Vladimir Putin declared the World Youth Festival open in an address to the participants. The main message of his speech:

▪️ "I am sure that the festival participants will return home with love for Russia";

▪️ "Multinational unity for the Russian Federation is the greatest goal";

▪️ "The brotherhood of peoples has always remained and remains the main support, advantage and strength of Russia";

▪️ "There are no borders or dividing lines for young people, this has been shown by hundreds of thousands of applications for participation";

▪️ "You know what a safe world should be like, it’s up to you to create it";

▪️ "We are always open for dialogue".

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Inflection Point? Argentine President urges provincial governors to support economic reforms

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has urged the country’s provincial governors and other top political leaders to sign a 10-point "social pact" by May 25 to support his agenda of radical economic liberalization.

In his first state-of-the-union-style address to lawmakers, Milei said that the agreement includes a “non-negotiable fiscal balance” and public spending cuts, as well as labor reform and free trade.

The Argentine president also pledged to continue the implementation of his economic reforms with or without the approval of parliament.
"We won't back down, we're going to keep pushing forward, whether that's by law, presidential decree or by modifying regulations," he pointed out.

Earlier, Milei announced that he had signed a decree for more than 300 reforms to liberalize the country's economy, which he said would be debated in parliament.

The unveiling of the decree was followed by mass protests which saw activists clashing with police outside the parliament’s building in the capital Buenos Aires.

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📹 Russian drone operators of the Dnepr Battlegroup destroyed a Slovak-made Zuzana self-propelled howitzer.

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German military likely preparing for Berlin to send Taurus missiles to Kiev

Military officers who were discussing the possible shipments of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and the use of these weapons against targets in Russia, such as the Crimean Bridge, were likely not pursuing some objectives of their own, says Eugen Schmidt, member of the German parliament from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

“They act on political directives coming from above. That is, they follow orders, just like any military does,” Schmidt tells Sputnik. “They do not act on their own initiative. So if a political decision on shipping the missiles is made, they would have to follow through.”

According to the lawmaker, the issue with the Taurus missile shipments appears similar to the situation with the Leopard tanks – a weapon Germany was initially reluctant to provide to Ukraine but ended up supplying to Kiev anyway after Berlin caved in under the pressure from the opposition and from the “so-called allies from across the ocean.”

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BRICS nations tackle dollar weaponization and financial system flaws

Bruno Martarello De Conti of the University of Campinas highlights the importance of BRICS amid the dysfunctionality of the current international monetary and financial system, particularly the dominance of the US dollar and its use as a geopolitical weapon.

“It's really necessary for the BRICS to construct alternatives for the use of the dollar So it can be done through the usage of local currencies for bilateral trade as Russia is doing with China for instance. But also this idea of developing a BRICS currency is a good idea,” De Conti told Sputnik on the sidelines of the World Youth Festival in Russia’s Sirius.

De Conti also advocates for the creation of a new international payment system to reduce the reliance on platforms like SWIFT, which can be weaponized. This transition, although complex, is crucial to ensure financial stability and sovereignty for the Global South and BRICS nations.

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

▪️Vladimir Putin declared the World Youth Festival open in an address to the participants

▪️BRICS nations tackle dollar weaponization and financial system flaws

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

▪️The "NATO: History of Deception, History of Evil"

▪️The trannoscript of a conversation between German officers planning an attack on the Crimean Bridge is currently the number one news in German media

▪️Inflection Point? Argentine President urges provincial governors to support economic reforms

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Florian Philippot, leader of the French party "The Patriots", said the intercepted conversation of the German military is embarrassing for Germany and NATO because it proves the alliance's mendacity.

In his opinion, the current German "disturbance" is explained by the fact that Scholz knows that he has been caught red-handed.

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An intercepted conversation between the German military could create tensions between Berlin and NATO, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

The newspaper notes that the conversation mentions military personnel from Britain, France and the US who are already in Ukraine to help maintain combat systems, but the countries themselves deny this fact.

The leaked information... has sparked fury in Germany and could lead to strained relations with its NATO allies, newspaper states.

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Iranian, Iraqi oil ministers discuss joint field development

Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji and his Iraqi counterpart Hayan Abdel-Ghani discussed expanding cooperation, including the development of joint fields, on the margins of the 7th Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) summit in Algeria, the Iranian government said.

"The Iranian and Iraqi oil ministers discussed during the meeting the expansion of cooperation in the field of complex development of shared fields, trade in gas and petroleum products, payment mechanisms and development of infrastructure for trade in products [of oil and gas refining]," the government said on Telegram.

The parties agreed to select one or two fields with small reserves for joint development at first, then move to larger fields, the government said.

The ministers also discussed oil drilling and the creation of infrastructure such as gas pipelines by Iranian companies in Iraq, Iranian authorities added.

