia 3-0

From Neck-Breaking Ejection Seats to Frightening Lightning: F-35’s Top Ten Problems

Did you know that even as Lockheed Martin continues to pump out hundreds of F-35 multirole strike jets, the US Government Accountability Office still lists four major "Category 1" problems with the plane, and 822 lesser "Category 2" issues? It's true.

Read more about it here

👷 Stay safe, folks!

🤏 Members of NATO face “very” real” arms shortages due to the conflict in Ukraine, and the alliance is working with the military-industrial complex on filling these gaps, US Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith said on Tuesday.

💬 “That effort is focused on declining stockpiles across the NATO alliance for a country like Estonia that has given an enormous amount of security assistance to Ukraine. They're facing some very real shortfalls, and they're not alone. We see that across the Alliance,” Smith said at in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Members of the alliance are discussing the issue among themselves and with representative of the defense industry, she added. “They meet with industry. They're also trying to look at things like multinational buys, pool purchases,” she said.

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📹 Footage of the combat use of the Su-35S jet in the special operation zone (video courtesy of Russia's MoD)

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US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

The legislation is called the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) and is expected to protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from any social media company in China, Russia, among other countries.

The previous Trump administration attempted to ban TikTok as well as the Chinese media platform WeChat in 2020, allegedly in order to protect Americans’ privacy. The Biden administration did not continue to fight for the implementation of their predecessors' initiative and only recently resumed criticism of TikTok.

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After Good Inflation Report, Biden Says He ‘Hopes’ Prices to Return to Normal by ‘End of Next Year’

Biden’s comments come after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics published its consumer price index report for November, showing that prices had risen by 7.1% since a year prior. While still high, it’s still the smallest such increase since December 2021 - a sign that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to quash inflation are working.

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‼️Air raid warning issued in Kiev - authorities