📹 "On behalf of the residents of the reunited territories: DPR, LPR, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, all servicemen, we ask Putin to take part in the elections. He said he is with our people, and he will run for office," Artem Zhoga, the hero of the DPR, said.

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“The Ukraine conflict is the most serious military conflict and geopolitical conflict that Russia has faced since World War Two, because we are really in a new patriotic war. We are in the great power conflict against the West. We are in a conflict, which we have not seen yet in the recent Russian history because even during the Second World War, Russia was fighting against the Axis countries, but the United States and UK were on our side. Now we are struggling against the collective West all together. This is an unprecedented challenge, which has required and continues to require very serious mobilization.” Dmitry Suslov, Russian foreign policy strategist, told the New Rules podcast.

👉 What is the fundamental problem with Western “peace proposals,” and Russia plans for the BRICS chairmanship in 2024: You can find the full episode on Rumble

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🇷🇺🪖 Key points of the Russian MoD briefing on the weekly progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️The Russian Armed Forces improved their position along the front line in some areas and repelled 19 attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF);

▪️The Russian army launched 30 group strikes on the UAF airfield infrastructure and foreign mercenaries' accommodation points.

▪️Russian troops maintained an active defense in the Zaporozhye region, repelling five attacks by UAF assault groups.

▪️Ukrainian losses in the Kherson region amounted to up to 350 servicemen.

▪️The Russian Armed Forces repelled 10 attacks by the Ukrainian forces in the Krasny Liman region; the enemy losses amounted to more than 1,445 soldiers and 33 pieces of equipment.

▪️The UAF lost more than 845 servicemen and 3 tanks in the South Donetsk direction.

▪️The UAF lost up to 260 servicemen and six armored vehicles in the Zaporozhye direction.

▪️The UAF lost over 480 servicemen and 3 tanks in the Kupyansk direction.

▪️The Russian Armed Forces foiled attempts by UAF sabotage groups to cross the left bank of the Dnieper River.

▪️Russian air defense systems shot down five Ukrainian aircraft.

▪️The UAF lost more than 1,560 servicemen in the Donetsk region.

▪️Russian troops shot down 224 Ukrainian UAVs.

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🇷🇺 Russia calls on Venezuela and Guyana to refrain from any actions around the Essequibo area that could cause harm to the parties, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

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🇪🇺 The European Union is looking at reviving a World Trade Organization case against the USA

The trade spat stemming from the Trump administration's imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs, which led to reciprocal tariffs on goods exceeding $10 billion.

Brussels has expressed discontent with the current talks, accusing Washington of intransigence. Despite this, the EU is holding back on reintroducing reciprocal tariffs on American goods, which suggests a willingness to engage their counterpart across the Atlantic.

The EU's decision to restart the WTO case serves several purposes: it keeps the threat of future tariffs alive, maintains leverage over the US, and allows a prolonged negotiation period to avoid an imminent re-imposition of duties. It comes amid media reports that Brussels is wary of levying tariffs, since that step could unintentionally give a boost to Trump's political campaign in the 2024 American presidential election race.

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🚓 The head of a Ukrainian defense plant was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine in an attempt to steal nearly $110,000, allocated for the purchase of spare parts for the Su-27.

The aircraft equipment was purchased in a faulty condition, and the first part of the money was transferred to the supplier—almost $52,000. The participants of the criminal group planned to withdraw money through controlled companies, cash it out, and distribute it among themselves, the SBU said.

Now the former director of the defense plant, the head of the supplier company, and two more of their accomplices face up to 12 years in prison.

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🇷🇺💸 Russia has confounded the West's sanctions strategy to outstrip Europe in economic growth, pundits say

Speaking at the plenary session of VTB Bank's investment forum "Russia Calling!", Putin highlighted that Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 3.2% in the first 10 months of this year and is expected to reach 3.5% by the end of the year.

"Despite Western sanctions against Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian economy manages to stay afloat due to various factors, including the restrictive economic policy of the EU and strategic alliances Russia has formed around the world," Imelda Ibanez, a specialist in the history of Russian diplomacy and foreign policy at St. Petersburg State University, told Sputnik.

When the United States and its European allies decided to impose sanctions on Moscow, commodity prices rose significantly, resulting in an increased trade deficit for those countries.

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🇩🇪 German media has savaged Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’s plans to station a German Army brigade in Lithuania to “contain Russia,” suggesting that “basic arithmetic” shows such plans to be infeasible.

