Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on the German plot to attack the Crimean bridge:

"We have heard how they are trying to shift the blame to US or British officers who are already there [in Ukraine]. They're trying to avoid being seen themselves. This is the same as when Hollande and Merkel confessed that they would not implement the Minsk agreements. This is just as incriminating," he said.

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Olaf Scholz promised to promptly clarify the situation regarding the publication of a recording of a conversation between German military officers, according to local media

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Throwback to 1999: Biden says Europe is not mature enough to solve its problems without the US

"I don't think Europe has reached the point of political maturity where they're able to solve their problems without a little bit of an outside catalyst, the United States," Biden said.

When asked about abuse of power, Biden calmly agreed that the United States does this, citing the example of Kosovo.

"In the Kosovo war, we said, all right, this is it, we're going to bomb this place... There was paralysis. So, in a sense, we exercised our power as the largest, most powerful nation in the world militarily".

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This is being investigated very carefully, intensively and quickly, Scholz said, commenting on the publication of a recording of a conversation between the German military

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Russia is a country of mosaic unity

The "Gastronomic Day" is a way of acquainting guests from other countries with the peculiarities of Russian cuisine, taking into account the diversity of cultures and traditions of Russia's peoples.

More than 10 thousand portions will be prepared in one day and everyone will be able to taste them free of charge.

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❗️ The Russian commander, identified only by his call sign "Kolovrat", commented on the destruction of the US Abrams tank in an interview with Sputnik.

"If I am not mistaken, the information about it was posted on February 19th. So it has been operational for exactly one week," he noted.

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Throughout Friday, all German departments and ministries remained stubbornly silent in response to requests for comment concerning a leaked conversation between German officers discussing a possible attack on the Crimean Bridge, although in other circumstances this news should have had the effect of a bomb exploding, the Berliner Zeitung writes.

“There are events where a political interpretation appears almost simultaneously with the event, sometimes even earlier. And there are events that, it would seem, should have the effect of a bomb exploding, but then nothing happens for hours,” it argues.

After the publication of the officers’ recordings, journalists sent dozens of requests for comment to the Foreign Ministry, the Bundeswehr, the Ministry of Defense and a number of “hawks” from German politics, such as the head of the Bundestag Defense Committee Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP).

“The only statement we received was made by Sevim Dagdelen, a member of the Bundestag and a member of the Wagenknecht group,” reports the Berliner Zeitung. In this response, a deputy from the SSV (Sarah Wagenknecht Union - For Reason and Justice) party, which criticizes the supply of arms to Ukraine, called for transparency in the issue of the published recording.

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Vladimir Putin in an address to the participants of the World Youth Festival: "multinational unity for the Russian Federation is the greatest goal."

"You know what a safe world should be like, it’s up to you to create it, we are open to dialogue", the president said. "I am sure that the festival participants will return home with love for Russia".

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NATO ‘in hot water’ over German military’s Crimean Bridge strike talk

High-ranking German officers discussed launching strikes on “Russian civilian infrastructure either with the official tacit consent of Berlin or behind its back; both variants are the matter of serious concern,” former Brazilian Navy officer and military expert Robinson Farinazzo told Sputnik.

“If German authorities were in the know, it can be likened to a declaration of war,” he said, urging Moscow and Berlin to use diplomatic channels to defuse tensions over this information "about aggressive intentions."

"It's hard to imagine what measures Moscow might take if it considers actions by the German officers a serious provocation," Farinazzo added.

He was echoed by international relations expert Tito Livio Barcellos Pereira from the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, who warns that the situation might lead to “an even greater escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO.”

"The German military's recorded conversation once again confirms that the [NATO] alliance continues to be involved in a [proxy] war with Russia,” Barcellos said. "NATO countries, which previously claimed not to be directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict, are currently in hot water,” he added.

During the February 19 conversation released by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, Bundeswehr's top brass discussed a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with one of the officers claiming that more than 10 or even 20 Taurus missiles may be needed to destroy it.

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(Part 1)

NATO’s direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict is an open secret

The recently leaked recording of German military officers discussing plans for a potential attack on Russian territory using German weapons essentially confirms one simple truth: NATO countries are perfectly fine with attacking Russia for as long as they can claim plausible deniability.

But while NATO powers are trying to make it look like they are not directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict, it does not seem like their antics are fooling anyone.

The fact that foreign mercenaries fighting on the side of the Kiev regime include members of NATO states’ militaries did not elude many, including Sputnik Donbass correspondent Russell Bentley

“On the one hand, you have the Tik Tok Tourists, here only for the photo ops and bargain brothels, the low budget assassins from the narco-cartels in Central and South America, here to make gun, drug, and human trafficking connections, cheap and expendable, ideal candidates for suicide missions, who don't have to even be buried, much less paid,” he noted. “On the other hand, you have field grade NATO officers, highly trained weapons technicians and special forces 'operators' from the elite units of the NATO militaries.”

Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter voiced similar thoughts while commenting on the losses sustained by French mercenaries in Ukraine.

“At least some of these French-speaking individuals weren't mercenaries, but actually French serving military personnel, that is military personnel who worked for the French government, who were in Ukraine at the behest of their government. And now they're dead,” he said.

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(Part 2)

Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. and former Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski noted that the US military leadership did admit in 2022 the presence of a “small number” of US troops in Ukraine, with said troops allegedly inspecting the Western arms shipments to Kiev.

“We know they’re there,” Kwiatkowski said. “Are any of these Americans associated with the Patriot batteries? I would think so. These are extremely expensive systems. They’re extremely complex, and like everything that’s complex, they’re vulnerable. Vulnerable to both operator error and malfunction.”

Earl Rasmussen, retired lieutenant colonel of the US Army and an international consultant, said that many of the foreign mercenaries working for Kiev are “most likely undercover, unofficially active military that are there in presence providing or retired or whatever former providing expertise and targeting and intelligence information.”

He further argued that the previous drone attacks and sabotages perpetrated by Ukrainian forces against the Crimea Bridge probably “had Western involvement as far as the planning and support also.”

Former CIA officer Larry Johnson also observed that the spy agency he used to work for had connections with Ukrainian anti-Soviet and anti-Russian elements going back as far as 1955.

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