Ukraine continues to be sending all its troops at the Russian defenses, sacrificing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and still failing to produce any result

Speaking to Sputnik, international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda noted that “there has been essentially no progress by the Kiev regime's offensive.”

“It is effectively stalled and they continue to take heavy casualties, heavy attrition,” Sleboda said, adding that, in most cases, Ukrainian troops bleed and die “still ten, fifteen kilometers” away from “Russia's first defensive line.”

According to Sleboda, all this fighting is taking place in what he described as the “throwaway zone”: an area before the actual Russian defensive lines, which the Russian troops deemed unsuitable for “static, heavy defenses, defensive lines with trenches and fortifications.”

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NATO's position rejecting a frozen conflict scenario in Ukraine means that the alliance would rather have the crisis resolved militarily

"If NATO through [Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg once again declares that they are against what they call the freezing of the conflict in Ukraine, it means they want to fight. Well, let them fight, we are ready for it," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters after a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Minsk.

The top Russian diplomat pointed to multiple statements by Western officials admitting that the Ukraine crisis would long have been over if it were not for the foreign arms supplies and intelligence support to Kiev.

These statements amount to admitting that Western countries are waging "hybrid, or even hot, war" against Russia, Lavrov added.

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📹 Vladimir Putin has launched the first regular electric river transport route on the Moscow River

Russia's capital continues to develop public transport: the longest circle subway line in the world was opened in Moscow this year in March.

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🗣️”Why would Biden need to hop into this when Bill Barr is doing your work for you? Why does Biden need to attack Trump when Chris Christie is the best Biden surrogate currently campaigning anywhere?”: civil rights attorney Robert Patillo joined us to discuss ex-President Donald Trump’s indictment and how current President Joe Biden is conspicuously quiet on the subject

🎧Listen to more of Patillo’s analysis in our podcast Fault Lines

🎧 Zimbabwe - a nation that has been surviving Western sanctions for more than 20 years. But why is a country sanctioned for so long despite the world knowing what effect the sanctions have had on the ordinary people?

Join #AfroVerdict host, Viktor Anokhin, who sits down with the leader of a civil anti-sanction organization to hear Zimbabwe's verdict on the matter.

😏 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis served drinks at a VFW post in Sparks, Nevada – but joked with the veterans that he wouldn't serve them Bud Light beer

💬 'Just so you know, I'll serve you anything except Bud Light. I just can't do that,' DeSantis said to widespread laughter from patrons at the post known as 'The Bunker.'

▪️ The Florida governor was making reference to the ongoing Republican boycott of Bud Light after the company celebrated transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney's one-year anniversary of 'being a girl.'

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🔺France pushes UK to 'stay out of Western European affairs’
🔺Leading candidate already? RFK Jr. has best rating among presidential candidates
🔺Strengthening relations in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia welcomes naval security alliance with Iran

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🇮🇷📹 Iran's Sina robot surgeon is the first of its kind in the Middle East, capable of performing operations on the chest and abdominal area. Surgeons can operate the robot remotely, leading to a remarkable tenfold enhancement in surgical precision

▪️ The Sina surgical robot has great prospects for entering international markets and is already in demand.

▪️ Watch the video showing all the details

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Czech companies plan to launch twin microsatellites into orbit in 2027 to look for valuable resources that humanity will rely on during long space missions

The Slavia mission, which stands for the Space Laboratory for Advanced Variable Instruments and Applications, was announced in 2021. It is led by Brno-based private space firm S.A.B. Aerospace S.r.o. with support from the Czech Transport Ministry and with the Academy's scientific contribution.

The Academy said that the technical feasibility study for the project has been completed. If the project is approved, Czech scientists will build laboratory versions of the satellites and the instruments they will carry.

"It's a long shot, but Czech scientists are very well prepared for this race," Academy President Eva Zazimalova said in a statement.

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Russia does not see the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as an adversary of NATO

"I do not think that we should remold the CSTO into a bloc that is opposed to anyone. The CSTO has been developing based on the vested security interests of its member states. The CSTO does not seek a leading role in the Eurasian continent," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters.

Lavrov also noted that NATO's position on situation in Ukraine means that the alliance would rather have the crisis resolved militarily.

"If NATO through [Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg once again declares that they are against what they call 'the freezing of the conflict in Ukraine', it means they want to fight. Well, let them fight, we are ready for it," Lavrov told reporters after a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Minsk.

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Donald Trump has said hawkish former White House advisor John Bolton was "pretty good" at scaring foreign leaders into making deals

"Actually, Bolton was good, because every time I negotiated, people said: 'Oh, they've got this maniac here. He's going to go to war with us'," Trump said. "He was actually pretty good in a certain way."

There has been no love lost between Trump and Bolton, who served as his national advisor for a year-and-a-half from April 2018 to September 2019, and since they've parted ways.

Bolton has accused Trump of having a "constant fixation" with classified documents, which the 45th president now faces trial for allegedly taking from the Oval Office.

