❗️Russian air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 33 Ukrainian drones over the Kaluga, Voronezh, Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kursk regions overnight, the defense ministry said

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❗️Three civilians, including a teenager, were killed and four injured in the shelling of the village of Panteleymonovka (DPR) by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the head of the administration of the Yasinovataya district, Dmitry Shevchenko, said.

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▪️Ukraine withdraws its units from Avdeyevka. What’s so special about this stronghold in Donbass?

▪️What myth did the Kiev regime use to legitimize the neo-Nazi coup in 2014?

More stories:

▪️Angry residents of East Palestine, Ohio, met Biden during his ‘too late’ visit

▪️What plagues the US Navy? A survey has revealed

▪️Double standards of the Western MSM: preferring an interview with the ‘evil’ Hamas over one with Putin

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The Houthis have attacked a British tanker in the Red Sea

"The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a targeting operation against the British oil ship ‘Pollux’ in the Red Sea with a large number of suitable naval missiles, and the strike was accurate and direct," Yahya Sare'e, spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, said.

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Heavenly Hundred: Ukrainians were abused to create illusion of righteous resistance

The ‘Heavenly Hundred’ is the term that Ukrainians have adopted for those who died during months of anti-government protests in 2013-14. Many of them were victims of Maidan leaders who spilled their blood to make the regime change operation irreversible, according to Janus Putkonen, Finnish geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist with the Patriotic Network, who was working in Kiev in April 2014.

"The Right Sector* movement and the nationalists and the junta started to praise them as martyrs. These guys who I met knew the truth about it. And the truth was that they were shot in the back. They were slaughtered by their own leadership," Putkonen told Sputnik.

"I never believed that this massacre was done by the police, because there was no proof. All the proof that we had was questioned almost immediately when it happened. And this massacre was just done in order to justify the armed coup that was then taking place," the analyst stressed.

Many facts remain under-reported in the West, including the role of hooligan gangs and foreign mercenaries during the protests, ballistic and video evidence of shooting, as well as the heavy drug consumption among the protesters, Putkonen said.

Ukrainians were abused in order to create an illusion of righteous resistance, he said. After it turned out that the Heavenly Hundred list also contains dozens of random people unrelated to the clashes with the police, it has become more of a burden than a useful myth, the analyst concluded.

*banned in Russia for extremism

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‘Symbolic strikes’? NYT claims Israel responsible for attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure

Israel is behind explosions at two major natural gas pipelines that occurred in southern Iran on Wednesday night, the NYT reported, citing two Western officials and a military strategist affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The sabotage targeted several points simultaneously, but it remains unclear whether the pipelines were struck with drones, explosives attached to the pipes, or some other means, the report added. Israel also carried out a separate blast at a chemical factory on the outskirts of Tehran on Thursday, the article says.

These strikes were symbolic and served as a warning to the Iranian authorities about Israel’s ability to escalate tensions in the Middle East, one official reportedly said.

A powerful blast occurred on the main line of the Iranian gas pipeline in the city of Borujen, followed by a fire that could be seen from a distance of 60 kilometers.

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❗️Zelensky on the withdrawal of troops from Avdeyevka: 'the decision was made to save people's lives'

Ukrainian forces are chaotically leaving their positions in Avdeyevka, abandoning the wounded, Yan Gagin, adviser to the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, told Sputnik.

"Yes, indeed, parts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are leaving Avdeyevka, we notice that they are withdrawing, they're withdrawing scattered. It is not like Syrsky wrote they would withdraw – nothing like that. What is happening now is they are fleeing," Gagin said.

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Kiev decided to withdraw troops from Avdeyevka not to "save lives,” but because it can only fight for money, the rest does not matter, Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said, commenting on Zelensky's remarks

"No, that's not because of this. It is because Zelensky and the gang only know how to ‘fight’ for big money that goes directly into their pockets, and only against civilians. Everything else does not matter to them," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

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The US will supply Israel with weapons worth tens of millions of dollars, despite Biden's calls for a ceasefire, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The proposed arms delivery includes 1,000 of each MK-82 bombs, KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions that add precision guidance to bombs, and FMU-139 bomb fuses, the newspaper reported, citing US officials.

The planned weapons supply comes amid Israel's preparation to launch an assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where over a million Palestinians have sought refuge from the war.

