🔺Is Biden preparing to dump Ukraine for Taiwan?
🔺Ukraine hopes to hold ‘Peace Summit’ this autumn
🔺China calls on NATO to drop plans of expanding to Asia Pacific

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🇺🇸🇷🇺 US long violating letter, spirit of New START - Russian ambassador Antonov

"Washington has not only abandoned the principles embedded in the Preamble to New START, but also breached the central limits of the Treaty that restrict the number of strategic weapons. It illegitimately removed from accountability under the Treaty about a hundred strategic offensive arms: SLBM launchers and heavy bombers. Russia’s repeated demands to resolve the problem have been ignored," Antonov told reporters.

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🇫🇷🇪🇺 Macron rejects former French Economy Minister Breton as possible EU Commission head, an American newspaper reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

On Wednesday, the newspaper noted, referring to high-ranking EU officials, that Breton would like to replace Ursula von der Leyen as the European Commission president. To do this, he would need to enlist the support of all European leaders and get an authorization from the European Parliament, the paper said.

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🤖People are experiencing more and more difficulty distinguishing between human and machine interlocutors when talking on the phone, according to a group of researchers at University College London (UCL).

The scientists gave computer-generated and human samples to 529 participants for them to listen to in order to find out whether they would be able to distinguish between human and machine speech. It turned out that 27 percent of the time, the participants mistook an artificial sample for a human recording.

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‼️ Russian defenses down 13 Ukrainian drones and foil attempted attack on naval base in Novorossiysk

The Russian armed forces shot down ten and jammed another three Ukrainian drones with radio and electronic warfare equipment attempting to attack facilities in Crimea overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said

The ministry added that there was no material damage or casualties.

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The Ukrainian Armed Forces has reverted from the US tactics to their previous strategy, as Ukraine Western-trained units got bogged down, per the US press

Ukraine's decision to change tactics has raised questions about the quality of NATO training and war planning, as well as the West's massive spending on the much-anticipated offensive, according to the US media. It also showed that NATO's hopes for a Ukrainian breakthrough have been dashed.

In practice, it turned out that the Ukrainian military had to deal not only with Russia's minefields, fortifications, and troops, but also faced heavy losses, poor interaction between their units, difficulties associated with operating Western equipment, and a lack of competent Ukrainian officers, according to the expert.

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💱 The rise of China's digital yuan, or e-CNY, poses a significant challenge to the dominance of the US dollar in global trade settlements, signaling a potential shift in the world's financial landscape.

Over the next 10 years, the Chinese digital yuan is expected to shake up the status of the US dollar as the leading currency for global trade settlements, expresses Richard Turrin, author of Cashless: China's Digital Currency Revolution.

Sputnik explains all you need to know about the electronic Chinese yuan: what it is and how it works.

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📹 Su-25SM crews destroy Ukrainian mortar units

Russia's Su-25SM crews launched a missile strike (0:26) against Ukrainian mortar units near Krasny Liman.

A pair of Su-25SM attack aircraft, skirting the terrain at an altitude of no more than 25 meters and a speed of 800 km/h, carried out an air strike on Ukrainian mortar positions, using unguided 80mm and 122mm caliber missiles.

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📹 The captured Swedish CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle was shown (0:24) to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during an inspection of the command post of the Tsentr Group of Forces in the zone of the special military op

Sergei Shoigu also listened to the reports of the group commander and staff officers, and thanked them for the successful offensive near Krasny Liman.

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Rhodes residents urgently need government assistance to restore the environment and support the island's economy in the wake of the huge wildfires that raged in the region in July, local residents told Sputnik 

Islanders voiced serious concerns over the destructive impact of the wildfires on the nature of Rhodes, its exceptional flora and fauna, noting with regret that the damage could in no way be fixed quickly.

Following the disaster, the Greek government pledged to introduce several measures to support residents and businesses. The list includes direct financing, infrastructure restoration, compensations, as well as advertising campaigns to reestablish the island's tourist appeal.

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📹 Artillerymen of the Russian Airborne Troops' formation launch attacks with D-20 152mm howitzers at fortified enemy positions in the zone of the special military op

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More than 100 medical journals issued a joint call for the urgent elimination of nukes while calling the threat of nuclear catastrophe “great and growing”

Titled “Reducing the Risks of Nuclear War,” the editorial warned that even “a ‘limited’ nuclear war involving only 250 of the 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world could kill 120 million people outright and cause global climate disruption leading to a nuclear famine, putting two billion people at risk.”

The call comes during growing tensions between Russia, China and the West as well as multiple missile tests by North Korea.

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Russia values any effort aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says

West could ask Volodymyr Zelensky to show the world another "formula" on how Kiev sees status of Russians in their country, Lavrov added.

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🇳🇪 Intervention [in Niger] should be avoided, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik, after the appeal of the ousted president of Niger to the US (asked for help to restore order)

At the same time, experts believe it's possible the US may send troops.

We can talk about a contingent of several thousand people, Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said.

💬 "And this can be a touchstone, a precedent for sending American troops to Ukraine," Vasilyev told Sputnik.

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⚛️ A scheduled rotation of observers of the IAEA mission took place at Zaporozhye NPP

Agency employees have been present at ZNPP since September 1, 2022.

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🌍 Gold is an important component of central bank reserves because of its safety, liquidity and return characteristics – the three key investment objectives for central banks

📌 Have a look at Sputnik’s infographic dedicated to the largest holders of gold and currency reserves in the world

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📹🇷🇺🇨🇳 Ships from the Russian Navy and Chinese Navy worked out the search and destruction of a mock enemy submarine

Warships of the Russian Navy and the Navy of the People's Liberation Army of China continue to carry out the tasks of the third joint maritime patrol of the Pacific Ocean.

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New short-range missiles for Su-57 outpace US developments

Russia's fifth-generation Su-57 fighter has been equipped with new short-range missiles, the RVV-MD2, which outperform similar American munitions, representatives of the developer company, JSC GosMKB Vympel, said in an article for the "Arsenal Otechestva" (lit. Arsenal of the Fatherland) magazine.

The RVV-MD2 is the first short-range missile to use an inertial guidance system to control and stabilize the missile during autonomous flight, the magazine's editor-in-chief, Viktor Murakhovskiy, pointed out. The inertial system allows the munition to autonomously determine its coordinates in space without relying on external references or signals.

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💬 "They hit very precisely, so it’s very difficult to hide from them in a trench"

📹 The Armed Forces of Ukraine are actively using cluster munitions in the industrial zone of the city of Avdeevka near Donetsk, trying to contain the offensive of Russian troops, the Russian military said.

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