🇫🇷🌍 France's Macron has not received invitation to the BRICS summit from South Africa: media

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, as chairman of the BRICS, has sent invitations to the leaders of 70 countries to the unification summit, but neither French President Macron nor the leaders of the United States and Great Britain are among those invited, a South African news portal notes.

Earlier, the French foreign minister confirmed that Macron asked the head of South Africa about the opportunity to take part in the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August

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❗️Russian MoD briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

◾️ Near Krasny Liman, Russian troops repelled six attacks of the Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian losses amounted to 130 servicemen;

◾️In the Donetsk region Russian Forces repelled 14 attacks of Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian losses amounted to 370 servicemen;

◾️ In the Kherson direction, Ukrainian losses amounted to 60 servicemen;

◾️ In the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions, the Russian Army destroyed seven Leopard tanks. Ukrainian losses amounted to 160 servicemen;

◾️The Russian Army repelled two attacks of Ukrainian troops in the Zaporozhye direction in the area of Rabotino;

◾️Russian forces repelled an attack by the Ukrainian troops in the area of Novomikhailovka in the DPR;

◾️Russian troops stopped the activities of a group of Ukrainian saboteurs in the area of Nevskoye in the LPR;

◾️Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 near Verolyubovka in the DPR. Russian air defenses intercepted a HIMARS MLRS rocket and a Storm Shadow missile.

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🇷🇺🇨🇳📹 Sailors of the Russian Navy and the Chinese Navy repelled an air attack by a mock enemy during the "North/Interaction - 2023" naval exercise in the Sea of Japan.

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🗣️ On US spending on the military:

“We're spending far too much money surveilling our domestic populations both in Europe and in the US to ever fight a full mobilization war… If we are going to fight this war, it's going to be as expensive as possible, and it’s going to bankrupt the United States in the process,” Tom Luongo, financial and geopolitical analyst, told Sputnik.

🎧 Listen to more of Luongo’s analysis in our podcast New Rules

👉 Watch the full episode of our show on Rumble or YouTube

Roscosmos expects international rules of space traffic to be adopted within 5 years

International rules regulating how countries launch orbital satellites and control their movements to avoid incidents on the orbit may be adopted within the next five years, Roscosmos executive director Aleksandr Bloshenko said during a visit to South Africa on Sunday.

Plans by spacefaring nations indicate that by 2030, the number of satellites in the Earth's orbit will exceed 100,000, Bloshenko said. The opinion that "space is big and there's room for everyone" is hardly valid because "overpopulation" of attractive orbits will soon lead to dangerous situations, he added.

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What is BRICS bloc and how does it stack up against G7 Goliath?

BRICS leaders are gearing up for their much-anticipated South Africa summit. The association of Brazil, Russia, India and China came to fruition at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in June 2006, when the economy ministers of the four founding members created the group to facilitate economic growth.

Front and center at this year’s forum will be the possible creation of a common BRICS currency – an eventuality which could dramatically strengthen the bloc’s positions in global affairs.

How did the BRICS come about and what is its purpose? How does BRICKS stack up against the G7? Where is BRICS headquartered?

Check out Sputnik’s explainer to find out

Sputnik military correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev, killed by Ukrainian shelling in the combat zone, will be awarded with the Order of Merit for the Zaporozhye region posthumously, alongside three other journalists who were injured with him, Yevgeny Balitsky, the acting governor of the Zaporozhye region, said on Sunday.

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Annual food inflation in Russia amounted to 0.08% in June, which is the lowest rate among all countries in Europe, according to Sputnik calculations based on data from national statistics.

Hungary posted Europe's highest annual food inflation rate in June at 29.3%, Serbia stood at 21.1%, followed by Estonia (19.5%), Slovakia (18.9%) and Romania (17.9%) rounding out the top five of the list.

The study was conducted by Sputnik on the basis of data from the national statistical agencies of 40 European nations, which released their June reports as of mid-July.

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🇮🇷🇦🇪 Iranian, UAE Foreign Ministers condemn Quran desecration in Denmark, Sweden

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his UAE counterpart, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahya, have called for an urgent meeting of the foreign ministers of Organization of Islamic Cooperation member countries and for serious reprisals against the perpetrators of the Quran desecration in Denmark that happened on Friday as well as on June 28, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, a protest that took place outside Stockholm's main mosque, during which a Quran was burned.

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US will deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but it will take "several months" as the process involves providing training and maintenance as well, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an American media in an interview on Sunday.

On Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that Ukraine would receive F-16 by the end of the year.

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A video allegedly showing elimination of an Ukrainian armoured vehicle, presumably a German-supplied Leopard tank, with Lancet UAV appeared online.

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📹 Foreign mercs in Ukraine suffering significant losses due to stupidity, Putin says to Lukashenko

🇷🇺– As far as foreign mercenaries are concerns, they are also taking heavy casualties

🇧🇾– Heavy losses due to their tactics

🇷🇺– Due to their stupidity

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🇷🇺📹 Russian T-72 crews in action in special military op zone

The Russian Defense Ministry has released a video of T-72 tanks firing from protected positions in the area of the special military operation.

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