🇰🇵🇰🇷 The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is failing to act despite the United States' attempts to turn the Korean Peninsula into a theater of war and a military base, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday.

🗣 "The reality goes to clearly prove that the U.S. and South Korea are the arch criminals deliberately disrupting the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the region. This being a hard fact, the UNSC is groundlessly pulling up the DPRK [the Democratic People's Republic of Korea], which has maintained patience and self-control to defuse the tension in the Korean peninsula, and is showing no expression of concern, far from deterring the U.S. seeking to turn the Korean peninsula into a theatre of war exercises and a military base," the spokesperson said, as quoted by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

▪️ The diplomat recalled that the US and South Korea are planning to hold over 20 joint military exercises in 2023, adding that the countries "put their scale and scope on the level of the largest-ever field mobile tactical exercises."

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Russian Embassy: Nuland's Statement on Crimea Shows Washington's Involvement in Conflict

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland's statement that the United States supports Ukraine targeting massive Russian military installations in Crimea shows Washington's direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict, Igor Girenko, the press secretary of Russia's embassy to the US, said on Thursday.

"The statements by a senior State Department official on February 16 about supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces in carrying out strikes on Crimea are a clear confirmation of Russia's position that the United States is directly involved in the conflict," Girenko said on the embassy's Telegram.

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Swedish Police Admit to Restricting Free Speech, Say No to Quran-Burnings

The Swedish police have refused permission for a Quran-burning for a second time in a week, this time outside the Iraqi embassy. The decision was motivated by considerations that it could increase the terrorist threat against the Nordic country.

Last week, Sweden denied activists permission to burn a copy of Islam's holy book outside of Turkiye's embassy, as the Nordic country's Security Police called the stepped-up Quran-burnings a threat to Swedish society and Swedish interests amid an extensive Muslim backlash, as Swedish flags had been torched in several places across the globe in response.

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🇺🇸 🇨🇳 US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Michael Chase will travel to Taiwan in the first such visit since 2019 amid the rift in relations between Washington and Beijing following the downing of a suspected spy balloon off the coast of the United States, US media reported.

▪️ The senior official, who is currently in Mongolia for discussions with the country’s military, is expected to embark on the trip in the coming days, the report said on Thursday.

▪️ In early February, the United States detected and later shot down four unidentified flying objects, including the alleged Chinese surveillance balloon. Washington alleges that the balloon was designed to gather intelligence.

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New Corroborating Evidence Emerges Showing US Trace Behind Nord Stream Blasts

An email forwarded to Sputnik by a US journalist from an individual identifying themselves as a servicemember that took part in last summer’s NATO BALTOPS 22 exercises in waters near the site of the Nord Stream pipeline explosions provides new information corroborating last week's bombshell Substack report on the incident by Seymour Hersh.

According to the email, on June 15, a helicopter delivered a group of conspicuous-looking American divers in civilian clothes to the exercise area. “My first thought was that they looked like a group of terrorists,” the source wrote, pointing to the individuals’ odd haircuts, mustaches and beards, and the absence of any military ID markers.

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🥴 One of the flying objects shot down in the US could reportedly be a balloon worth between $12 and $180, which was launched by amateurs

▪️ On February 5, a group of amateur balloonists in Illinois reported that their missing balloon had drifted away. The latest F-22 jet fighters were scrambled to shoot down the unidentified floating object.

📌 Firing just one F-22 missile costs $400,000

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😍 What a lovely story!

😽 The cat, which was taken from the rubble in Turkiye, has not left the rescuers for several days

🙏 Now rescuers are trying to find the owners of the cat, but if this fails, then the man who can be seen in the video will take the pet home. They have become very attached during this time.

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😯 🇹🇷 Several Turkish seismologists have recently predicted a "devastating" earthquake in Istanbul because the city is located at the confluence of the Anatolian and Eurasian tectonic plates, 15-20 kilometers (9-12 miles) south of the North Anatolian Fault area, which runs under the Sea of Marmara and poses a seismic threat.

▪️ The impact of the potential earthquake in Istanbul forecast by some seismologists would overshadow the recent earthquakes in the country's southeast in terms of destruction and social-economic damage, Turkish newspaper reported on Friday, citing experts.

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UK PM Sunak Arrives in Belfast Amid Speculation NI Protocol Deal Could Be Clinched in March

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has arrived in Belfast to meet local party leaders amid speculation that a deal between the UK and the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol (NI Protocol) could be clinched next week.

A Number 10 spokesperson said that "whilst talks with the EU are ongoing, ministers continue to engage with relevant stakeholders to ensure any solution fixes the practical problems on the ground, meets our overarching objectives, and safeguards Northern Ireland's place in the UK's internal market."

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❗️ Key statements by President Putin at the 30th anniversary of Gazprom:

▪️ Gas has been and will continue to be a valuable resource and real asset for a very long time;

▪️ Gazprom now faces large-scale tasks of restructuring logistics routes;

▪️ Despite unfair competition and outside attempts to restrain Gazprom, the company is moving forward;

▪️ The growth in consumption in the future will be in the Asia-Pacific region, including China.

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'Economic War Criminal': India's Ruling Party Hits Back at George Soros for Comments on Modi

🇺🇸🇮🇳 Highlighting his controversial biography, senior BJP politician and federal minister Smriti Irani accused Soros and comparable foreign speculators of conspiring to topple the Narendra Modi-led government in India and install their own puppets.

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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 today:

🔺To kick things off, we’ll be discussing the rumors about cracks within the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan
🔺Next, we’ll touch upon Biden’s speech on the notorious unidentified balloons
🔺And, of course, we’ll continue monitoring the situation in Ohio, where toxic fumes continue to poison the surrounding area following a train derailment

More trending stories coming your way! 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

🗣 The statement of US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland about the strikes on Crime once again confirm the involvement of the United States in the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

📌 Earlier in the day, Nuland said that Ukraine will not be considered safe by the collective West unless Crimea is at a minimum demilitarized and that the US supports Kiev targeting massive Russian military installations in Crimea as it considers them to be legitimate targets.

💬 "She [Nuland] allowed herself a whole series of mind-blowing and absurd statements ... Once again, we see the involvement of the United States in the conflict in Ukraine — supplying with weapons in huge quantities, providing intelligence, and blatantly participating in combat operations planning," Zakharova told a briefing.

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

▪️Russian Forces launched a concentrated missile strike on enterprises that provided fuel and ammunition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

▪️Russian troops disrupted the supply of fuel to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and reduced the production capabilities of explosives in Ukraine;

▪️Over 200 Ukrainian military personnel were destroyed by Russian troops in the Donetsk direction;

▪️Russian forces destroyed up to 80 Ukrainian military personnel near Kupyansk (Kharkov region);

▪️Russian troops destroyed over 90 military personnel near Krasny Liman (DPR);

▪️The Russian military destroyed 35 Ukrainian military personnel and a US-made HIMARS system near Kherson;

▪️Russian forces destroyed an ammunition depot of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the settlements of Ugledar of the Donetsk People's Republic;

▪️The Russian Armed Forces destroyed an ammunition depot of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Avdeevka area in the DPR;

▪️Russian Aerospace Forces shot down Ukrainian Air Force Mi-8 helicopter in the Kherson region;

▪️The Russian Armed Forces destroyed two ammunition depots of the 124th and 129th Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of Kherson and Vyschetaarasivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

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❗️ The ambassador of the Netherlands was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on February 16. Moscow demanded that the ambassador stop Amsterdam's attempts to lay responsibility for the MH17 disaster on Russia.