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‘They told me about it beforehand, that there will come a war in Donbass’

Janus Putkonen, Finnish geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist with the Patriotic Network who worked in Kiev in April 2014, explained the origins of the nationalist groups in Ukraine that became "heroes" after the imposition of the new regime.

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❗️The Russian Armed Forces repelled four attacks by Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) near Donetsk; Ukrainian losses amounted to 360 servicemen.

🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian MoD’s daily briefing on the progress of the special military op in Ukraine:  

🔺The UAF lost more than 170 servicemen near Donetsk.
Russian air defense forces shot down 7 HIMARS rockets, 3 HARM missiles, three JDAM guided bombs, three modified S-200 missiles, and 47 UAVs.

🔺The UAF lost up to 315 servicemen and a tank near Krasny Liman.

🔺The Russian Armed Forces hit aircraft at Ukrainian airfields, as well as locations of foreign mercenaries and special operations forces.

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Scholz did not allow von der Leyen to be nominated for the post of NATO secretary general for reasons that include her anti-Russian position, Welt am Sonntag reported, citing sources in EU diplomatic circles.

According to the newspaper, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed Ursula von der Leyen's candidacy to President Joe Biden at the end of 2023, after which the American head of state turned to German Chancellor Olof Scholz. The latter rejected the idea.

"Scholz was categorically opposed to von der Leyen becoming the head of NATO," one source noted.

From the German chancellor's point of view, von der Leyen is too critical of Moscow, which could have a negative impact in the long run, Welt am Sonntag reported.

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🎥 At Sputnik, AI anchors are already 'working' in 12 languages

We’re using artificial intelligence to keep you up to date with the latest developments.

Which of our presenters do you like the most? Write in the comments👇

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A Russian diplomat summoned to the British Foreign Ministry after Navalny's death stressed the unacceptability of interference in Russia's internal affairs. London tried to unreasonably blame Moscow, the Russian embassy said.

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Chinese authorities called Navalny's death an internal Russian matter, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, declining to comment to the French news agency France-Presse.

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Blood fraud: more than a million liters of Ukrainians' blood sent abroad

The All-Ukrainian Association of Donors has been engaged in blood collection under the pretext of "assistance for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," while Ukraine's Ministry of Health transported “the goods” abroad via the American agency USAID, Mira Terada, a human rights activist, said.

In fact, the fraud involving donated blood in Ukraine began back in 2015, and “the scheme” was officially proposed by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

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❗️LIVE NOW: Anti-war activists rally against Munich Security Conference

👉 Follow the live here or on Sputnik's website

Putin’s predictions from 2007 Munich speech: what did Russia’s president get right?

Today marks the start of the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of Western defense and security elites looking to hang on to the US unipolar moment for as long as possible. Speaking at the conference in 2007, Vladimir Putin signaled Russia’s desire for greater multipolarity in world affairs. Here are his top points:

🔻The unipolar world order that the US and its allies constructed was fundamentally undemocratic, “pernicious not only to all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.”

🔻Unipolarity is the source of “new human tragedies,” including devastating wars and regional conflicts, Putin said, pointing to an almost unrestrained “hyper use of military force” in international relations, with the US in particular “overstepping” its national borders in every conceivable way.

🔻Putin pointed to the rise of new centers of power in the forms of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

🔻The Russian president highlighted the threat of a global arms race and the militarization of outer space.

🔻Putin criticized US proposals for missile defense in Europe, seeing through Washington’s claim that these systems were intended to defend against North Korean missiles, suggesting that for the DPRK to launch nukes at the US through Europe would be “like using the right hand to reach the left ear.”

🔻Putin bashed NATO for refusing to ratify the 1999 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and criticized the alliance for putting “frontline forces on our borders,” even as Russia continued to “strictly fulfill the treaty obligations and not react to these actions at all.”

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❗️The United States has transferred some $500,000 from illegally confiscated Russian assets to Estonia to provide assistance to Ukraine, the US Department of Justice said.

The department claimed that the money will be used to restore the Ukrainian energy system.

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'Now we know lots of what happened really 10 years ago. We know for a fact that they were shot by the mercenaries'

Janus Putkonen, a Finnish geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist with the Patriotic Network who worked in Kiev in April 2014, has exposed the myth of the “Heavenly Hundred,” pointing to how Ukrainians were abused to create the illusion of righteous resistance.

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