The Kiev regime began vigorously dismissing that the downed Russian Il-76 was carrying Ukrainian POWs after the NYT published a related article.

The publication, citing US officials on condition of anonymity, implies that it was indeed a Patriot missile that was used to down the Il-76 plane.

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❗️Kremlin comments on Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson:

🔺Carlson did not coordinate his questions for the interview with Putin in advance: we never collect any questions.

🔺Over the past few days, the Kremlin has received numerous interview requests from major media outlets around the world. All of these requests will be considered for future interviews.

🔺There is no hysteria or panic in the American media following Putin's interview with Carlson, but rather a sense of professional jealousy appears to be present among some individuals.

🔺The Western media and establishment will undoubtedly scrutinize and analyze the Tucker-Putin interview.

🔺After the Tucker Carlson interview, no attempts were made to contact Putin through diplomatic channels.

🔺While Putin's main concern is the reaction of Russians, it is also vital that the interview reach as many people as possible in the West.

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Zelensky awarded the noscript of Hero of Ukraine to ex-commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny, whom he fired the day before amid rumors of conflict and political competition.

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Zelensky awarded the noscript of Hero of Ukraine to the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate Budanov, who had previously admitted Kiev’s involvement in terrorist attacks on Russian territory and was included by Russia in the list of terrorists and extremists.

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Potential US military deployment in Ukraine 'would likely lead to open war with Russia'

Vladimir Putin’s remark during his interview with Tucker Carlson about a potential US troop deployment in Ukraine threatening to put the world on the brink of a global conflict is not the first such warning made by the Russian president, says Ret. Col. Gen. Georgy Shpak, former commander of Russia’s Airborne Forces.

“It would be an open war, according to all international laws,” he remarked.

Shpak also concurred with Putin’s dismissal of the claims made by the West about Russia posing a threat to Poland, the Baltic states, and other European nations.

“Alas, a great many people believe that. They believe that Russia is bad, extremely bloodthirsty, and clearly poised to overrun Poland and the Baltic states after Ukraine,” Shpak lamented.

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Elon Musk agreed with Putin's statement that "US uses the dollar as a tool of pressure and as a weapon".

"It was a dumb move," businessman said.

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📹 Full video of the Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin.

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Putin’s main points on the history of Russia and Ukraine. A brief summary:

🔸The first Russian state was established in 862, and encompassed territories that are now part of modern Russia and Ukraine. However, this unified Russian state broke down following the Mongol invasion in 1237. Northern Russian cities maintained their independence, while the southern cities were gradually annexed by the Polish-Lithuanian state.

🔸The Poles tried to wipe out Russian identity, language, culture in the territories they annexed. This is where the term “Ukrainians” originated from – it referred to Russians living on fringes of the Polish state. Eventually, the Russians living on the territory of modern-day Ukraine began an uprising to free themselves from Polish rule and join Russia, ultimately prevailing in 1686. This marked the reunification of the historic Russian state.

🔸The ideas of Ukrainian separatism first emerged in the years before World War 1. This movement was sponsored by the Austrian General Staff, who wanted to destabilize Russia’s western territories if war between the two empires broke out. At the time, it was a fringe movement with little support.

🔸The modern Ukrainian state was established by Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, who transferred historically Russian, Polish, Romanian, and Hungarians lands to the newly created Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. For this reason, Putin notes that contemporary Ukraine is an “artificial state” whose post-independence borders had little connection to demographic and cultural realities.

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❗️Putin exposes American support for anti-Russian terrorist groups

The United States provided backing for terrorist and separatist groups in Russia’s North Caucasus region, President Vladimir Putin revealed during his interview with Tucker Carlson. Putin explained that he raised this issue with his American counterpart, who promised to stop immediately. However, the CIA effectively sabotaged the agreement.

Sputnik was able to confirm Putin’s words by speaking with retired Col. Gen. Georgy Shpak, former commander of Russia’s Airborne Forces. Shpak stated that during the 1990s and early 2000s, NATO countries had provided North Caucasus insurgent groups with ammunition, light weapons, food, communications systems, and mining equipment.

“There was also the presence of an enormous number of military advisors. Americans for the most part, then British. Polish advisors also participated, and lots of personnel from the Baltic States as well,” he said.

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During Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson, both a Russian official translator and an American hired translator were present. So far, the interview on X has garnered over 93 million views, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed.

