Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, on Monday for a meeting with the recently-elected President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil, as the largest nation and economy in South America, is considered to have significant potential in a multipolar world and is already part of the BRICS development partnership.

Journalist and correspondent Camila Escalante notes that Brazil's resurgence is viewed as a threat in Washington.

"Celso Amorim is just like the number one confidant, a confidant and advisor to President Lula. He's been with him for many years," Escalante noted. "It was Celso who went to meet with President Maduro in Venezuela on kind of a secret mission. Just recently, he was in Moscow himself and he met with President Putin and with Lavrov as well."

Escalante told Sputnik that what was more significant was Lavrov's "extended" meetings.

🇷🇺🇰🇷 South Korea not supplying Kiev with arms for stability in relation with Russia

💬 "There is no law in South Korean legislation that prohibits the delivery of weapons to another belligerent country. There is also no clause in the [South Korean] Foreign Ministry's regulations that does not allow to provide military assistance to a third country in distress. We do not do this because, while South Korea actively supports the international community for the sake of protecting the freedom of Ukrainian citizens, we must manage relations with Russia in a stable manner," an official with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's office said.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 Arms control cannot take place regardless of geopolitical realities and the general negativity in the US-Russian relations, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said.

He said the anti-Russian coalition has taken on a nuclear dimension, with NATO positioning itself as a nuclear alliance and actively pursuing nuclear sharing missions, adding that Russia cannot afford to ignore NATO's cumulative nuclear capabilities when considering the issue of the New START treaty's future.

💬 "The United States uses a twisted logic. On the one hand, they refuse to engage with us on a business-as-usual basis. At the same time, they insist on returning to the regular cooperation on the issue of the Treaty verification regime. The US military is clearly itching to get into Russian bases which store nuclear weapons," Antonov said.

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☄️ Mysterious flash lights up Kiev’s skies

Local authorities blamed the event on a defunct NASA satellite, however the American space agency denied the claims.

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📹 A Russian Moskit anti-ship cruise missile launch during the Pacific Fleet’s snap inspection

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🇨🇳🇩🇪 China's 'systemic rivals aspect' with Germany 'increasing', Baerbock says

China may be Germany’s largest trading partner, but its role as a "competitor" and "systemic rival" is now "increasing," Annalena Baerbock warned lawmakers in the Bundestag.

She touted “good and important" ties with Beijing, and conceded that China was important for Germany - after all, trade between the two countries amounted to around €300Bln ($320Bln) in 2022. About two-thirds of so-called rare earth metals, vital for batteries, semiconductors, and the magnets in electric cars, are imported by Germany from China.

As the German Foreign Minister weighed in on the new China strategy currently in the pipeline, she said, “We must safeguard freedom and the rule of law in the long term" and "stand up for the international order with a clear stance". According to her, "the freedom, prosperity and security of all of us" is at stake.

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❗️NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has arrived in Kiev, Ukrainian media reports

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🇷🇺🇪🇺 EU reportedly believes bloc 'done' with new sanctions against Russia

The EU believes that there will be more exceptions to them than restrictions, British daily newspaper reported, citing a senior EU official.

According to officials working on the preparation of the next package of sanctions, new EU measures against Moscow are likely to be limited to expanding the list of persons and measures to tighten existing sanctions, "by closing loopholes."

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🇨🇦🥴Canadian ministry of health urged to "end capitalism" and "white supremacy"

Public Health Canada has published a "highly scientific" report that links climate change with the country’s public health.

💬 “I think there’s a whole other layer we’re not talking enough about, which is really needing to decolonize ourselves from the western paradigm,” the paper reads, while admitting that the authors “did not explicitly ask the experts to elaborate on a practical level about how to undertake decolonizing work.”

In another passage, the report virtue signals about Canadians being “uninvited land occupiers,” while, once again not providing any solutions and leaving it at “becoming good guests here” on Indigenous territories.

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❗️Latest statements by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

▪️The Kremlin has no assessments of the prospects of Ukraine joining NATO in connection with Stoltenberg's visit to Kiev;

◾️Preventing Ukraine's accession to NATO remains one of the goals of the special operation;

◾️Russia believes that the nuclear arsenals of France and the United Kingdom are de facto under US control;

◾️The reduction of the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States should be discussed taking into account the arsenals of NATO countries;

◾️The Kremlin is not commenting on statements that there will be no new EU sanctions against Russia.

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Musk calls for lawsuit against Microsoft for illegally using Twitter data for AI training

"They [Microsoft] trained [AI] illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time," Musk tweeted.

In January, Microsoft announced plans to integrate AI, voice based ChatGPT in particular, into its services such as Word and Excel. Microsoft also announced a multibillion dollar investment in ChatGPT's creator, the OpenAI company.

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📹 Russian Solntsepyok flamethrower systems strike Ukrainian troops in the Avdeevka direction

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🇫🇷 Protestors against Macron's pension reform storm the Euronext building in Paris

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