"The commanders use us as cannon fodder”

📹WATCH: Ukrainian troops complain to their government about the conditions of military service.

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No More Gaslighting the GOAT: 'Banished Words' of 2023 Revealed by a US University

Hours before the end of 2022, the Lake Superior State University (LSSU) in Michigan released their annual “banished words list": a collection of “imprecise, trite, and meaningless words and terms of seeming convenience” that educators advise people to refrain from using in the New Year.

Nominations for the ten-word list were submitted to the university by people living both in the United States and abroad, including residents of countries such as Australia, Portugal, China and Namibia.

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😲📹Fifty-two-year-old Philippine artist Elito Circa draws...with his own blood!?

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📹The Russian Defense Ministry has published a video showing Grad MLRS crews in combat as part of the special military operation in Ukraine.

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🚘The car production in Russia is expected to increase by over 30% in 2023, reaching 800,000 cars compared to 600,000 produced over the past year, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said on Tuesday.

💬"We should reach the level of car production of at least 800,000. Last year, it was a bit over 600,000 cars," Manturov told Russian media.

📌The minister also noted that the number of car sales in Russia would also likely to increase by around 25% from 800,000 in 2022 to 1 million this year.

💬"We believe that there will be 800,000 cars produced [in Russia] and considering the market growth and its recovery due to mechanisms of parallel imports, it [the number of car sales] will amount to some 1 million," Manturov stated.

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📹WATCH: Russian 152mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system crews in combat as part of the special military operation in Ukraine (video by Russian’s MoD)

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Video footage from the California Highway Patrol helicopter shows the rescue operation after a couple and their two children plunged nearly 100 meters while driving along a treacherous stretch of California’s Pacific Coast Highway.

Two adults were critically injured after their Tesla sedan tumbled downhill after being driven off the road, according to Brian Pottinger, the battalion chief of CAL Fire’s San Mateo - Santa Cruz unit. The two children aged four and nine, reportedly suffered less serious injuries

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Jeremy Renner, who portrayed Hawkeye, one of the superheroes from Marvel’s Avengers, underwent surgery on January 2 due to “blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries” sustained in an accident while clearing snow in his Reno, Nevada, neighborhood after a massive blizzard on New Year's Eve.

🗣️ "Thank you for all your kind words. I'm too messed up now to type. But I send love to you all," wrote the 51-year old actor, whose condition was described as critical but stable after the injuries he sustained when hit by a snow plough

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The Russian military death toll in the city of Makeevka in the Donetsk People's Republic after a strike by Ukrainian troops on January 1 rose to 89 after the rubble was cleared, first deputy head of the Russian Armed Forces' Main Military-Political Directorate, Lt. Gen. Sergey Sevryukov, said.

🗣 “Immediately after the tragedy, the command and officers of this military unit, junior commanders and servicemen of other units took all available measures to rescue those wounded. First aid was provided, the wounded were evacuated to medical facilities. Unfortunately, during the clearing of the rubble of reinforced concrete structures, the number of our comrades who died rose to 89," he said

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Twitter Pressured by US Lawmakers to Exaggerate Alleged Russian Election Meddling

The latest batch of internal documents released, in coordination with Twitter chief Elon Musk, shows that the social media giant had originally seen no coordinated effort by Russia to use the social media platform to launch a major campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Twitter's then Public Policy Vice President Colin Crowell said in an email to former CEO Jack Dorsey in September 2017 that Democrat lawmakers had taken cues from then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to pressure Twitter to investigate accounts linked to Russia

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😳 California Highway Patrol (CHP) in San Francisco reported that Dharmesh Patel of Pasadena who was with his family in the Tesla that plunged almost 100 meters after veering off California’s Pacific Coast Highway, has been arrested for attempted murder and child abuse. After talking to witnesses and collecting evidence at the scene, investigators believe that "this incident was a deliberate act".

Earlier, CHP Officer Mark Andrew said that investigators did not believe that the Tesla was operating on autopilot or full autonomous driving at the time

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👉 Follow our LIVE UPDATES on the Ukrainian crisis

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The stars of Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film Romeo and Juliet are suing over a nude scene they shot when they were teenagers.

71-year-old Olivia Hussey and 72-year-old Leonard Whiting were 15 and 16 respectively at the time and have filed a $500 million lawsuit in the Santa Monica Supreme Court in California, accusing Paramount Pictures of sexual harassment, fraud, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional stress.

Director Zeffirelli initially told them there would be no nudity in the film. The lawsuit alleges that Zeffirelli showed the actors where the camera would be placed, but that no nudity would be filmed or published.

