NATO is already participating in a confrontation with Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, NATO said in its Vilnius summit communique that the alliance does not seek confrontation with Russia but cannot consider Moscow to be its partner.

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🇷🇺 The Russian armed forces will receive two new and two upgraded Tu-160 strategic missile carriers in 2023, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

The Tu-160 is a Russian heavy supersonic nuclear-capable strategic bomber and missile carrier created by Tupolev Design Bureau. It is one the largest and heaviest combat aircraft and fastest bomber in use.

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Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO now so as not to drag the United States into a conflict with Russia, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller

"It would not be appropriate to admit Ukraine at this time to NATO while it's in a war, that would then mean the United States would be in a war with Russia, something President Biden has made clear from the outset, would not happen under his leadership," Miller said during a press briefing.

Today marks 80 years since one of the most tragic days of the Volyn Massacre arranged by Ukrainian nationalists

Sputnik has prepared a video about those terrible events

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The city of Tokmak, Zaporozhye region, was shelled by cluster munitions, local emergency services reported

🇩🇪 Germany is currently not ready to give a positive decision on the supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine, as France and Great Britain did earlier, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius on Tuesday.

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BAE Systems, the British arms and aerospace multinational, has signed an agreement with the UK government to the tune of 280 million pounds ($360 million) to boost the production of 155mm artillery shells in order to reduce the global shortage of ammunition and help Ukraine, a UK newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The deal, which could increase in value to over 400 million pounds, will allow the UK-based company to increase its production capacity by eight times, the report added.

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📹 The crew of a Ka-52 reconnaissance and attack helicopter destroyed an Ukrainian armoured fighting vehicle with a guided missile in the zone of the special military operation

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🇨🇦🇺🇸 The decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions is related to NATO’s lack of industrial defense capacity and the alliance's focus should be on expanding it, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly said on Tuesday.

“Of course, we do not agree with the American position [on cluster munitions deliveries to Ukraine], and we've mentioned it to the American officials. Meanwhile, what I think the alliance needs to be focusing on is really expanding the defense industrial capacity, because we're in this position right now because of the issue of lack of defense, industrial capacity. So that's something that we need to be working on in Canada but also within the alliance," Joly said during a press conference from Vilnius.

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🇷🇺🇦🇪 The Russian Export Center (REC) supported exporters to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for almost $1 billion in 2022, REC Vice President Roman Genkel said at the roundtable "UAE: Opportunities for Business and Investment" at the Innoprom event.

The REC vice president has emphasized that this contribution of the development institute has fueled the phenomenal growth of trade between Russia and the UAE, which has reached almost 70%.

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🇷🇺🇨🇳 The Russian Export Center (REC) and the Jinzhou Port Co. Ltd., a China-based company principally engaged in port cargo loading and unloading material warehousing and related logistics operations, have reached an agreement to cooperate to increase trade between Russia and China.

The memorandum was signed on the sidelines of the 3rd Forum of Interregional Cooperation between Russia and China within the framework of "Innoprom".

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📹 Russian paratroopers foil another attempted offensive by the AFU

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NATO allies have pledged more financial and military support to Ukraine at the Vilnius summit but seem divided over Washington's provision of deadly cluster munitions to Kiev.

Why Team Biden is shrugging off moral concerns and NATO divisions over cluster bombs?

🇺🇸 Former US President Donald Trump's legal team asked the court to delay his trial over alleged mishandling of classified documents until after the 2024 presidential election.

“Proceeding to trial during the pendency of a Presidential election cycle wherein opposing candidates are effectively (if not literally) directly adverse to one another in this action will create extraordinary challenges in the jury selection process and limit the Defendants’ ability to secure a fair and impartial adjudication,” Trump’s legal team said in a court filing dated Monday and obtained by US media.

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📹 A crew of a Ka-52 reconnaissance and attack helicopter destroyed an Ukrainian armoured combat vehicle together in coordination with paratroopers using a guided missile

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NATO countries introduce manuals on "active citizenship" and "democracy" in Ukraine

Western manuals for universities were found in the city of Volnovakha, DPR, which was under the control of Kiev until last March.

One of the books found teaches students to be able to organize certain socio-political actions. The manual was created with the participation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Government Department for International Development (UKAID), the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

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Ukraine might never join NATO, and the alliance is afraid to say it out loud, Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says

The official also called NATO’s intention to increase military assistance to Ukraine "a dead end in fact."

"The World War Three is getting closer," Medvedev said.

The remarks come as Ukraine's potential NATO membership has remained a hot topic amid Russia's special military operation, even more so with the military bloc's recently kicked off Vilnius summit.

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GOP Congresswoman proposes amendments to pull US out of NATO and stop aid to Kiev

GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene put forward a number of amendments to the draft US defense budget for fiscal year 2024, including directing President Joe Biden to begin the process of withdrawing the United States from NATO, as well as suspending aid to the Kiev regime until the end of the Ukrainian conflict.

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📹 The Russian Navy’s "Perekop" training ship with cadets on board has arrived in Havana Bay, Russia’s diplomatic mission reports

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Foreign mercenary fighting on Kiev’s side calls Ukrainian counteroffensive ‘horror’ and ‘chaos’

"On 'zero line' it's horror. It's horror" Rhys Byrne, a 28-year-old from Dublin, revealed to English-speaking media.

He described the battle to reclaim territory by the Kiev regime as horrific. "We are not supposed to be alive. I mean, we were closer than close to death" he added.

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📹 A booby-trapped weapons cache belonging to Ukrainian saboteurs was uncovered in the LPR’s north

Due to the impossibility of demining the premises, it had to be destroyed.

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