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

◾️The total losses of Ukrainian forces since the beginning of the counteroffensive amounted to more than 43,000;

◾️ In the Donetsk direction, the Russian Army successfully repelled eight attacks of Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian losses amounted to 185;

◾️ In the South Donetsk direction, Ukrainian losses amounted to 120 soldiers and a self-propelled gun "Gvozdika";

◾️ In the Zaporozhye direction, Ukrainian losses amounted to 130 soldiers, an American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and a D-20 howitzer;

◾️ Near Krasny Liman, the Russian Army repelled two attacks of Ukrainian troops near Novovodyanoye and Kremennaya in the LPR;

◾️ Near Kupyansk, the Russian Army continues its offensive operations on a wide front. Russian troops have taken more advantageous positions in the Kharkov region;

◾️Since the beginning of Ukraine's counteroffensive, Russian troops have destroyed 25 German Leopard tanks, seven French AMX tanks and 21 American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. The Russian Army has destroyed over 4,900 units of Ukrainian weapons, including 26 aircraft, 1,831 tanks;

◾️ Russian air defense systems shot down 28 Ukrainian drones in the LPR and DPR.

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🗣️ On the US playing the role of the “world’s policeman”:

“There's no American national security interest at stake, just like there's no American national security interest at stake in Syria. I mean, how would the United States even decide which war to fight, which monster to slay, which battle to engage in if it thinks it can go around the world being the world's policeman?“ Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, author, and host of the Judging Freedom podcast on YouTube, told Sputnik.

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

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📌Losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of August 4, 2023

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Lavrov: West convenes staged forums to involve countries in discussion of 'Ukraine's Plan'

"The Anglo-Saxons and their allies have stood up for the Nazis of Kiev, glossing over, if not justifying, their actions that violate human rights and the rights of national minorities. Instead of a serious conversation based on recognizing the evolution of the real situatiuon "on the ground" over the past ten years they convene staged forums with the sole purpose of luring as many countries as possible into any semblance of a discussion of the "Zelensky’s formula," which demands nothing less than that Russia completely capitulate, agree to compromise its security and leave millions of Russians to the mercy of fate," the Russian Foreign Minister stated.

Last week, media reported that Saudi Arabia intends to hold peace talks on Ukraine in Jeddah in August. Riyadh has invited representatives from some 30 countries, but not Russia.

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🇩🇰 Denmark tightens border controls after Quran-burning demonstrations

"Against the backdrop of the recent burnings of the Quran and as the current threat pattern develops, the police are temporarily stepping up efforts at the internal borders of Denmark... This means, among other things, that you may soon face selective border controls when making an entry from Sweden," the ministry stated late on Thursday.

Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard noted that the government took the current situation in the country seriously and agreed with the recommendations of the police intelligence service to intensify checks on the internal border.

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Washington sending arms to Kiev 'impacts' public confidence in US military

Americans’ confidence in the US military has hit a 26-year low, a new Gallup poll has revealed. According to the survey, confidence has plummeted over the past five years, and now just 60% of the public says they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the American military.

Gallup recalled that public confidence in the military was “last this low” in 1997. The figure surged after the Gulf War victory to a record-high 85% in 1991, but finally fell to 69% in 2021, dipping further since then, following the US troops’ exit from Afghanistan.

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The Biden administration announced a $345 million military package for the island of Taiwan last week – the first tranche of a $1 billion package allocated by Washington for Taipei earlier this year. US weapons will come directly from Pentagon stockpiles to the island under the so-called Presidential Drawdown Authority, a mechanism typically used for seeding-up arms supplies.

What's behind Biden's shift to arm Taiwan?

Check this Sputnik's article to find out

📈 World Bank: Russia's economy exceeded $5 trillion PPP

Russian economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) at the end of 2022 retained fifth place in the world by this indicator, according to the data provided by the World Bank.

Despite Western restrictions on Russia, Moscow managed to increase its economic power, breaking the record of $5 trillion for the first time in history in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) at the end of 2022, statistics published by the World Bank have shown.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on blocking the finances and property of foreigners who have fallen under Russia's restrictions.

The document was published on the official legal information portal on Friday. It specifies which individuals and entities will experience restrictions: foreign states, organizations and citizens, persons without citizenship, including legal entities controlled by them which are those companies where more than 50% of votes in the supreme governing body are possessed by them, including jointly by several blocked persons.

All financial organizations will have to block operations with their money and property - under the threat of Central Bank measures, up to and including license revocation.

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Poll: majority of Americans oppose additional US funding for Ukraine

In total, 55% of Americans are against Congress authorizing more funds for Ukraine, while 45% believe it should authorize such funding, according to the poll conducted by SSRS.