According to US media, the actors' lawsuit is based on a California law that has temporarily suspended the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse claims

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Catch our Fault Lines show where we provide updates and analysis on all the most vital stories! Here's our line-up for Wednesday:

🔺 Drama ensues as the selection of a new House Speaker in Washington DC descends into turmoil;

🔺 We discuss a potential investigation into the Biden administration

🔺 We talk about the firing of the US Virgin Islands Attorney General after she filed a suit against JPMorgan...

And much more! Tune in to Radio Sputnik at 7am EST|4am PST|1pm CET via the website or app!

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

🇷🇺 Despite the US decision to terminate the so-called Middle East Quartet, Russia is ready to continue working within this format, Vladimir Safronkov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's special representative for the Middle East, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

💬 "It is not our decision to end the dialogue under the Quartet. Even in the current geopolitical realities, we are ready to return to collective work. They should make up their mind. In the meantime, we continue to work in our national capacity, relying on close interaction with all regional states," the diplomat said in an interview.

According to Safronkov, the US policy toward the Quartet, which includes Russia, the US, the EU and the UN, is a continuation of Washington's course to scrap a number of multilateral formats.

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❗️Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the commissioning ceremony for the Admiral Gorshkov frigate equipped with Zircon hypersonic missile systems on Wednesday, where he said the following:

▪️Russia will continue to equip the strategic forces with the latest types of weapons;

▪️The ship is equipped with the latest Zircon hypersonic missile system, which has no analogues;

▪️The Zircon systems are able to ensure the security of Russia.

According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who also took part in the ceremony:

▪️The Admiral Gorshkov frigate equipped with "Zircons" is going on a long voyage across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea;

▪️During the mission, the frigate will practice the use of Zirkon hypersonic missiles;

▪️Zircon is capable of evading all current and prospective air and missile defense systems, and it has a range of up to 1,000 km, and can fly at a speed of up to Mach 9.

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❗️Russian MoD briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️The Russian Army eliminated more than 40 Ukrainian servicemen in the Kupyansk direction;

▪️Russian troops eliminated a Ukrainian sabotage group the Kharkov region;

▪️The Russian Air Force shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 and an Su-25 in the Kramatorsk region, the DPR and in the Nikolaev region;

▪️Russian forces eliminated over 100 Ukrainian servicemen in the Donetsk direction;

▪️The Russian Army eliminated five Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the LPR and DPR;

▪️Russian forces destroyed two US-made counter-battery radars in the DPR;

▪️Russian troops destroyed five Ukrainian warehouses with artillery ammunition in the DPR and in the Zaporozhye region;

▪️Ukrainian troops lost more than 150 soldiers killed and wounded in the Krasny Liman direction;

▪️The Russian Army destroyed three Ukrainian 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers in Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions;

▪️Russian troops repelled counterattacks by Ukrainian forces in the South Donetsk direction;

▪️Russian forces eliminated more than 180 Ukrainian servicemen in the DPR and the Zaporozhye region.

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❗️ Trump urges all Republicans to back McCarthy’s bid for House speaker

The former US president has expressed his support for the Congressman, as Kevin McCarthy failed to secure enough votes to become the next House speaker on Tuesday.

The deadlocked House is set to convene again on Wednesday for Republicans to elect a speaker.

House lawmakers held a third round of voting on Tuesday following two earlier failed votes. In the first two rounds, 19 Republican members voted against McCarthy, while 20 voted against him in the third.

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🇰🇵🇰🇷 The Republic of Korea may rip up the landmark 2018 military agreement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea if airspace violations involving the use of unmanned aerial vehicles continue, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s press secretary has warned.

According to the spokesman, the president also ordered the military to create a new multipurpose drone warfare unit for surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare operations, as well as a “drone killer” for anti-drone missions.

Yoon was also said to have asked Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup to create the capability to mass produce small, difficult-to-detect drones. Two squadrons of drones are already operational as part of the South Korean military’s Ground Operations Command. The military plans to spend some $440 million over the next five years on anti-drone technology, including laser and signal jamming weapons.

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📹 Admiral Gorshkov frigate leaves naval base (video courtesy of Russia’s MoD)

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US Failed to Weaken 'Axis of Resistance' by Killing Soleimani, Hezbollah Head Nasrallah Says

Soleimani's killing alongside Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces deputy chairman Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were meant to "break the resistance, terrorize the Iraqis, and weaken the parties of the Axis of Resistance," according to the Hezbollah chairman. But the project "failed to achieve its goals and to subjugate Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen," instead launching "new elements of power in our region."

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