❗️Russia’s MoD has published footage showing the elimination of a Ukrainian sabotage group in the Belgorod region

The ministry provided details on the Ukrainian terrorist attack in the Belgorod region:

▪️After the loss of Artemovsk, the Kiev regime has decided to ramp up terrorist acts against civilians

▪️On Monday, after heavy shelling, a Ukrainian sabotage group infiltrated the Belgorod region;

▪️Ukrainian nationalist formations behind the attack were blocked and eliminated;

▪️Remnants of the group were thrown back to Ukraine, where they were shelled until their complete destruction;

▪️Russian forces eliminated more than 70 Ukrainian terrorists and destroyed four armored vehicles and five cars.

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🇳🇴 Norway's women asked for baby boom as fertility rates hit rock bottom

Norway's Minister for Children and Families, Kjersti Toppe, said that the average birth rate must grow from of the current rate of 1.41 children per woman to 2.1 – a rate unseen since the 1970s.

In order to speed up the birth rate, the minister has put forward the following measures: strengthening the finances of students and others who receive one-off benefits, offering tax relief to families with more than two children, increasing child benefits and expanding the right to a nursery place.

Norwegian fertility rates have seen a decade-long plunge, pushing the Nordic country to increasingly rely on Europe's current demographic fix-it plan - immigration - to make up for the population loss.

If the current trend continues, the nation's population will shrink, unless immigration increases to make up for the loss. As of 2022, immigrants to Norway stood at 18.9% of the populace, up from 4.3% merely three decades ago, in 1992.

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🇺🇸 Driver who rammed White House security barrier charged with attempt to kill US president

A U-Haul driver who rammed his truck into the White House security barrier at Lafayette Square has been charged with threatening to kill or harm the president, vice president, or a family member, the US police say. Investigators told US media that no explosives were found in the truck.

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

▪️Ukrainian losses in the Kupyansk direction amounted to 110 servicemen and two armored vehicles;

▪️Russian troops eliminated more than 150 Ukrainian servicemen in the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions;

▪️The Russian Army destroyed two Ukrainian ammunition depots in the DPR;

▪️Ukrainian losses in the Krasny Liman direction amounted to more than 65 servicemen;

▪️Russian forces eliminated up to 375 Ukrainian servicemen the Donetsk direction;

▪️Russian air defenses intercepted 13 HIMARS and Uragan MLRS rockets and shot down 11 Ukrainian UAVs;

▪️Russian troops eliminated more than 20 Ukrainian servicemen and a Msta-B howitzer in the Kherson direction.

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📹 'Scumbags': Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev slams Ukrainian sabotage group's attack on Belgorod region

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🛰 Maxar Technologies, the satellite imaging and manufacturing company, photographed the border areas of the Belgorod region two days before the Ukrainian sabotage group attacked the region

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MMA fighter Jeff Monson has given up his American passport and ceased to be a US citizen

Key statements made by Jeff Monson after giving up his American passport:

▪️ In the USA, you are not a patriot if you say something against the USA. You must support everything that the States does, ask no questions, cover your eyes and mouth even to the worst things.

▪️ The USA is a superpower, but the USA is also the main peddler of death in the world right now.

▪️ I think Putin wants the best for Russia.

▪️ The US is the main imperialist right now. They control the world economy at the expense of the dollar and military bases on all continents, they use sanctions. This is the world hegemon that Russia is trying to appease.

In 2018, Monson was granted Russian citizenship.

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Chinese yuan may replace the US dollar as the world's reserve and settlement currency in the next 10 years

"China is now the world's second-largest economy and will soon become the first. There is every reason to expect that the Chinese yuan will replace the US dollar as the world's main reserve and settlement currency as early as the next decade. In fact, the Central Bank of Russia is already investing its reserves in yuan, and more than 70 percent of trade turnover between Russia and China is settled in yuan together with the ruble," the chairman of Russia's VTB Bank, Andrei Kostin, said at the Russian-Chinese business forum in Shanghai.

According to him, the monetary and financial system that has predominated for decades ensures the hegemony of the US and its Western allies, and the dollar and the euro account for three-quarters of global settlements. Kostin added that the dollar is the world's main reserve currency, but having announced a course of containment of Russia and China, the collective West, and the US in particular, have been actively using their currency as a weapon.

In March, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said it was necessary to promote the practice of mutual settlements between Russia and China in national currencies.

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❗️ Moscow court extends the arrest of the WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich for three months

What can replace US dollar as world reserve currency?

The NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine has served to hasten a global realignment, demonstrating from its earliest months that the United States no longer has the power to marshal its economic, political and military muscle to bully other countries into submission. This process has included renewed talk about alternatives to the dollar.

Moreover, the ongoing drama in Washington about the debt ceiling and the prospects of the federal government running out of money and defaulting on its obligations has renewed debate about the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency – and whether its position is sustainable.

The question on everyone’s minds is now no longer ‘can the dollar be dethroned, but ‘what could replace it’?

Find out the answer here.

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The EU needs to reach an agreement with Russia on the future of European security, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at the economic forum in Qatar.

▪️ Orban also commented on the situation with Ukraine. According to him, without the direct participation of NATO troops, the country has no chance of winning. The Hungarian PM noted that instead of escalating the conflict, it is necessary to move towards a peaceful solution to the issue.

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🇷🇺 "The Russian Knights" Aerobatic Team has arrived in Malaysia to participate in the 16th Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition

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🗣️”This is just meant to be more propaganda to try to whitewash away and paper over the fear that Zelensky obviously feels both domestically and abroad from having lost his, as he called it, 'great fortress city’”: Moscow-based international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda discusses how Western media and pro-Ukraine cover the fact that Russian troops have taken the city of Artemovsk (Bakhmut)

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

📹 Putin explains why Russia is conducting its special operation in Ukraine

💬 The future of Russia depends on what is being done in these difficult times, Putin says.

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❗️LIVE NOW: Putin meets with Republika Srpska leader Dodik
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Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev demands compensation from the United States for Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and Mariupol

The United States must compensate Russia for the destruction of Artemovsk, Mariupol, and a host of other places, said Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev was asked whether the United States should compensate Russia for the damage caused by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

"And not only this damage. Let them return the funds, or at least allocate funds, for the restoration of Artemovsk, Mariupol, and a host of other places that were destroyed with their help and support. With their money," Medvedev replied.

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🎧 In today's episode of the AfroVerdict podcast, brought to you by Sputnik Africa, meet Dr Anthony Ajayi, a researcher with the African Population and Health Research Center in Kenya, who explains how "community driven" approaches could help in the fight against HIV in Africa.