Fifty-one percent say that Washington has done enough to help Kiev, but 48% disagree. The latter number is 14 percentage points down from the 62% of those who felt the US should have been doing more, according to a poll conducted in the early days of Russia's special military operation.

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🗣️ On NATO’s attempts to train Ukrainian troops to fight Russia:

“$40+ billion that has been given to the Ukrainian military and the fact that prolonging this war can hopefully bring about this vision and hope by many in the establishment in Washington that they can bring down President Putin and the Russian government... But there's no way that Ukraine, even if it gets trained for two or three years, can defeat the Russian military's overwhelming superiority on the battlefield, especially with its artillery and its missiles,” Christopher Helali, an independent investigative journalist, told Sputnik.

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

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Ukraine's attrition rate suggests counteroffensive is over

As of August 4, Ukraine has lost more than 43,000 soldiers and over 4,900 units of various weaponry, including 26 aircraft, nine helicopters, 1,831 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, including 25 German-made Leopard tanks, seven French-made AMX wheeled tanks and 21 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), since the beginning of Kiev's counteroffensive, per Russia's Ministry of Defense.

This data is "pretty serious because it really shows a high attrition rate, that the Ukrainians are just chewing through their equipment and given the tactics that they're employing, you can well understand why a lot of that equipment has become sitting ducks," Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik.

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Ukraine will never get NATO membership, Only US support as 'anti-Russian hedgehog'

A leading Russian foreign policy expert told Sputnik on Friday that despite Kiev’s desires to be welcomed into the Western anti-Russian bloc, the NATO powers only ever intend to use the new "ally" as a bulwark in their struggle against Russia and will never treat Ukraine as an equal.

The government in Kiev has continued to pressure the Western NATO alliance to give the country firmer pledges of support, including security guarantees and entry into the alliance. At its summit last month in Vilnius, the NATO powers swore off allowing Ukrainian membership while the conflict with Russia rages, over fears of the 31-nation alliance being drawn into a direct war with Russia that would include four nuclear-armed nations.

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🗣️ On the consequences of the situation in Niger for the West:

“The people of Niger have never seen any wealth come to them because of these resources: the French have been looting them in broad daylight. France wouldn't have electricity without Niger's uranium. And I think this is now the conflict in Niger will be affecting much of the Western NATO alliance and putting more pressure on their economies as the war in Ukraine continues to roll out,” Laith Marouf, a broadcaster and journalist based in Lebanon, told Sputnik.

🎧 Listen to more of Marouf’s analysis in our podcast The Critical Hour

Ukraine’s Western sponsors have inadvertently ended up providing military hardware to Russia as more and more armored vehicles and weaponry originally supplied by the US and its allies to the Kiev regime are captured by Moscow.

Which NATO weapons has Russia captured in Ukraine?

Check out this Sputnik's article to find out

Berlin is delaying the delivery of the promised military package to Kiev, a German media has reported

Back in May, before Zelensky's visit to Germany, a new tranche of support in the amount of €2.4 billionwas announced, the newspaper reminded. Berlin promised to send the weapons quickly, but so far "Ukraine has received little from this."

Only ten Leopard 1 tanks (out of 110 announced in the spring) were sent to Kiev. Of the 20 promised Marder armored vehicles and four IRIS-T missile defense systems, not a single one has been delivered, according to German journalists.

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Donald Trump has called on the Supreme Court to intervene and protect him from a string of lawsuits that he calls election interference

Trump considered the lawsuits "weak", but admitted that he had to spend a lot of time and money on them.

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📹 Tula paratroopers destroy neo-Nazis near Artemovsk (Bakhmut)

Having received the coordinates of the Ukrainian militants who had taken refuge in the forest belt, the BMD-4M crews fired at the area where the nationalists were located from closed firing positions. The vast majority of the personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were taken out. The surviving nationalists fled in a hurry, leaving their weapons and equipment.

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Expert: BRICS represents force in multipolar world

Unlike NATO and the G7, BRICS embodies power in a multipolar world and can play an important role in the economy, politics and global governance, Fan Hesheng, the head of the Center for Latin American Studies at Anhui University, told Sputnik commenting on Venezuela planning to join BRICS on Friday.

As the BRICS expands and forms a wider association of developing countries, it is bound to become an important economic, social and global governance pole that is one of the reasons why Venezuala wants to became a BRICS member, according to the expert.

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More than a third of Turks believe that Ankara should prioritize contacts with Russia and China in the development of foreign relations, a poll conducted by the MetroPOLL center showed

Some 46.9% of the polled residents said Ankara should prioritize relations with the United States and the European Union, compared to a little over 39% in March 2022. At the same time, 35.5% of Turks believe ties with Russia and China should be a priority for the Turkish authorities, compared to 29.5% in March 2022 and 39% in January 2022.

Over 17% of Turks declined to answer or were undecided, the poll showed.

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