❗️Moscow is not ruling out the possibility of contacts with Washington, if it is necessary to ensure the interests of the country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

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🇩🇪 "This was s***": German merc warns about chilling reality of fighting in Ukraine

Jonas Kratzenberg, a German soldier-turned-mercenary, who fled Ukraine after witnessing and experiencing extensive corruption, lies, and war crimes first hand, has shared his account of serving in Kiev's infamous International Legion.

💬 "The International Legion treated us volunteers much worse. Many of us were poorly paid or not paid at all. It was hard for us to defend ourselves because we could not speak Russian or Ukrainian. However, my unit was not wiped out. After the first losses, we were mostly sent to areas that were less dangerous. But I also saw footage of a commander who saw volunteers only as cannon fodder," Kratzenberg said.

For more of stories from Jonas Kratzenberg's experience, check out our article here

🫣 You won't see this highlight in a Ukrainian military daily briefing

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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 Bidens’ investigation
🔺Next, we’ll continue monitoring the US banking system’s issues
🔺Finally, we’ll touch upon the attempted attack on the Kremlin

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

💰 Push For Dedollarisation: SCO nations back boosting payments in national currencies, 🇷🇺 Russia's FM says

There are practices being developed by the Eurasian Development Bank, the Asian Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the new BRICS Development Bank that can be used for this purpose, Lavrov said.

👉 READ MORE on Sputnik

🇵🇱 Poland has demolished a war memorial to the Red Army in the town of Glubczyce

The monument was dedicated to the memory of 676 fallen soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front who fought for the city in March 1945.

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🇺🇸🤖 Dems float bill to force disclosure of use of AI in campaign ads after GOP airs creepy 'Beat Biden' spot

A bill has been introduced by a House Democrat requiring that political campaign ads disclose the use of AI-created imagery.

This comes after the GOP released an AI-generated "Beat Biden" campaign video, which starts with the question "What if the weakest President we've ever had, were re-elected?"

It contains images of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge interspersed with computer-generated shots of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. A robotic narrator offers AI-generated scenarios where a war between China and Taiwan has started, regional banks have collapsed, the flow of illegal immigrants has surged at the US-Mexico border, and the crime rate has escalated dramatically.

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📹 Russian T-80 battle tanks in action during special military op

The Airborne Forces' UAV crews observed a group of Ukrainian militants huddled in a dilapidated house in one of the settlements. The coordinates of the enemy positions were immediately transmitted to the command post, after which a decision was made to destroy it using a T-80 tank.

Having moved swiftly to the specified area, the tank crew requested the coordinates of the Ukrainian military fortifications and destroyed them with accurate fire from a 125mm cannon.

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🇨🇳🇪🇺 Borrell says EU needs own policy on China separate from US

💬 "On the EU-US-China triangle, we are closer to Washington, certainly, but we have to have our own way and we are working on that," Josep Borrell told a conference in Florence.

The chief EU diplomat said at an EU event in Italy ennoscriptd "Building Europe in Times of Uncertainty" that the 27-nation bloc should not stand in the way of China's ascent to global power status.

The US has been nudging Europe to take a tougher stance on China, its economic rival and a growing military power, to contain its rising global influence. This is despite the fact that the three remain the world's largest trading partners.

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🇧🇫 🇷🇺 Burkina Faso's Interim President Hails Russia as Key Strategic Ally in Fight Against Terrorism

📺 In a televised interview Thursday, Burkina Faso's interim President Ibrahim Traore was asked about Ouagadougou's international allies as it grapples with the ongoing struggle against a jihadist insurgency that has left thousands dead in Africa's Sahel region.

🗣 "The departure of the French army does not mean that France is not an ally," Traore responded. "But we have strategic allies too. We have new forms of cooperation. Russia, for example, is a strategic ally."

The Burkinabe leader expressed his satisfaction with his country's military cooperation with Moscow, saying, "It's frank."