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❗️Russia has destroyed 8 thousand Ukrainian artillery guns and mortars since the beginning of the special operation

🇷🇺🪖Statements from the Russian MoD briefing on the daily progress of special military op in Ukraine:

🔺The Russian Armed Forces destroyed two launchers and a radar of the S-300 air defense system

🔺Ukraine lost up to 300 servicemen near Donetsk

🔺Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) lost more than 190 servicemen in near Donetsk

🔺The Russian Armed Forces repelled two attacks by the UAF near Krasny Liman. Ukrainian losses amounted to 290 servicemen

🔺Near Donetsk, Russian troops hit two UAV control points, an electronic warfare station, and two warehouses with ammunition

🔺Russian air defense systems intercepted 15 MLRS shells and destroyed 97 drones;

🔺The UAF lost up to 185 servicemen near Kupyansk

🔺The Russian Armed Forces defeated units of the 37th Marine Brigade and the 121st Territorial Defense Brigade of the UAF in the Kherson region. Ukrainian losses amounted to up to 50 servicemen and a D-30 howitzer.

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🚀A rocket with a satellite was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense, it was successfully launched into the target orbit, the military department reports.

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Fact Check: General Syrsky, heroic defender of Kiev?

Mainstream media have already begun fawning over newly appointed Ukrainian Armed Forces commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky, with Bloomberg pointing to his “key” role “in defending Kiev against all odds at the start of the Russian invasion,” and Business Insider hailing his operations as a “shocking upset that surprised many who assumed the capital would fall quickly.” AFP went so far as to suggest that it was Syrsky who scuppered “the Kremlin’s plans to bring the country to its knees within days.” President Zelensky awarded Syrsky the “Hero of Ukraine” award for his efforts.

The reality is otherwise. As many of the same outlets reported back in the spring of 2022, Russia’s withdrawal from Kiev region was a gesture of goodwill by Moscow meant to facilitate favorable conditions for peace talks aimed at putting the conflict to bed. Only later, after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had traveled to Kiev to sink the talks, did Moscow realize that the Zelensky regime would not be allowed to pursue peace by its Western curators. In his bombshell interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, President Putin revealed that he had made the decision to pull Russian forces back from the Ukrainian capital in the hopes of facilitating peace.

“My counterparts in France, in Germany, said ‘how can you imagine them signing a treaty with a gun to their heads? The troops should be pulled back from Kiev.’ I said, alright. We withdrew the troops from Kiev. As soon as we did so, our Ukrainian negotiators almost immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and prepared for a long-running armed confrontation with the help of the United States and its satellites in Europe,” Putin said.

So much for Syrsky’s “heroism.”

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‘Thank God they didn’t let you in’: Putin gently teases Tucker Carlson about his CIA job application.

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☦️🇷🇺 Putin commented during the interview on the attempts to divide the Russian and Ukrainian people through a religious rivalry.

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Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, was spotted partying and dancing during his visit to Israel.

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Ball in NATO’s court on ending Ukrainian crisis

“I think that the most important message in Putin's interview [to Tucker Carlson] is that Russia is ready for a political or diplomatic solution of the Ukraine conflict,” Russian international affairs observer Dmitry Suslov told Sputnik.

“But it requires a political will from the United States. Putin identified the concrete conditions on which Russia would be ready to end the conflict through diplomacy. And this is first, the recognition of the current territorial settlement. Putin bluntly said that it's up for NATO to look for and to find a form which could be, I mean, not humiliating for them, but accepts the current territorial settlement. Secondly, Istanbul communique [agreed in the spring of 2022, before the West forced Kiev to break off negotiations, ed.],” Suslov, the deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, said.

“Thirdly, he identified in a very detailed way the condition of denazification and explained what it means, and also, mentioned that it was partly included into the Istanbul communique. So, I think that this is a very important message, that if the United States is ready for serious negotiation on the basis of these conditions, Russia would not hesitate to resume and to start those negotiations,” the observer noted.

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Russian tankers of the Battlegroup Yug smash the enemy near Donetsk

The modernized T-90M Proryv tanks advance to the fire positions using the terrain, eliminate the Ukrainian servicemen in their shelters, suppress their firing positions, and allow Russian assault groups to advance further into the enemy's defense lines.

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Syrsky’s command will see more “meat grinder assaults" driven by fanatical loyalty to Zelensky

Newly picked Ukrainian Armed Forces commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky is “absolutely loyal to the current government. He is ready to continue the policy of ‘meat assaults’ and it is easier for him to do this, since his reputation allows for it,” Nikolai Kostikin, an expert from the Military-Political Analysis Bureau think tank, told Sputnik.

“Ukraine’s Armed Forces now have prospects for the continued mass slaughter of their personnel. And it is not Ukrainians who command Ukrainian troops. The policy of meat assaults will continue until the front collapses like dominos,” Kostikin said, adding that “so far, Syrsky has proven himself only as a ‘cauldron general’, responsible, in the minds of Ukrainian officers, for the defeat at Debaltsevo in 2015.”

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