Pistorius announced plans to deploy a 4,000-strong brigade of troops in the Baltic nation in September, saying the move, designed to show “solidarity and responsibility in the east wing [of NATO]” should be created by the end of 2024.

“This is unprecedented for the German Bundeswehr. We’ve never done it like that, deploying an entire brigade overseas,” Pistorius said, noting that troops would be deployed to the east together with their families.

But Berlin may have bitten off than it can chew with the deployment, according to detractors.

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☣️ Biolabs at work? Resistance to antimicrobial medicines which prevent and treat infectious diseases has experienced an explosive rise in Ukraine

That’s according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control released Friday, which indicated that “in Ukraine, the confluence of high prewar rates of antimicrobial resistance, an increase in the prevalence of traumatic wounds, and the war-related strain on health care facilities is leading to increased detection of multidrug-resistant organisms with spread into Europe.”

The report, made possible through collaboration between the CDC, the Center for Public Health of Ukraine (UPHC), and other local health authorities and “international partners,” including the World Health Organization and the US State Department, used data collected in hospitals in the western and central Ukrainian regions of Ternopol, Khmelnitskiy, and Vinnitsa.

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🎙 Check out the latest AfroVerdict рodcast that uncovers the schemes Shell uses in order to avoid resрonsibly dealing with oil sрills.

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Latest updates on Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

▪️The death toll from the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip has increased to 17,487 people since October 7, with 46,480 having been injured, Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Qudra said.

▪️Saudi foreign minister says it doesn’t look like the UNSC resolution on the Gaza ceasefire will pass.

▪️Civil order is breaking down in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s blockade and hostilities, with multiple incidents of aid convoys being looted and UN vehicles stoned, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East director in Gaza, Thomas White, said.

▪️China fully supports and joins in co-sponsoring the draft UN Security Council resolution proposed by the United Arab Emirates and considers it a universal call of the international community for peace in Gaza, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Zhang Jun said.

▪️Russia calls for an end to violence between Israel and Hamas and stands against attempts to forcibly move the residents of Gaza to the south, UN Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said, adding that Russia deeply regrets that the UN Security Council has failed to take any binding resolution on Gaza due to pressure from the US.

▪️The government in Israel is planning to flood underground facilities in the Gaza Strip with seawater, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said.

▪️The United Nations is committed to providing humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip, but the conditions on the ground make carrying out this mandate impossible, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

▪️The brutality carried out by Hamas in its attack on Israel can never justify Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians, Guterres said.

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🇺🇸⚖️ The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wanted to investigate links to President Joe Biden during the course of its probe into his son but was not allowed to pursue the connection, the US House Oversight Committee said.

The panel released a trannoscript from a US House Ways and Means Committee hearing with IRS whistleblowers.

"We were interested in following leads that went to Joe Biden — President Biden — not because he was Vice President, but because in any normal investigation, if you see financial transactions between son and father… we would follow those leads to the father," IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley told lawmakers. "We’ll never know because we weren’t allowed to investigate."

US House lawmakers have been investigating alleged criminal activity involving the Biden family, including foreign influence peddling and bribery.

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🇸🇦 Saudi Foreign Minister rules out Arab military intervention in Palestine-Israel conflict

Arab nations will not consider military intervention in the Gaza conflict as a means to persuade Israel to end its military operation, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan stated on Friday.

"Violence is not the answer, and we are not going to get drawn into this cycle of threat and counter-threatened violence and counter violence," Farhan said when asked if Arab countries would consider threatening Israel with military intervention in Gaza.

The minister led an Arab delegation that met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington to discuss the Gaza conflict. Farhan was joined by his counterparts from Jordan, Qatar, and Egypt.

Farhan emphasized the need for a cessation of hostilities and immediate access for humanitarian aid.

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🇺🇸🇺🇦 Hunter's criminal case, funding rows in Congress may force Biden toward Ukraine peace deal

The new indictment against Hunter Biden and struggles with Congress to get more funding for Kiev before the holiday break could pressure President Joe Biden into supporting efforts to end the Ukraine conflict peacefully, experts told Sputnik.

Former US diplomat James Carden believes the conflict in Ukraine has finally reached a point that has forced a non-trivial amount of opposition to more aid for Kiev.

"The war effort is now recognized as basically lost and more money isn't going to do the trick," Carden told Sputnik.