He added that Ouagadougou will continue this cooperation, noting that the friendly country is a major supplier of military equipment to Burkina Faso

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⚡️ WHO strips COVID-19 of pandemic status

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

▪️In the Kherson direction, Russian air defense systems obliterated two Ukrainian Su-25s;

▪️In the Kupyansk direction, Russian forces wiped out as many as 95 Ukrainian troops, an Akatsiya self-propelled gun and an M777 howitzer;

▪️Near Chasov Yar, Russian forces destroyed a bridge, which Ukrainian troops used for transporting ammunition supplies and transferring reserves in the direction of Artemovsk;

▪️In the Krasny Liman direction, Ukrainian losses amounted to 65 troops, one armored vehicle and other motor vehicles;

▪️In the Kharkov region, one ammunition depot was destroyed;

▪️The activities of three Ukrainian sabotage groups in the Kharkov region were foiled;

▪️Two Ukrainian infantry brigade ammunition depots were destroyed close to Kramatorsk and Avdeevka in the DPR;

▪️In the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions, Ukrainian losses amounted to 90 troops, one tank, a D-30 howitzer and an M777 howitzer;

▪️In the Kherson direction, as many as 80 Ukrainian troops, 15 armored fighting vehicles and other motor vehicles were destroyed.

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🇩🇪 There is a conflict between German politicians and businessmen in light of the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, geopolitical analyst and author Pepe Escobar tells Sputnik’s New Rules

💬 “They were already a first-class trading power on the way to becoming a superpower before the SMO, before the sanctions and before the bombing of the Nord Streams. And now they're going back to 100 years ago, to put it in Xi Jinping’s language,” Escobar said.

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🇭🇺 Ukrainian crisis is 'Klondike' for arms makers & profiteers, Viktor Orban says

Arms manufacturers raking in massive profits, financial profiteers, and Western economic circles who hope to lay their hands on Russia's rich natural resources are the ones who are interested in seeing the Ukraine conflict rage on, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. "There's always a reason for the start of any war," he added.

The Hungarian PM also pointed to avaricious Western economic circles, including 92-year-old American billionaire George Soros, who "always dreamed of somehow setting foot on Ukrainian soil - and they succeeded - and also hopes to gain access to Russia's natural resources".

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Economist and professor Mark Frost explained that the US Federal Reserve's policy of raising interest rates is about "fighting inflation by making all these banks less liquid, which is accelerating the problem we're having with the banks."

"But then also we promised the world that we're going to fight inflation," Frost said. "We fight inflation very differently than we fight bank illiquidity. And that's the problem. They're trying to love two lovers, so to speak."

Read the expert analysis on Sputnik’s website

🎙 A brand new episode of the #AfroVerdict podcast from our friends from Sputnik Africa: enjoy!

🗣️”Everything that has been coming from the United States, NATO, and the EU is totally false”: Crimea-based American filmmaker Regis Tremblay speaks about Western coverage of the Ukrainian counteroffensive

🎧Listen to more of Tremblay’s analysis in our podcast The Critical Hour

📹 Combat operations of Mi-28N attack helicopter crews of Russian Aerospace Forces (video by Russian MoD)

During the combat flights, the army aviation pilots launched rockets at identified fortified positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces units.

The hits were recorded by means of objective control. As part of the special military operation, army aviation helicopter crews continue to carry out tasks to destroy armored vehicles and military infrastructure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, escort military convoys, deliver troops and military cargo, and provide air support.

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Czech Ex-Military Intel Chief: West's war on Russia has made Moscow stronger

The proxy conflict in Ukraine and the West's sanctions "total war" against Russia have so far failed to achieve their objectives, with Moscow reorienting its economic relationships toward Asia and the Global South.

"To top things off, the sanctions that we as the West began to impose on Russia were
a) to a large extent not completely legal from the point of view of international law, and
b) completely stupid, because we shouldn't think that the largest nation on Earth, endowed with the greatest natural resource wealth <...> would somehow be fundamentally damaged by getting McDonald's to leave," former Czech Military Intelligence chief Petr Pelz said.

For more comments by Pelz, check out our article here

🗣️”So it is a region-wide destabilization in the same vein as the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and transforming it into a proxy against Russia. It is the same thing, just in Asia versus China”: Bangkok-based Ex-US Marine Corps independent geopolitical researcher and writer Brian Berletic speaks about US attempts to destabilize the nations along China's periphery

🎧Listen to more of Berletic’s analysis in our podcast The Critical Hour