🇷🇺 📹 Unmanned Revolution: Dronnitsa 2023 Festival Took Place in Russia

"Dronnitsa 2023" gathered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enthusiasts for an event to build a highly professional community of instructors, operators, electronic intelligence, and electronic warfare specialists.

🤵 According to the head of Novorossiya Assistance Coordination Centre, this event marks a milestone in aircraft construction, especially for unmanned aerial vehicles. Their hybrid scheme enables launches from any terrain, breaking the traditional limitations.

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Aging Leopard tanks 'not prepared' for combat in Ukraine hurt Rheinmetall's reputation

A former US Army commander told Sputnik that the lackluster performance of the Leopard tanks in Ukraine was hurting maker Rheinmetall, as the Western media has built the aging weapons up as the latest "wunderwaffe" or "wonder weapon" that would turn the tide against Russia.

It’s unclear how many Leopard 2s have taken part in the counteroffensive operation that began in June, but according to Earl Rasmussen, an international consultant and retired US Army lieutenant colonel, they have “absolutely not” been the game-changers they were imagined to be.

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☢️ How US nuclear tests devastated Marshall Islands

On August 29, declared by the UN General Assembly as the International Day against Nuclear Tests, Sputnik looks back on the Marshall Islands which became the main testing ground for American atomic arms during the Cold War.

Check out Sputnik's article to find out more information

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🇪🇺 EU member states are divided over a €86 billion funding request from Brussels that includes both aid for Ukraine and raises for EU officials. Now, the growing concern for EU leaders is their domestic budgets and doubts over Ukraine's situation.

The funding package comprises €66 billion for the EU budget and €20 billion in military aid for Ukraine over a four-year period, among other allocations.

Germany and the Netherlands oppose increased spending due to economic challenges as inflation and economic uncertainties persist in the Eurozone.

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🇺🇸 Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in several counties in Florida ahead of the expected landfall of Hurricane Idalia, the state’s Division of Emergency Management said on Tuesday.

"Mandatory evacuation order begins at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, August 29, 2023, and be completed by 7pm on Tuesday, August 29, 2023," the Division of Emergency management said in a statement regarding communities in Dixie County in northern Florida.

Similar evacuation orders have been issued for another 23 counties in Florida, the statement said.

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Dr. David Oualaalou, a leading geopolitical analyst, has criticized US objections to North Korea's nuclear deterrent, calling out the American government's stance as hypocritical.

"How can they trust us when we did that back in 1994 and we went back on our words by not building the nuclear reactor plant that we promised so they can get the nuclear fuel for their electricity?" Oualaalou asked. "We went back in our word and it's kind of like, 'No, we're not going to trust you, we're going to build our own'."

The US has repeatedly conducted joint military exercises with Japan and South Korea, claiming the drills are in part to counter North Korean threats.

However, North Korea's advancements in nuclear technology are linked to US broken agreements, with Pyongyang's defensive stance fueled by regional alliances and arms deals. Although the US has offered peace talks, past broken promises make North Korea skeptical.

👉 Read his full interview here!

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🔺 Macron condemns countries' attempts to establish relations with military leaders in Niger
🔺Former top Ukraine prosecutor comes out swinging against Joe and Hunter Biden
🔺The Pentagon is developing the ability to launch thousands of drones for use in a future war with China, top Pentagon officials say

The Critical Hour will cover these and more stories! Tune in to Radio Sputnik at 6pm EST|3pm PST|12am CET via the website or app

📻 Also in the United States at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

❗️ The Russian Ministry of Defense repels a drone attack at the airport in Pskov. Preliminarily, there are no casualties, the scale of destruction is being specified, said the governor of the region, Mikhail Vedernikov.

🇨🇳🇺🇸 China and the US are arranging the return of giant pandas to China, along with discussions about future panda conservation and research cooperation, according to Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu.

The pandas - Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and Xiao Qi Ji - will return as planned, and both countries are ensuring their safe transportation. Technical units from both nations are also weighing future collaboration on panda conservation and research.

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A group of scientists at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) are developing a kidney cell bioreactor that could replace the need for dialysis or transplants in patients experiencing kidney failure, UCSF said on Tuesday.

The new approach could one day allow doctors to treat kidney failure without patients needing dialysis or to suppress their immune systems for transplants, the statement said.

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❗️ Initial findings indicate there are no serious damages at the Pskov airport; if everything is intact, the site will resume work on Thursday, the governor said

Fire breaks out at Pskov Airport following Ukraine's attack, no threat of fire spread - rescuers

The story of why Hunter Biden was on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma after the US-backed coup in 2014 shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the dynamics of business in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, nor should the US-orchestrated removal of a prosecutor investigating the firm, a journalist told Sputnik.

Nebojsa Malic, a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator and senior writer at RT, told Radio Sputnik on Monday that Ukraine has been wracked by corruption since it became an independent nation in 1991, amid the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and that Burisma’s recruitment of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, to its board of directors in 2014 was characteristic of the way companies have sought out powerful political “patrons” in such an environment.

👉 Check out the full interview

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❗️ According to preliminary data, in the area of the Sevastopol Bay, attacks by enemy drones from the sea are being repelled, Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said

❗️ The Russian Defense Ministry said early Wednesday that its forces foiled Ukraine's attempt to carry out attacks on facilities in Russia around 2:00 a.m. Moscow time (23:00 GMT).

The ministry added that air defenses shot down a drone over the territory of the Kaluga region.

It was also reported that a Ukrainian drone was shot down overnight over the Ryazan region.

❗️At about 03:30 Moscow time, a Ukrainian UAV was intercepted and crashed over the territory of the Moscow region, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported

The disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was unforeseen by the Biden administration as late as the beginning of that month, according to a new book by author Franklin Foer.

In an excerpt of "The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future" adapted for The Atlantic, Foer depicts Biden as being unfailingly stubborn and arrogant to the end of the disastrous US withdrawal.

Biden believed that unlike his predecessors, he could rise above pressures from the military and foreign policy establishments to finally withdraw the United States from an unwinnable mission in Afghanistan, the book said.

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The Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) no longer have a drone advantage over Russian troops, a US magazine has reported, adding that the time when Kiev had better unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) than Moscow did has passed.

The magazine quoted Ukrainian drone pilot Nikolai Voroshnov as saying that the UAF is “starting to fall behind significantly” in terms of drone warfare.

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🇨🇭 Swiss archaeologists have stumbled upon the remnants of a stone wall built by the Roman Empire some 2,000 years ago, the largest such find in nearly a century.

The wall was found near Cham, a municipality of Zug canton in central Switzerland. At the time it was built, the area was on the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, separating it from Germania.

Switzerland’s Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology has called the find “sensational” and “extraordinary,” the first of its kind in the area in nearly 100 years, according to the archaeologists.

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❗️ In the Russian city of Kaluga, a UAV hit an empty tank for oil products, the fire was eliminated, the governor of the region Vladislav Shapsha said.

He clarified there were no victims or structural damages as a result of the drone's downing.

Rare blue supermoon to appear this week with special appearance from Saturn

Blue moons are relatively rare, occurring just once every two to three years but - luckily, the next one is expected to occur this Wednesday at 9:35 p.m. ET (0135 GMT on Thursday).

A supermoon occurs when the moon is both full and at, or near its closest point to Earth, according to the US space agency NASA. It occurs three to four times a year; however, if in one month two full moons occurs, the second is referred to as a “blue moon.”

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