🗣️”A lot of these people were just sold to the CIA, right? They would literally, someone had a grudge against him or wanted money. And they just say, 'My neighbor over there in Afghanistan, he was part of 9/11.' Or what ever is totally untrue. And they were sent to Guantanamo”: labor attorney, human rights activist, and author Dan Kovalik on how the prisoners are treated in Guantanamo

🎧Listen to more of Kovalik’s analysis in our podcast Political Misfits

🗣️”He [Li Shangfu] said 'When friends come, they have good wine, and when jackals come, they get shotguns'. So I think he's definitely taking a stance. The US is trying to provoke China, and the US is rising to that game of chicken”: International affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda on the state of the US-China relations

🎧Listen to more of Sleboda’s analysis in our podcast Political Misfits

🔺Deliberate sabotage by Ukraine: upper part of Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant damaged by shelling
🔺France objects to NATO opening liaison office in Japan
🔺Can China’s yuan stake a bigger claim to global prominence following US debt ceiling crisis?

The Critical Hour will cover these and more stories! Tune in to Radio Sputnik at 6pm EST|3pm PST|12am CET via the website or app

📻 Also in the United States at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

🎙 As Africa takes a stronger stance in today’s world, your #AfroVerdict host sits down with a Nigerian delegation to discuss business and cultural cooperation between Russia and Nigeria.

🎧 Tune and and enjoy the episode!

What do we know about Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, attacked by Kiev forces?

The Kakhovka HPP is situated on the Dnepr River, five kilometers away from the city of Novaya Kakhovka in Russia's Kherson region. This is the sixth and lowest-situated of the cascade of HPPs on the huge waterway.

Power station capacity - 335 MW
Annual power Generation - 1.4 TWh (terawatt-hours)
3 out of 6 power units in operation
Reservoir volume: 18.19 km³
Surface area 2,155 km²
Number of staff (as of 2022) - 251 people.

Sputnik takes a closer look at the Kakhovka HPP, its importance for the region, and the attacks it has been under by Ukraine's forces

Fact check: Who attacked Novaya Kakhovka dam?

The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant suffered heavy damage Tuesday morning, with its dam destroyed and water flowing uncontrollably downstream, risking major flooding, power cuts and water shortages on both sides of the Dnepr River. Western legacy media quickly blamed Moscow for the attack.

But does that allegation make sense?

Sputnik explores

World Bank leaves Russia's growth forecast for 2023, 2024 unchanged

"Output in Russia is projected to contract slightly, by 0.2 percent in 2023, a 3.1 percentage point upgrade from the January 2023 forecast,” the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report on Tuesday.

The bank expects that contractions in export, along with sanctions, weak domestic demand, and other challenges, will continue to apply pressure on economic activity.

“In 2024, growth is expected to turn positive, but remain modest at only 1.2 percent, which is lower than the average pace of growth in the 2010s,” the report added.

At the same time, the Russian economy will face less contraction than anticipated in January because of oil production, mainly due to more resilient than expected oil production and higher than expected growth momentum from 2022, according to the report.

The bank also noted that the continued flow of energy exports allowed Russia to improve the situation in its economy.

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Moscow to host 3rd Russia-Gulf Summit in July

"The third session of the strategic dialogue between Russia and the countries of the Persian Gulf will be held soon — in July in Moscow — with the indispensable participation of Kuwait," the new Russian Ambassador to Kuwait, Vladimir Zheltov told Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas.

Zheltov pointed to the continuation of the Russian-Kuwaiti political dialogue and the existence of a mechanism of political consultations between the two countries.

The ambassador presented his credentials to Kuwaiti Crown Prince Meshal AlJaber Al-Sabah in late May.

The first meeting of the strategic dialogue initiated in 2016 between Russia and Gulf Cooperation Council member states was held in Riyadh in 2017, and the second in Abu Dhabi in 2019.

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The Supreme Court of Sweden has greenlighted the extradition of a supporter of the Kurdistan Workers' Party to Turkiye

The Supreme Court has approved the first such extradition, Swedish newspaper reported. The Swedish government will now have to decide on the extradition.

A man aged 35 was arrested in Sweden in August 2022 at the request of the general prosecutor's office in the Turkish city of Adana, the report said.

The court's decision has been made shortly before the summit of NATO countries in Vilnius, which is scheduled for July 11-12, the newspaper reported.

Sweden, together with Finland, submitted its NATO bid in May 2022, several months after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine. Finland's application has been ratified by all 30 members of the alliance.

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🗣 Russia believes that Kiev carried out the attack on the Kakhovka HPP to regroup its forces and inflict humanitarian damage, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said.

▪️According to Nebenzia, Moscow regrets that the international community has not heeded its warnings about the threat of destruction by Ukraine of the Kakhovka HPP, and it places all responsibility for the tragedy regarding the plant on Kiev and the countries sponsoring it.

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📹 Combat work by T-80BV tank crews belonging to the Russian Armed Forces at the vanguard of the special military op

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🤔 Any fair person would conclude that Ukraine was responsible for the damage to the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant after reviewing evidence on the matter, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in the first episode of his new independent Twitter show

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⚡️ According to preliminary data, seven people have gone missing in the neighborhood of Novaya Kakhovka since the shelling of the hydroelectric power plant, the mayor of the city said

📹🤨 Why are we funding Ukraine?

▪️US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has spoken out against US policy regarding the Ukraine conflict, saying that she doesn’t understand how it is possible for Washington to urge Russia and Ukraine to come to the negotiation table while flooding the Kiev regime with weapons.

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