🎥 Russian Ka-52 Alligator helicopters – the main strike force (video courtesy from Russian MoD)

Mi-28 and Mi-8 reconnaissance helicopters with a fire support group on board are involved in covering the Alligators.

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🇩🇪🇨🇳🇺🇸 Germany's China strategy shows the US trying to push allies away from global rivals - expert

💬"The United States is pressing for Germany, but also all NATO partners, who are also members of the European Union in their vast majority, to cut ties with potential rivals for world leadership: Russia and, above all, China. It is again a sign that Europe is ready to sacrifice its interests when the US tells European member states to do so," geopolitical analyst Nikola Mirkovic told Sputnik.

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🇺🇸☣️ Russian MoD briefing on US military and biological activity:

▪️The US State Dept has launched a campaign against Russian accusations that the US is violating the Biological Weapons Convention, with articles on the subject appearing in the Times, New York Post and other major media outlets;

▪️For mass production of ticks and mosquitoes that carry infections, the US could use the facilities of Oxytec, a company funded by the Gates Foundation;

▪️US experiments with mosquitoes lead to the formation of artificial foci of infection: "Given the uncontrolled nature of vector spread, entire countries and regions could be involved";

▪️The US plans to test unregistered drugs on local populations in various regions for the big pharma.

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US to Hand 105 Antiquities Back to India Days After PM Modi's Visit

🇮🇳 🇺🇸 During his recent US visit, PM Narendra #Modi signed a deal to return 105 antiquities to India, dating from the 2nd to the 18th century. The artifacts, representing their heritage, culture, and religion, were officially handed over at the Consulate General of India in New York.

▪️Among them, 50 are connected to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. This repatriation follows investigations into trafficker Subhash Kapoor, with more objects still awaiting return.

▪️The US government previously returned 16 antiques in 2016 and 157 artifacts in 2021, making a total of 278 cultural artifacts returned to India since 2016.

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🇩🇪 Olaf Scholz's cabinet spent almost half a million euros in six months to look 💅fabulous💅

The German government spent more than €450,000 on "hairdressers, makeup artists, beauticians and photographers for federal ministries" during six months of 2023, a parliamentary inquiry by the Eurosceptic conservative party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) has found.

These revelations won’t hurt the “arrogance” of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s career, Dr. Christian Blex, an AfD lawmaker in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, said. The Scholz’s cabinet and the Greens are “far too removed from reality,” Blex added.

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US allocates another $250 million to Ukraine to allegedly support agriculture after Russia's decision on the grain deal.

According to media reports, another $1.3 billion military assistance package will be next.

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🌋 In the heart of Eurasia the world's largest permafrost depression is located in the Bagatayka crater.

Over the years, Siberia's Batagayka mega slump has grown to cover 0.8 square kilometers, making it the largest megaslump on Earth. The slump's headwall, the cliff at the top end of the formation, is 55 meters high.

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🗣️ On the use of cluster munitions in the conflict in Ukraine after the United States approved their provision to Kiev:

“The US is sending them [cluster munitions] not because they're particularly useful for the Kiev regime's offensive. Actually, they're not useful for an offensive really at all, not the type that the Kiev regime is conducting. But because they're completely out of anything else… So it's a desperation play, we're completely out, NATO's completely out,” Mark Sleboda, an international affairs and security analyst, told Sputnik.

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

👉 Watch the full episode of our show on Rumble

AI-powered ChatGPT matches the top 1% of humans in creativity test

Using the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), Dr. Erik Guzik, assistant clinical professor in University of Montana's College of Business, together with his team, administered the tool to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Twenty-four University of Montana students also took the test, and all these scores were compared with 2,700 students across the US who took the TTCT in in 2016. Not only were the chatbot's responses just as creative as those of the topmost creative humans who took the test, but the artificial intelligence-powered language model did better than the majority of all students.

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🗣️ On Russia allowing the Black Sea grain deal to expire:

“The deal never had any ability to provide those things because the West is the one who sanctioned those Russian facilities. And the West wasn't a party to the deal. It was Turkiye and the UN secretariat... Why should Russia allow Ukraine and the EU to benefit commercially while they're being led down the primrose path? So and not only that, but obviously neither side is capable of being trusted. Kiev lies with every taking breath. They refuse to fulfill their own part of the deal, which was to reopen the ammonia pipeline,” Mark Sleboda, an international affairs and security analyst, told Sputnik.

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

👉 Watch the full episode of our show on Rumble

The West needs years of training for Ukrainian pilots and billions of dollars to achieve parity with Russia in terms of fighter aircraft capabilities in Kiev, the Pentagon has said.

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Elon Musk wonders where US taxpayers' money goes after Washington announces another $1.3 billion military package for Ukraine

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🇷🇺 🇿🇦 Arresting Putin a 'declaration of war': South Africa's Ramaphosa says

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is trying to force the government's hand and ensure that the Kremlin leader is arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court if he sets foot in the country.

Ramaphosa called it "irresponsible" in an affidavit responding to the DA's request that carrying out the arrest could threaten the "security, peace and order of the state," the South African president stressed.

🗣 "Russia has made it clear that the arrest of its sitting president would be a declaration of war," he said

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🗣️ On the Black Sea grain deal:

“If the West was really concerned about the threat of famine to the impoverished developing parts of the world, then they would reconnect Russia's agricultural bank to the SWIFT system. They would provide the ability, they've blockaded Russian ships full of fertilizer that it was going to provide to Africa free of charge. They have blocked them in the EU and forbidden them to transit on to Africa: 'You can't get this free fertilizer that you need from Russia because we hate Russia.' That's the cynicism that's involved,” Mark Sleboda, an international affairs and security analyst, told Sputnik.

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

👉 Watch the full episode of our show on Rumble

How grain deal suspension affects global food prices

Wheat steadied at $6.6 per bushel on July 18, which is slightly above the one-month low of $6.3 that was registered on July 12.

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🇬🇧 UK parliament passes illegal migration bill

The bill seeks to deport migrants to a third country like Rwanda who enter the UK illegally by boat across the English Channel. On June 29, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the government's plan to relocate illegal immigrants to Rwanda to deter irregular arrivals by boat was illegal, paving the way for the matter to be considered by the Supreme Court.

Now, the bill awaits the final step of Royal Assent when it will become a law.

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🔺Democrat and Republican senators agree that NATO expansion into Asia was “inevitable” as the Western military alliance increasingly has its eyes on China
🔺Could the conflict of interest in Yemen evolve into a UAE-Saudi conflict?
🔺US’ biggest concern: inevitable de-dollarization and global recession are on the way

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

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🎥 Destruction of a Ukrainian stronghold by a Lancet loitering munition in the Kherson direction

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China's first ultra deepwater drillship to be delivered in 2024

Research drilling vessel, which can collect samples at depths of more than 10,000 meters, is under construction and set for 2024 delivery, according to Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Co, the world's largest shipbuilder.

With a designed displacement of 42,000 tons, the vessel can operate in "unlimited navigation" areas in global seas. The ship will primarily undertake major national scientific and technological projects, as well as international large-scale scientific programs related to ocean scientific drilling tasks.

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