🙅 🇹🇷 The Turkish Directorate of Communications said on Wednesday that social media reports showing a strange light trail in the sky shortly before devastating earthquakes were not filmed in Turkiye.

▪️ According to the Directorate's Disinformation Bulletin, several videos were published on social media showing a bright glow in the sky.

💬 "These videos have nothing to do with the earthquakes in Turkiye. The original video was filmed on September 21, 2022 in the Kazakh city of Balkhash, this is the launch of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle from Baikonur," the agency said in a statement received by Sputnik

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❗️ Russia’s updated foreign policy concept will be focused on suspending West’s dictate, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says

📹 Two Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers carried out a scheduled flight in airspace over international waters in the Chukchi and Okhotsk Seas (video courtesy of Russian MoD)

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❗️ Key statements made by Russia’s FM Lavrov during his address to State Duma:

▪️ The West is lying about what really happened to Nord Stream pipelines;

▪️ Russia’s updated foreign policy concept will be focused on suspending West’s dictate;

▪️ Attempts to isolate Russia will fail;

▪️ The purpose of the West's hybrid war against Russia is to turn it into a “rogue state”;

▪️ Russia and China are working to strengthen their strategic partnership;

▪️ The Western policy of turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian foothold has recently reached the point of no return;

▪️ The course taken by the President of the Russian Federation to defend national interests firmly is proving its effectiveness.

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❗️Russia’s Federal Assembly calls on the world's parliaments to urge the US Congress to disclose information about military projects under the guise of "medical and biological activities" on their countries’ territories

⚡️Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scottish First Minister, British media reports

❗️Russia is preparing a special meeting of UNSC over the Nord Stream pipelines explosions

🇪🇺 EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell admitted on Wednesday that the collapse of the Russian economy from the impact of European sanctions did not happen as initially predicted in the European Union.

💬 "It is true that the Russian economy has not collapsed and that the GDP is not what has been forecast, and it is true that last year it got extraordinarily high revenues that came from oil and gas," Borrell said during a speech at the European Parliament plenary session.

▪️ Western countries have been seeking ways to limit Russia's income from oil and gas exports, as well as their dependence on Russian fuel since the country launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

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😷 🦠 The World Health Organization (WHO) has quietly suspended the second phase of a scientific investigation into the origins of the coronavirus causing COVID-19, citing inability to carry out research in China due to world politics complications, UK scientific journal Nature reported, citing epidemiologists.

🗣 "There is no phase two," Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Lead at the WHO Health Emergencies Programme Maria Van Kerkhove told the journal.

▪️ The epidemiologist also said that the WHO planned to conduct the study in phases, but "that plan has changed" because "the politics across the world of this really hampered progress on understanding the origins," according to the report.

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⚡️ Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announces her resignation after 8 years in office

💊 Russia has the capacity to produce own version of Viagra after US pharmaceutical company Viatris suspended deliveries of the erectile dysfunction treatment in 2022, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade told Sputnik.

The ministry added that in order to ensure local production, the government supported a project designed to organize and conduct clinical trials of the drug based on the same component — sildenafil — in the form of pills.

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

▪️The Russian Army destroyed eight Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the Kupyansk direction;

▪️Ukrainian losses in the Donetsk direction amounted to 190 serviceman;

▪️Russian troops eliminated up to 65 Ukrainian servicemen, two Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, and one Grad MLRS in the Krasny Liman direction;

▪️Ukrainian losses in the Kupyansk direction amounted up 100 servicemen;

▪️Russian air defense systems destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones and 8 HIMARS MLRS rockets;

▪️Ukrainian losses in the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions amounted to over 60 servicemen;

▪️Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian ammunition depot in the Kharkov region;

▪️Russia destroyed Gvozdika and D-30 122mm howitzers in the Kherson direction.

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❗️LIVE NOW: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov talks to foreign media in Moscow
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📹 Russia’s FM Sergey Lavrov comments on the state of freedom of speech in Europe after bans on Russian media

💬 "I believe you are well aware of the principles of free journalism and you're well aware of what RT and Sputnik are doing. And if you cannot see any violations of the principle of freedom of speech in their activities, then it would be most interesting to find out such examples from you today," Lavrov said.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh criticized US mainstream media for not running a word about his investigative piece on the Biden administration's alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

💬 "Neither paper has run a word at this point about the pipeline story, not even to quote the White House’s denial of my reporting. Similarly, public calls by officials in Russia and China for a full investigation of the pipeline story have been ignored by the US media," Hersh said.

Still, the pieces he wrote eventually found their way to mainstream media in the US and around the world, the journalist noted. Hersh worked as a long-time reporter for The New York Times, and The Washington Post ran a long magazine profile of him more than two decades ago.

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