🔺Putin and Saudi's Crown Prince noted that a reduction in oil production will stabilize the global market
🔺Jiang Feng, Beijing’s ambassador, says China plans to mediate Niger crisis
🔺Japanese government increases aid to local fisheries to $700Mln amid China's seafood import ban

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

🗣️ On the White House covering Biden’s mental disorder:

“It is undeniable and it is getting impossible for the White House to continue to cover it up, that Joe Biden's mental decline is getting very, very serious. And people realize that this is the most powerful position in the world. And we have a president who can't find his way out of a room when he finishes the speech and he can't put two sentences together in his speech. And I think the people are starting to get very, very concerned,” Ted Harvey, former Colorado state senator and president of stopjoe dot com, told Sputnik.

🎧 Listen to more of Harvey’s analysis in our podcast Fault Lines

👉 Watch the full episode of our show on Rumble

📻 Catch us at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

Russia’s Tor-M1 SAM system units destroyed more than 200 enemy drones over past few months

In combat operations, the Tor-M1 SAM system crews use radar equipment which makes it possible to easily detect and destroy small reconnaissance and reconnaissance-attack drones of the enemy in the air.

Accuracy of combat use allows up to eight aerial targets to be destroyed with one ammunition.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇦🇹 "Canceling" Russia is a mistake, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg stated

He noted that Russia will not disappear from the world map. It will always remain as the EU’s largest geographical neighbor.

He added that it is necessary to be far-sighted and pragmatic in relations with Moscow.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗Air defense systems activated around 3:00 a.m. Moscow time on Thursday (00:00 GMT) and destroyed an unmanned aerial vehicle, Rostov Region Governor Vasily Golubev said.

"Around 3:00 a.m., an air defense system activated in [the city of] Rostov-on-Don. An unmanned aerial vehicle has been shot down. Consequences on the ground are being clarified," Golubev said on Telegram.

❗Air defense systems destroyed an unmanned aerial vehicle overnight over the Ramensky district of the Moscow region, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said early Thursday. Preliminary findings showed no signs of casualties or material damages.

➡️ Air defense forces in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don destroyed two drones overnight, one crashed outside the city and another one in the city center, damaging vehicles and injuring one person as a result, Rostov Region Governor Vasily Golubev clarified early Thursday.

🇪🇺 New EU digital laws seek to bust 'gatekeeper' tactics of tech tiants

The European Union has unveiled a second batch of laws aimed at curbing the power of major technology companies, with a focus on ending monopolistic practices that leave consumers with few choices and even less power.

The package of laws is collectively called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and is intended as a companion to the Digital Services Act (DSA) that was implemented late last month.

The EC has given the "gatekeepers" six months to comply with a list of “dos and don’ts” the EC says will result in the companies "offering more choice and more freedom to end users and business users of the gatekeepers' services." Failure to comply will result in fines that will begin with 10% of the company's total worldwide turnover and could escalate to 20% "in case of repeated infringement."

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗An attempt by Ukrainian forces to carry out a drone attack in Russia's Bryansk region overnight was thwarted, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said early Thursday.

"Tonight, an attempt by the Ukrainian armed forces to carry out a terrorist attack using a UAV was foiled. Forces of the Russian Defense Ministry destroyed the unmanned aerial vehicle over the Bryansky district. There were no casualties or damage," Bogomaz said on Telegram, adding that emergency services were working on site.

The EU has signed eight contracts to jointly purchase 155 mm ammunition for Ukraine, according to the website of the European Defense Agency

The contracts include buying shells for the French howitzer CAESAR, the Polish self-propelled guns Krab, the German Panzerhaubitze 2000, and the Slovak Zuzana.

Earlier, an American media outlet reported that since the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have fired about 2 million 155 mm shells, almost depleting Western stocks.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

How the West drags Armenia to its side amid NATO proxy war in Ukraine

The Armenian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that joint military exercises with US "Eagle Partner 2023" will be held in Armenia from September 11-20. The drills cause concerns in Moscow as they come amid Washington's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Last Friday, Yerevan signaled readiness to continue cooperation with NATO within the Individual Partnership Action Plan, while the next day Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to Italian outlet La Repubblica claiming Russia's peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh "failed," and that Russia is "leaving" the South Caucasus.

What's behind mixed messages coming from Yerevan?

Check out Sputnik's article to find out

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Lockheed Martin will once again delay its delivery of the latest upgraded versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to the US armed forces because of continued problems in the software needed to fire its weapons

"We have updated our F-35 TR-3 schedule projections with a first TR-3 aircraft delivery between April and June 2024. As a result, we now expect to deliver 97 aircraft in 2023, all in the TR-2 configuration," Lockheed said.

Delivery of the long-delayed and problem-plagued TR-3 version of the aircraft was previously due to start this December, but the software still has to be validated in testing, the company said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 The Russian Federal Security Service prevents terrorist attacks ahead of elections in DPR by Ukrainian saboteurs

Employees of the Russian Federal Security Service have found a weapons cache in the city of Dokuchaievsk, which was planned to be used to carry out terrorist attacks by Ukrainian saboteurs ahead of the elections in the region for September 8-10, FSB has told Sputnik.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Two people were killed while trying to enter the French military base in Chad after the incident with the death of a soldier, a local informed source told Sputnik

On Wednesday night, residents of Faya-Largeau gathered to hold protests and attempted to infiltrate a French military base after the local soldier died at the hands of a French doctor. Immediately after the incident, most of the French military base was evacuated by plane to the Chadian capital of N'Djamena.

Chadian political scientist Evariste Ngarlem Tolde told Sputnik on Wednesday that members of the Chadian parliament had demanded the withdrawal of French military forces from the country after the death of a local resident in care of a French doctor in Faya-Largeau. He added that the protests could spread across the country.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Footage shows the exact moment when the drone came crashing down in the center of the city.

A state of emergency has been introduced in the area where the drone crashed in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, the regional governor there reported.

🗣 The potential for conflict among nuclear powers could escalate into an open military confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov cautioned 

The senior diplomat added that the open military pressure on Russia is dangerously teetering on the brink of an armed conflict between global nuclear powers.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Ukrainian army attacked the city of Energodar, near the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, with drones, the regional administration told reporters.

"The Kiev regime's militants used unmanned aerial vehicles to strike Energodar. No casualties were reported. The information is being verified," the Zaporozhye region administration said.

Police and emergency services are currently working at the scene.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian troops inflicted a heavy blow on the units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that were rotating near villages of Verbove and Rabotino, according to Yevgeny Balitsky, the acting governor of the Zaporozhye region

He said the enemy's losses amounted to up to 100 people.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🥴 Burger diplomacy goes awry in Kiev: Ukraine's FM Kuleba, a self-styled vitamin buff, makes US Secretary of State Blinken cringe with his McDonalds hangover tales

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Donald Trump believes that Russia would not have launched the special military op in Ukraine if the US had not "rigged elections", that is, if Democrat Joe Biden had not come to power in 2021

💬 "I’ll tell you this. Ukraine is so sad. Every time I turn it on, that was a war that I knew it was the apple of Putin’s eye. He would have never done it if the election weren’t rigged, our election. It was rigged and stolen. If that election wasn’t rigged, if I were president, you would right now have millions of people living that are dead," Trump said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💬 "What is it: lies or silliness?"

The White House's claims that depleted uranium ammunition is not radioactive are nonsense, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said

The rate of cancer diagnoses increases in places where depleted uranium ammunition was used, she recalled. This was experienced by Italian soldiers who took part in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Zakharova added.

On Wednesday, US National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby said that depleted uranium rounds were neither radioactive nor carcinogenic.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt