🇷🇺 How big is Russia's grain market?

Russia's agricultural dominance, fueled by cutting-edge techniques and expansive fertile lands, positions it as a powerhouse in global grain trade. Boasting record harvests and strategic exports, it has become the cornerstone of the world's food supply.

👉 Sputnik unravels how Russia's grain export industry has transformed the nation's economic landscape and explains this industry's key trends

🇷🇺 Russian tankmaker wants to restart production of legendary ‘flying tank’

Russian machine-building company Uralvagonzavod is mulling reinitiating the manufacturing of the T-80, turbine engine-equipped main battle tank which singlehandedly gave birth to the third generation of tank construction.

First introduced into service with the Soviet Army in 1976, the T-80 was the first third-generation MBT in the world, and the first tank model using a powerful multi-fuel gas turbine engine as its main source of propulsion, providing the 42.5-46 ton machine with pep which can prove critical in tank-on-tank encounters.

👉 Follow the link to learn more

🇺🇸 New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has invoked an emergency health order to suspend for 30 days the right to open and concealed carry of firearms across Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, an American broadcaster reported on Monday.

Grisham's decision to enact the suspension comes in response to a recent surge in deadly shootings, including the incidents involving a 13-year-old girl in July, a five-year-old girl in August and an 11-year-old boy this month - all occurring in the Albuquerque area, the news agency stated.

The emergency order will take effect on September 8, the agency added.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Biden administration close to approving delivery of long-range missiles with cluster bombs to Kiev, media report

❗️ US State Department approves possible $4 billion sale of integrated air defense and combat command system to Poland - Pentagon

NATO's Steadfast Defender drills near Russia signal bloc's shift to 'war footing'

All thirty-one NATO countries plus Sweden are reportedly gearing up to conduct the bloc's biggest military drills since the Cold War in early 2024. Sputnik reached out to Michael Maloof, a former security policy analyst with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to get a sense of the risks posed by the exercises.

Read his full analysis

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ A Ukrainian drone has attacked the town of Rylsk in Kursk Region for the second time this evening, the roof of the administrative building has been damaged, there were no casualties, Governor Roman Starovoit has said.

Earlier, a Ukrainian drone dropped explosives in Rylsk, damaging facades and breaking several windows in two buildings. There were no casualties.

🔺North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will visit Russia in the coming days at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin
🔺It’s never enough: Blinken announces $1 billion more for Ukraine, including depleted uranium
🔺US seeks to divide Indo-Pacific, using new alliances as 'proxies against China'

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

📹 A group of activists climbed into House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's office to demand an extension of an AIDS and HIV assistance program that may not be renewed next year.

The protesters who staged a sit-in picket on the floor of the speaker's office were led out of the room in handcuffs by police and face charges of disorderly conduct.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ According to local authorities, vehicle traffic on the Crimean Bridge is temporarily blocked

🇺🇸 Trump in a new court filing is arguing for disqualifying the judge presiding over his January 6 federal case. The former US president claims Judge Tanya Chukan should recuse herself as her past comments “unavoidably taint” court proceedings.

"Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned. Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying," the filing reads.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

American researcher Mark Dickey, who fell seriously ill 1,000 meters below the entrance of a Turkish cave, has been successfully rescued after more than a week. The Speleological Federation of Turkiye reported that teams from Europe came to his aid.

Dickey, an experienced caver, became ill on September 2 while on an expedition to map the cave, which is the third deepest in Turkiye. As he was too weak to climb out on his own, rescuers used a stretcher and made stops at temporary camps along the way.

Dickey was safely brought out of the cave at 12:37 a.m. local time on Tuesday.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ The movement of vehicles on the Crimean bridge has been restored, local authorities report

Who's to blame for Ukraine crisis and rising global nuclear tensions?

The escalation of the long-running Ukrainian crisis into a full-blown NATO proxy war against Russia has been accompanied by dramatic warnings about the risks of the conflict escalating into a global nuclear conflagration. Is there a way out? A senior diplomat recently offered his perspective on Russia’s position.

Check out his analysis

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russia and its partners within BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) need to work on a unification of payment systems and a mechanism to regulate trade in national currencies to boost mutual trade and be more independent, geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar told Sputnik.

"We do not need a new BRICS currency, we don’t need a new euro, you don’t need something you can buy coffee with. You need what [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin said, in fact, recently — a mechanism regulating trade in bilateral currencies and multilateral currencies [within BRICS and SCO] and also in parallel a unification of payment systems," Escobar said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Russia's Vladivostok.

One of the ways to start the process is to initiate the unification of Russia's payment system, SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages), China's CIPS (China International Payments System) and the Iranian system, the expert said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇺 The European Union has downgraded the economic outlook for 2023 and 2024 amid growing fears of recession. Economic growth in the euro currency area is predicted to reach 0.8 percent in 2023, down from 1 percent projected in the Spring Forecast, as per the European Commission statement.

The economy of the euro zone will grow “with a reduced momentum,” stated the Summer Forecast from the EU’s executive arm.

For 2024, the revised projections showed growth expectations lowered to 1.3 percent from 1.6 percent. As for the overall 27-country bloc, growth forecast was lowered to 0.8 percent from 1 percent this year, and to 1.4 percent from 1.7 percent in 2024.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Latest statements by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

▪️ Russian and North Korean delegations will hold talks in the coming days, with one-on-one communications and an official dinner in honor of Kim Jong-un.

▪️ There will be no press conference at Putin's meeting with Kim Jong-un, which will be held in the Far East.

▪️ Putin and Kim Jong-un will have a rich exchange of views on the situation in the region and discuss bilateral ties.

▪️ Contacts between Putin and China's Xi Jinping are planned before the end of this year

Subscribe to @SputnikInt