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📹 Soldiers continue intensive training at Russia's Defense Ministry ranges

Contract troops are practicing firing skills with Kalashnikov machine guns, RPG-7V anti-tank grenade launchers, and 30mm AGS-17 Plamya automatic grenade launchers.

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The Russian economy is very close to recovering to the level of activity it had at the end of 2021

"Our economy is now very close to returning to the level of economic activity it had at the end of 2021. 'Recover to its potential,' as we say," Russian Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina told a congress of financial literacy volunteers.

Russia's gross domestic product per capita reached $15,440 last year, edging closer to an all-time high of $15,930 registered in 2013, according to International Monetary Fund data analyzed by Sputnik.

Earlier in May, data from the World Bank and statistical services analyzed by Sputnik showed that Russia returned to the top ten largest economies last year for the first time since 2014.

Nabiullina said during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that Russian GDP growth in 2023 will be in the upper half of the forecast range of 0.5% to 2%. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the same event that Russia' GDP grew by 3.3% in April.

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🇬🇧 London risks losing 'fortunate' position in NATO If army downsizing persists

The UK is only “just holding on” to its influence in NATO and could lose its "fortunate" position in the alliance if it does not abandon downsizing the army personnel, Gen. Sir Tim Radford, the deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said.

💬 "We’ve got a position of influence right across NATO. I worry that if we don’t invest and we don’t build up our industrial base and we don’t lead as we should, we might lose that position," he added.

The general noted that Russia's special military operation in Ukraine showed that technological advancement cannot be at the expense of personnel, adding that "equipment is only as good as the people that are managing and operating it."

💬 "If someone comes toward you with a tank, you can’t cyber it away. You can’t cross a bridge with cyber. It needs to be balanced," he said.

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📹🇺🇸 “I’m very proud of my son”: Joe Biden reacts to reporter’s question about Hunter’s plea deal

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🇪🇺💶 EU Commission proposes boosting bloc's 2024-2027 budget by $72bln for Ukraine aid

Out of the 66 billion euros ($72 billion), 50 billion euros is earmarked for loans and grants for Ukraine, 15 billion euros for migrant and refugee programs, and 1 billion euros for improving the EU's competitiveness, Ursula von der Leyen said.

Csaba Domotor, the secretary of state in the office of Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, said that the EU had no finances because of the aid to Ukraine, adding that Budapest has not received "a penny" of money from EU funds due to Hungary while the bloc is proposing another 50 billion euros in aid to Kiev.

He added that the changes in the EU budget must be approved by a unanimous decision of all member states.

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🇨🇳🇺🇸 Pressure on US dollar, debt likely drove Blinken effort to mend ties with China

💬 "The United States is feeling itself squeezed and probably needs to make nice with China," Krainer Analytics founder Alex Krainer told Sputnik.

"The United States has painted itself into a corner with China: they want to do their usual destabilization/regime change thing, except China is still the second largest creditor the United States has, and it has been getting rid of the US debt quite aggressively over the last two years."

Now China and Russia are increasingly shifting to national currencies in their trade and that could lead to many other nations abandoning the dollar and triggering a huge financial crisis in the US, Krainer warned.

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❗️Ukrainian terrorist attack using three UAVs was thwarted in Moscow region, Russian Ministry of Defense says

All UAVs were disabled using electronic warfare, there were no casualties.

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🌍 🇷🇺 Сonditioning Aid on Rejection of Moscow Shows West's Disdain for African People: Malian Official

Recently, Ville Tavio, Finland's new trade minister, said that he's considering withdrawing financial assistance from African countries that support Russia.

Suggestions of no longer helping African countries that support Moscow are a sign of an attitude that shows a deep contempt for the continent, Aly dit Agali Wele, vice-president of the Bloc for the Recovery and Development of Mali told Sputnik.

🗣 "It shows a disdain for the African people, a disrespect for African leaders, as well as a lack of consideration for our autonomy and our independence. It proves that these are one-way partnerships […] It is neither legitimate, nor human, nor united, it is purely neocolonialism," he declared

👉 READ THE FULL ARTICLE!

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📹 Russian Army continues aid to regions hit by Ukraine’s attack on Kakhovka dam

Russian service members from the Dnepr detachment were among the first who came to the rescue of residents in the Kherson Region after Ukrainian forces destroyed the Kakhovka dam and flooded the surrounding area. At present, Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological protection troops have begun disinfecting infrastructure facilities affected by the post-attack flooding.

Disinfection is carried out using special ARS-14KM vehicle dispensing stations using sanitizing agents that have demonstrated a high efficiency in preventing outbreaks of infections.

Earlier this week, Russia’s health care and consumer rights watchdog said that the situation with infectious diseases in the Kherson Region remains stable, and the authorities are taking measures to minimize potential risks after the flooding.

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📹 Ukrainian drone hits residential building in center of Donetsk, Sputnik correspondent reports.

The drone hit an empty flat on the building’s 20th floor but didn't injure anyone.

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