The Pentagon's reaction to the military part of Putin’s State of the Nation address to the Russian partiament:

Lt. Col. Bree Fram of the U.S. Air Force tells airmen to “share your pronouns” and “share a bit of your vulnerability in a way that draws others in.” Is this some sort of a wise military strategy?

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In the German segment of the X social network, at the insistence of the Bundeswehr, a number of accounts were blocked that distributed a recording of a conversation between German military officers discussing a Taurus missile strike on the Crimean bridge, according to the Bild tabloid

Another Ukraine neighbour asks Russia for support

Gagauzia, experiencing internal problems, followed Transnistria and turned to Russia for help.

"This goes beyond all limits": Gagauzia's head met with Russian senior lawmaker Valentina Matvienko and said the rights of Gagauzians are being suppressed by Moldova's central government.

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A recording of a conversation between German officers is circulating in the Bundeswehr, the military considers it authentic, Die Welt writes.

At the same time, German magazine Focus suspected Olaf Scholz of lying after this recording surfaced.

"This puts Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a difficult position. He had earlier rejected the possible delivery of Taurus to Ukraine on the grounds that German soldiers are needed to launch cruise missiles in Ukraine. On the other hand, the generals on record suggest that Ukraine could also operate them on its own," writes magazine.

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James Biden’s testimony to US House Panel conflicts with other witnesses, reports Fox News, citing a House oversight panel aide.

On Friday, a trannoscript of James Biden’s testimony to lawmakers was released, which was a part of an impeachment inquiry led by the House Oversight and Judiciary committees. The inquiry is rooted in allegations of foreign influence peddling and bribery by the Biden family.

James Biden’s testimony conflicts with testimony provided to lawmakers by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his business associate, Tony Bobulinski, the aide reportedly said.

Hunter Biden and Bobulinski testified that Joe Biden met with the pair, as well as James Biden, at a California hotel, the report said. However, James Biden testified that such a meeting never occurred, the report said.

House lawmakers held a closed-door deposition with Hunter Biden, for which they also released a trannoscript. Hunter Biden will appear for a public hearing in the future, House Oversight Committee Chairman Comer said.

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🇲🇱 Mali follows with "great interest and attention" the evolution of the BRICS, Malian Foreign Minister says

Many members of the group, Russia included, are considered friends of Bamako, Abdoulaye Diop highlighted during an interview with Sputnik in Moscow.

"We recognize ourselves in the positions taken by the BRICS and in particular the desire to move towards a multipolar world. And we also appreciate the economic approach that the BRICS are putting in place with the existence of a bank," he noted.

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The US was notified by Russia about its Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch and continues to monitor the situation, a US official told Sputnik.

"Russia notified the US via the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center. We will continue to monitor the situation," the official said.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry said Russia had carried out a combat training launch of a Yars ICBM from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

Training combat units arrived at the designated area at the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula for the launch, the ministry noted.

The ministry said the purpose of the launch was to confirm the tactical, technical and flight characteristics of the missile, which were all completed.

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The New York Times and other Western media outlets paved the way for Israel’s slaughter, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian American academic and political analyst, told radio Sputnik.

“When The New York Times published that dishonest piece about rape on October the 7th, some Israeli [media] were rejecting those claims, the Western media would not accept any of this. They closed their eyes and simply repeated the accusations in order to help the Israelis justify genocide and they continue to do so today,” he said.

The article’s co-author was later revealed as a former Israeli Defense Force officer who had no prior reporting experience and had liked posts that called Gazans “human animals” and advocated turning the Gaza Strip “into a slaughterhouse.”

The Times has since said it is reviewing the author’s social media accounts but has not retracted the article.

“In other words, what the New York Times and others did was that they prepared the ground so that Israelis could slaughter Palestinians, and no one in the West would complain,” Marandi argued.

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Scott Ritter: ‘No reason’ to doubt US, West secretly placing soldiers in foreign conflicts

“[The US has] done that in the past, and there’s no reason for me to believe that we don’t continue to do that to this day in certain parts of the world,” former UN weapons inspector and author Scott Ritter said to radio Sputnik, clarifying that he doesn’t know if Ukraine is included in that, but we do know that it provides “significant logistical support” to the Kiev regime.

Noting a recent Russian attack in Kharkov where dozens of French citizens, credibly accused by Moscow of being mercenaries, were killed, Ritter continued “So, we do have instances where Westerners are definitely heavily involved in the support of the Ukrainian military.”

Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkiye on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that military officers from France, the UK and the US are operating in Ukraine. The comments came days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed UK and French troops are operating long-range missiles in Ukraine.

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The failure by the Economic Community of West African States’s (ECOWAS) to bring Niger to heel through threats and sanctions has left the bloc with egg on its face, Koffi Kouakou, an analyst and senior research fellow at the Center for Africa and China Studied at the University of Johannesburg, told radio Sputnik.

