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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📹 Russia's airborne troops improve combat skills in the zone of the special military op

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BRICS currently stands as a “serious competitor” to not just US hegemony, but “to Western hegemony and Western imperialism” Adriel Kasonta, a London-based foreign affairs analyst, journalist and commentator, told Sputnik

Noting how Western powers already sought to force South Africa to enforce the ICC ruling against Russian President Vladimir Putin, were he to appear at the BRICS summit, Kasonta argued that there is a de facto “hybrid war” waged by the West against BRICS.

According to Kasonta, the “ultimate goal” of BRICS is “to be the final milestone in the long attempt by Global South leaders like [Ghanian independence leader] Kwame Nkrumah… to break away from neo-colonialism.”

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Russia's armed forces have thwarted Ukrainian mechanized brigades' attempts to carry out an attack in the Krasny Liman direction, Alexander Savchuk, the head of the Center Group of Forces' press center, has told Sputnik.

🗣️"In the Krasny Liman direction, in the areas of the Torsky section and the forest area of Serebryansky, artillery fire and strikes by the army aviation the Center Group foiled attack attempts by assault groups of the Ukrainian armed forces' mechanized brigades," Savchuk said.

The latest comes a day after Russian defense foiled two attempts overnight Friday near the city of Kerch and near the naval base in Novorossiysk.

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The majority of Ukrainian pilots selected for training to operate F-16 jets aren't ready because of their insufficient English

Eight Ukrainian pilots have been selected to participate in the first run of training on the American-made F-16 fighter jet

An unnamed US official who spoke to Western media detailed that eight pilots were selected because of their fluency in English, while another 20 pilots that speak some English were selected to be sent to the United Kingdom for language courses as soon as later this month.

An additional four pilots were also selected to be part of the program, for a total of 32, though their status and English-speaking ability were not clarified.

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🇷🇺📹 Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu presents state awards and firearms to servicemen of of the Russian Armed Forces in the zone of the special military op

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📹 Russia has launched the production of its new Gastello kamikaze drones, which were developed to meet the demands of the participants of the special military op

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⚡Imran Khan Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

🇵🇰 Pakistan's former PM Imran Khan was sentenced to three years in prison by the district and sessions court in Islamabad on Saturday.

He was accused of not fully declaring the gifts received by other heads of state while he was in office.

Khan was arrested from his home in Lahore and taken into custody.

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⚡ Russia’s Fleet has found a surface drone in the Sevastopol sea zone; measures are being taken to destroy it, the city governor said

The Russian and Turkish presidents may reportedly discuss energy projects, namely a gas hub project, during Putin's planned visit to Turkiye in August

On Friday, Erdogan said he expected Putin's visit to Turkiye to take place in August. Earlier in the week, Erdogan's office said the two leaders had agreed on Putin's visit to Turkiye during a telephone conversation.

During the meeting in Turkiye, Putin and Erdogan are expected to discuss renewing the grain deal and turning Turkiye into a gas hub, as well as other energy projects, the report said.

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More than 150 service members of the UK have participated in the largest military exercise between the armed forces of Australia, the US and the UK, the UK Defense Ministry said

The ministry added that over 34,000 troops participated in the exercise, which involved forces from Australia, Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Tonga, the UK and the US.

The exercise tests joint capabilities across land, sea, air, space and digital domains," the ministry said on the website.

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

▪️The Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) lost more than 210 soldiers in the South Donetsk direction in a day;

▪️ The UAF lost more than 175 soldiers in the Zaporozhye direction, as well as two Krab artillery installations, four D-20 howitzers and one D-30 gun;

▪️ Air defenses intercepted eight HIMARS rockets and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones;

▪️Russian forces successfully repelled three counterattacks of the UAF in the Kharkov region;

▪️Russian forces successfully repelled ten UAF attacks in the Donetsk direction

▪️The Russian Army successfully repelled three attacks by assault groups of the UAF brigade in the Krasny Liman direction

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