Retired Lt. Colonel and former Vice President of the Eurasia Foundation, Earl Rasmussen, sees support for Ukraine waning both within Congress and among the American public.

"Apparently, Joe Biden cares little about America and more about Ukraine," Rasmussen said.

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💵 US House unlikely to approve new Ukraine aid before end of year, according to reports

The US House of Representatives is unlikely to allocate new funding for Ukraine before the end of the year, a congressional source told Sputnik on Friday.

This week, the White House warned lawmakers that funding for Ukraine will run out by the end of the year.

Earlier in the day, a new Pew Research poll revealed that nearly half of Republicans in the United States say they believe the US government is sending too much aid to Ukraine.

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Scott Ritter: 'Zelensky sees the writing on the wall'

Given Ukraine’s pitiful state both on the battlefield and at home, President Volodymyr Zelensky will likely face an unprecedented backlash from his own military personnel in the near future.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must face the "writing on the wall" after the failure of his summer counter-offensive, says a former UN weapons inspector.

In an interview with YouTube host Danny Haiphong, Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter gave a stark assessment of the notoriously botched Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in early summer of 2023.

"The counteroffensive is over. It’s been a strategic defeat for the Ukrainians for the collective West. And what I think we’re going to see now is that the Russians, having absorbed the Ukrainian blow, are going to slowly go on the counter-counter offensive and begin to put pressure on the Ukrainians," Ritter stressed.

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⚡️US vetoes UAE-Proposed UNSC resolution demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza, hostage release

The United States vetoed on Friday a UAE-drafted UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Thirteen members voted in favor and one abstained.

The draft resolution demands "an immediate humanitarian ceasefire" and "immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access."

On Thursday, deputy US ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood said that the United States believes that another UN Security Council resolution on Gaza will not be helpful right now.

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“Over the last three days, the NATO “paper tiger” has contradicted itself several times on the real possibilities for Ukraine to win”

CIPI Foundation Director Paolo Raffone spoke to Sputnik about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued popularity in light of his decision to seek another term as president in 2024.

Raffone suggests the West has begun to believe its own propaganda about Ukraine’s chances for victory, while Putin and Russian military leaders have played the long game.

NATO has been revealed as a “paper tiger,” the analyst says, and the West will be forced to seek an exit strategy from Ukraine’s confrontation before elections next year.

Only after those elections may the West’s anti-Putin stance begin to soften, says Raffone, and Russia, China, and the US will work together to arrive at a settlement while Europe’s slavish devotion to US dictats will ensure they remain “irrelevant.”

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🇺🇸💸🇺🇦 Ukraine aid topic unlikely to impact outcome in swing States in US election, according to reports

The topic of US assistance for Ukraine is not expected to make a difference in swing states in the 2024 elections, even in those that economically benefit from it, former Republican National Committee Chair and ex-US Ambassador to the OSCE Jim Gilmore told Sputnik.

The implication that Ukraine aid is being given to certain states for political purposes would have to be proven, but this is a situation where the defense companies are simply located in these certain states, Gilmore added.

The ex-US Ambassador said he is "certain" that Congress, especially Republicans, will eventually approve more funding for Ukraine to keep them going next year.

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🪖 Ukraine is running out of pro-soldiers as draft-eligible men flee

As the Kiev regime forges ahead with its lackluster counteroffensive, it is not only increasingly running out of ammo but is also forced to acknowledge the gravity of Ukraine’s losses.

Ukraine is fast running out of professional military personnel, The Washington Post has reported. Growing numbers of fighting-age men are either dying in the "meat grinder" of Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, deserting active-duty service, or dodging the draft. No one wants to die a pointless death on a suicide mission, it was stated.

“Too many civilians seem content to leave the fighting to ‘professional’ soldiers,” the outlet cited members of Ukraine’s Armed Forces as complaining. Amid waning support among NATO allies for providing aid to Ukraine, it is not only losses of military hardware and ammunition shortages that are a problem for President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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🇺🇦 West doubts Ukraine's ability to conduct major counteroffensive until 2025, according to reports

The West believes Kiev will most likely fail to launch another significant counteroffensive until 2025, as the Ukrainian forces need time to recover after this year's failed military campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing Western diplomats and military strategists.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the newspaper that his country was forming brigades for "new counteroffensive and defensive operations," but Western military strategists reportedly said it was rather shifting to defensive positions, which, in particular, could be confirmed by Ukrainian troops digging trenches near Krasny Liman.

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