“ECOWAS now has egg on its face. It’s probably one of the most dysfunctional and fragmented regional bodies we have,” Kouakou explained. “It’s clear they’re not responding to the needs of the people but to the needs of a very small [number of] oligarchs, the elite who are the paymasters of Europeans and the West in general.”

Last summer, ECOWAS threatened military action against Niger after that country’s Western-supported leader was thrown out of office by the country’s military leadership, but it quickly opted for sanctions instead.

After Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso announced that they plan to leave ECOWAS, the bloc dropped sanctions on Niger and urged the three nations to remain in the organization.

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An improvised explosive device was found attached to the floor of a car at the entrance to Crimea at the Dzhankoi checkpoint*, a spokesman for the regional law enforcement authorities told Sputnik, adding that the device had been defused.

"According to the conclusion of experts, the explosive device is made of foreign components supplied to the territory of Ukraine by NATO countries," he added.

Law enforcement officials are investigating the incident and are looking into the circumstances of the crime and the people involved.

*The Dzhankoi checkpoint is located in the north of Crimea, bordering the Kherson region.

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Publication of draft Russia-Ukraine peace treaty refutes West's claims about 'imperialist' goals of special operation - analyst

The Wall Street Journal's recent publication of the almost-agreed back in April 2022 Moscow-Kiev peace deal confirmed the main goal of the Russian special military operation, namely the demilitarization of Ukraine, not the seizure of new territories, Dmitry Evstafiev, political scientist and professor at HSE University, told Sputnik.

The publication also removes all questions and denies all misinformation that the Russian delegation allegedly agreed to discuss the status of Crimea during the 2022 peace talks with Kiev," Evstafiev said, adding that the issue was not even on the agenda at the time.

Overall, the document disproves the West's claims about Russia's "imperialist ambitions" regarding the special operation, the analyst said, recalling that "it was the West that forced Kiev to abandon the peace deal for good, fundamentally changing the nature of the conflict over Ukraine".

"Now it turns out that they were offended, but it was the choice of the West, which had been pursuing an absolutely imperialist - or I would say colonial - policy towards Russia, refusing any dialogue with Moscow," Evstafiev concluded.

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▪️Bundeswehr considers recording of a conversation between German officers about a Taurus missile strike on the Crimean Bridge authentic – report

▪️Scott Ritter: ‘No reason’ to doubt US, West secretly placing soldiers in foreign conflicts

▪️Russia notifies the US about test launch of its Yars ICBM

▪️Why is Ukraine’s use of landmines despite being party to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention unlikely to attract condemnation from the West?

More stories:

▪️Another Ukraine neighbor asks Russia for support. What is this region’s name?

▪️‘Extraordinary measures’ are taken to minimize the risk of pro-Palestinian activists interfering with events involving President Biden

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Elon Musk supported the statement of Erik Prince, founder of the private military company Blackwater, on the need to end the conflict in Ukraine with the recognition of Crimea and Donbass for Russia.

"Unfortunately, this is true," Musk wrote on X, commenting on Prince's post that "the Western defense base is pathetic" and no one will go to war "with the Russian bear".

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🇸🇩 Meet Muhammed from Sudan, one of the hosts of the World Youth Festival taking place in Russia on the federal territory of Sirius.

"I am here for the first day. It's just today. It's just started, but I'm already full of energy! I'm already enjoying it, and I don't know where to go and what to leave, because I know that many things are happening here. Many wonderful things are happening! So I'm full of energy waiting for everything to start," Muhammed told Sputnik.

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WATCH LIVE: The World Youth Festival starts in Russia on the Sirius federal territory

👉 Follow the live here or on Sputnik's website

Su-35S fighters of the Russian Aerospace Forces are on duty in the airspace of the Avdeyevka region.

The purpose of the combat mission is to patrol a given area and cover the actions of bombers, attack aircraft and military aviation helicopters during air strikes on military facilities and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The crews of Su-35S do not give the enemy the opportunity to take off from their home airfields. Any air target is immediately detected and destroyed.

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The German Ministry of Defence is alarmed that a large amount of information may have been leaked, and not just a published fragment of the negotiations between German officers about the attack on the Crimean bridge, reports Der Spiegel.

"The German defence ministry is alarmed by this case as other internal negotiations could have been tapped," Spiegel writes, citing sources.

The publication notes that the question now is whether other negotiations of the German Air Force and other military departments could have been tapped.

It is reported that the intercepted conversation was conducted by Luftwaffe officers through open channels on the WebEx platform, which Spiegel says is "relatively easy to bug". In addition, the publication suggests that one of the participants in the conversation even connected to the conference via a mobile phone, while he was in Singapore.

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