UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will attend the BRICS Summit in South Africa and will deliver a number of important messages, said his spokesman Dujarric.

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Ukrainian artillery fire faulty shells: 20% just fizzle out

Ukrainian forces are launching intense artillery fire on Russian positions in Zaporozhye near the village of Rabotino on a daily basis, but about 20% of Ukrainian shells fail to detonate, according to a fighter from the 71st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, call sign "Monk."

💬 "Every morning, our wake-up call isn't an alarm clock, but rather artillery fire. Starting at 4 a.m., tanks are heavily engaged, as well as AGS [automatic grenade launchers], and artillery — everything that can be used - rains down on us. And quite often, about 20% of the shells do not explode. There are also cases with cluster munitions, where the shell explodes but does not deliver its submunition payload. It just explodes in the air [without the submunition detonation]," said "Monk."

In his opinion, this could be due to the age of the shells or to violations in the conditions of their storage.

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🛢 Global oil and gas prices rise amid supply concerns

The economic sanctions imposed by the US and its allies against Russia over the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict last year, as well as hostile actions by certain Western states such as the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, have effectively cut off many European countries from the supply of cheap Russian natural gas.

The prospects of a workers' strike at offshore platforms in Australia apparently led to an uptick in gas futures prices in Europe today.

Last week, trade unions at Woodside Energy Group's North West Shelf offshore gas platforms announced plans to launch a strike, which may start as soon as September 2.

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Trump holds ‘commanding lead’ in Iowa presidential race, a poll shows

Former US President Donald Trump holds a “commanding lead” over other Republicans in the presidential race in the US state of Iowa, a new poll revealed on Monday.

The poll showed that 42% of potential caucus participants would vote for Trump, which is twice more than the second Republican candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (19%). All others, including Tim Scott, former US Envoy to the UN Nikki Hailey, and ex-Vice President Mike Pence, received the support of less than 10% of potential voters.

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🇹🇷 Erdogan expects to hold face-to-face meeting with Putin in September

"There will be the G20 meeting in India and the UN General Assembly in the United States in September. If we find an opportunity in this busy environment, we will meet and talk with Putin face-to-face," Erdogan told reporters.

Russia's presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier told the media that Putin and Erdogan had agreed to decide on the time and place of their meeting in the near future. According to the spokesman, the agenda of the two leaders' talks will focus on bilateral ties, the Ukraine crisis and the Black Sea Grain Deal.

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‘Voila, we have air power’? F-16 transfers to Ukraine will take years to produce results

While Ukraine is now set to receive F-16 Falcon fighter jets from NATO, they won’t be on the battlefield for at least six months, and they stand little chance of being effective for at least two years, meaning the program won’t affect the course of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine for a while, experts told Sputnik.

According to the latest deal hammered out between the NATO powers and Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark will together supply Kiev with 61 F-16 Falcon fighter jets of the older A/B variants - with updated equipment - in exchange for being permitted to buy newer versions of the jet from the United States.

Check out this link to discover experts' opinion on this topic

❗Russian air defense suppressed two Ukrainian drones near Crimea by means of electronic warfare, as a result of which they fell into the water 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) northwest of the peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

"On August 21, at about 23:00 Moscow time [20:00 GMT], an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack with aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles was thwarted. Two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were detected and suppressed by electronic warfare by the air defense forces," the ministry said.

The ministry added that drones, having lost control, "crashed over the Black Sea, 40 kilometers northwest of the Crimean peninsula."

🔺BRICS Summit in Johannesburg: What to expect?
🔺Donald Trump says that he won’t take part in the first Republican primary debate as he is leading the field of candidates by "legendary" numbers
🔺US, Japan, South Korea announce "multi-year" military exercises

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Pentagon mulls allowing calculators on entrance exams amid recruiting shortfalls, according to reports

The US Defense Department is weighing a change in a policy that would lift a ban on the use of calculators on entrance exams amid one of the worst recruiting crises in history, an American broadcaster reported on Monday.

The new policy will make it easier to pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test as many young recruits have not been able to get high enough scores to qualify for military service, the report said.

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Poland receives first South Korean K239 Chunmoo rocket system

"The first Korean K239 Chunmoo rocket artillery system has arrived in Poland. It was mounted on a Polish Jelcz truck. New launchers will also arrive later this year," Blaszczak wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

A total of 288 such rocket launchers will be delivered under the agreement between Poland and South Korea. The first 18 systems, integrated into Polish Jelcz vehicles, will be delivered together with ammunition in 2023.

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❗Air defense forces shot down two strike drones on their way to the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Tuesday.

What's on BRICS' 2023 summit agenda?

The 15th BRICS Summit will take place in Johannesburg's financial district of Sandton on August 22-24 headed by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the states which constitute the rapidly-evolving format.

This year, a whopping 67 heads of states, including 53 from Africa, as well as others including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Indonesia and Iran, have been invited to the forum.

Sputnik has focused on the main topics on the agenda of the largest-ever summit

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📹 The crew of the Ka-52 helicopter destroyed (0:06) an armored personnel carrier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with an accurate strike of a guided missile

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❗Russia’s Su-30SM fighter jet of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed a reconnaissance boat of the Ukrainian armed forces, which was discovered near Russian gas production facilities in the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

👏 Russian Alexandra Goryachkina has become the winner of the World Chess Cup in Baku, beating Nurgyul Salimova from Bulgaria in a tie-break

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🇷🇸 The president of Serbia will meet with Zelensky

Aleksandar Vucic said that he would discuss "recognition and non-recognition of territorial integrity" with his Ukrainian counterpart.

“We respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, I hope that Ukraine also respects our territorial integrity,” the Serbian leader added.

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An attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles was thwarted tonight

▪️Two UAVs were detected by air defense systems and suppressed by electronic warfare systems, crashed over the territory of the Bryansk region.

▪️Two UAVs were detected and destroyed by air defense systems over the territory of the Moscow Region.

▪️There are no casualties as a result of the thwarted terrorist attacks.

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Key statements made by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev:

▪️Mankind, having reached a high level of economic and technological development, has come up against the challenge of losing its moral compass and stable moral principles. Russia has a vital and necessary role to play - to save the world from the madness promoted by the West.

▪️Russia firmly and consistently defends its cultural sovereignty, history and Russian moral ideals that unite our multinational country. The victory over neo-Nazism in Ukraine will certainly contribute to the formation of a polycentric and fair world order based on the cultural and civilizational diversity of the world.

▪️For a long time it’s been known that Washington and London, in their own interests, organize coups worldwide, unleash wars and wage them "by proxy", just like in Ukraine.

▪️Following in the footsteps of US policy, Tokyo is heading toward militarization, as it’s imperial slogans are again being heard.

▪️Those who falsify history cynically suggest to the Japanese that Russia was the aggressor, and the Americans came to them as saviors. But they completely distort the fact that they incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians alive in an atomic inferno.

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