📹 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

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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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📹 Russian Tor-M1 weapon system destroys Ukrainian UAV in Krasny Liman direction

Tor-M1 air defense systems is one of the weapons produced and deployed by Russia that showed their worth in the Ukrainian conflict, helping keep Russian forces safe from aerial attacks launched by the Kiev regime.

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🇿🇼 🇺🇸'We're in very big trouble here': Zimbabwe's anti-sanction group's chief tells Sputnik Africa

As Zimbabwe continues to live under unilateral sanctions imposed by some Western countries over 20 years ago, Martin Zharare, the executive director of Citizens Against Economic Sanctions (CAES), reveals to Sputnik Africa some of the devastating effects the "illegal" restrictions have on the country.

🗣 "Our country was so peaceful. Everything was going well. But right now, because of these sanctions, our daily lives have been affected. [...] But when the sanctions came, things plummeted down. [...] Because these sanctions are economic. They are on our economy, not targeted at a single person," Zharare told Viktor Anokhin, the host of the Sputnik Africa's AfroVerdict podcast

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During a meeting with Prime Minister Modi, Elon Musk, clad in 🐊 crocodile leather boots, discussed the topic of sustainable energy 🤔

🇮🇳 🇺🇸 During a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Elon Musk stated that India has tremendous potential for a sustainable energy future, which includes solar energy, stationary battery storage, and electric vehicles.

Plans are underway to provide the South Asian giant with SpaceX Starlink satellite internet service and eventual investments.

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The Kazakh Foreign Ministry has proposed making the most recent meeting of the Astana-hosted Syrian peace talks the final one in this format.

The first such meeting was held in 2017, and the most recent one turned out to be the 20th, where a roadmap for normalizing relations between Ankara and Damascus was discussed.

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🇪🇺 Ukraine talks with Western weapons-makers to boost home production 'just a money scam'

Those holed up in Zelensky’s office will soon “burst from dollars and euros” funneled to support the West’s ongoing proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, military analyst Vasily Dandykin told Sputnik.

If any construction of weapons-producing facilities on Ukrainian territory does get underway, by a German company, or some other European arms builder, Russia has “every right” to send its Kalibr cruise missiles, or Oniks supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, to target them.

Knowing full well that this is the scenario to expect, Kiev authorities would be quite content to use the donated money and allow Western firms to invest their time and finances into building military production on Ukraine’s soil. Once such facilities are duly wiped out by Russian forces, the Ukrainian side will simply go begging for more handouts, added Dandykin.

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🥴 Humanity will be wiped out, according to now-deleted “prophetic” tweet by Greta Thunberg

Five years ago, in 2018, the then-15-year-old climate change poster child, who skipped school to partake in environmentally-flavored virtue signaling, shared an article by a Harvard University professor promising that climate change would “wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.”

The “prophetic” tweet has been erased, with the link leading to a website that no longer exists, and is only accessible via Internet archive sites. The academic claimed there would be “essentially zero” ice left in the Arctic by 2022.

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📹 New footage of damaged Nord Stream pipelines

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline appears to have been blown up by a small explosive device and suffered much less damage than the Nord Stream one, a German TV channel has reported.

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❗️Estonian general admits Ukrainian forces struggling to overcome Russian defensive network known as “Surovikin line”

Former chief of Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Rainer Saks believes Ukraine's counteroffensive attempts have failed due to Russia's large number of defenses and air superiority.

💬 "The Russians have built long defense lines along the entire front line, with the fewest defense lines in the north. Russia considers it very important to keep the southern part in its hands, that is why more defense lines have been built there," Saks explained in an interview with Estonian media.

Russia has built several lines of defense in the southern sector of the special military operation, and the strongest of them is the third, so-called 'Surovikin Line', which the Ukrainian Armed Forces have not even reached, said former DPR Security Minister Pinchuk.

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Kremlin on Biden's remarks on Xi: US pursuing controversial, unpredictable policy

During his address to supporters in California on Tuesday, the US president said that Xi did not have all the information about the incident regarding the balloon earlier this year, adding that this is "a great embarrassment for dictators."

US foreign policy is displaying conflicting behavior that is unpredictable and unacceptable to many states, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He also stated that it is up to the US to address the issue.

China has strongly protested against Joe Biden's recent remark and called it absurd, irresponsible, and a violation of diplomatic etiquette that infringes on their political dignity.

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❗️LIVE NOW: Vladimir Putin meets graduates of higher military educational institutions

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