The 7th GECF summit was held in Algeria's capital from March 1-2. The GECF is an intergovernmental organization that brings together the world's leading gas producers and exporters and provides a framework for the exchange of views, experiences, data, cooperation and collaboration among its member states on gas-related issues.

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Russia’s Galuzin, China’s Li Hui discuss Ukraine crisis

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin has held a meeting with Chinese Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, during which the parties exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

"Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Galuzin received in Moscow the special representative of the government of the People’s Republic of China for Eurasian Affairs, the head of the Chinese delegation to resolve the Ukraine crisis, Li Hui. An interesting and detailed exchange of views took place on the topic of the Ukraine crisis," the ministry said in a statement.

The diplomats noted that "the ultimatums put forward by Kiev and the West to Russia and the associated ‘dialogue’ formats only harm the prospects for a settlement and cannot serve as its basis," the statement added.

"It has been stated that any discussion of a political and diplomatic settlement is impossible without the participation of Russia and taking into account its interests in the security sphere," the ministry said.

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Arab League welcomes results of inter-Palestinian talks in Moscow

The League of Arab States (LAS) is welcoming the meeting of Palestinian factions in Moscow, LAS Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki told Sputnik, adding that this endeavor by Russia could lead to mutual understanding between them.

Moscow hosted talks between various Palestinian factions, including the Hamas and Fatah movements from Thursday to Friday, with the sides issuing a joint communique. Following the meeting, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, told Sputnik that there were no differences between it and other Palestinian factions that could not be bridged to form a unity government.

"We have read the final statement of the meeting. This is a good endeavor by Moscow, and we hope that Russia's efforts will lead to the establishment of mutual understanding between Palestinian factions in the aftermath of the war," Zaki said on the sidelines of the 2024 Antalya Diplomacy Forum.

There is still no consensus on many issues related to the ceasefire in Gaza, he added.

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian movement Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel from Gaza and breached the border, killing 1,200 people and abducting around 240 others. Israel launched retaliatory strikes, ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, and started a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages. Over 30,000 people have been killed so far in the Gaza Strip, local authorities said.

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Russia's air defense systems have destroyed 38 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, the Defense Ministry said

"Tonight, an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack using 38 fixed-wing drones on objects on the territory of the Russian Federation was prevented. All Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed by air defense systems over the territory of the Republic of Crimea," the ministry stated.

The conflict in Ukraine represents a major defeat for powers who have gotten used to “dominating planet Earth for hundreds of years” and are going to have to “get accustomed to a bitter new reality,” Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of History at the University of Houston told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.

The topic of discussion was French PM Emmanuel Macron’s comments that he would not rule out sending NATO troops into Ukraine to fight Russia.

Horne explained that NATO’s position is “the worst of both worlds,” because “it is enmeshed in a war it cannot win, but it can’t afford to lose. And when you are in such a corner, inevitably, it leads to the kinds of intemperate remarks of Mr. Macron, it leads to Rishi Sunak of London dispatching the flower of British youth to an uncertain fate in Ukraine,” he said, referring to comments by Scholz that there are already UK personnel in Ukraine operating Storm Shadow missile launches.

“I think taxpayers and US citizens should ask themselves how all these think thanks and bureaucrats at the State Department and Pentagon… manage this kind of potential quagmire that NATO and the United States are now enmeshed in?”

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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni acknowledged there are "objective difficulties in legal and financial terms" if Russia's sovereign assets are used to benefit Ukraine.

Ray McGovern: ‘Sheer incompetence and ignorance’ led to plan to attack Crimean Bridge

“Here’s this wise man, Bobby Gates, saying ‘Oh let's get into World War Three,” Ray McGovern, a peace activist and former CIA analyst with over 27 years of experience, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour, referring to comments made by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that matched the leaked German audio that included plans to destroy the bridge. “I mean, if he is speaking for an influential element not only in the White House but also the German Army, my God.”

“It’s just sheer incompetence and ignorance,” McGovern continued later. “He reads the intelligence. Previous presidents and previous CIA directors are given special treatment, they can read the latest and most sensitive intelligence. … The intelligence has been so bad that Bobby Gates could be led to believe this would teach the Russians a lesson.”

“If I were Putin, I would have my focus on full alert because one of these acolytes [might] say ‘hey, Mr. Biden… we did the cluster ammo, we did the depleted uranium, who’s going to complain if we do just a mini-nuke?’ So that’s the danger here,” McGovern warned.

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Italian warship shoots down drone in Red Sea

"This afternoon, guided by the principle of self-defense, the ship Duilio shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle in the Red Sea. The unmanned aerial vehicle, similar in its characteristics to those already used in previous attacks, was approximately 6 kilometers [3.7 miles] from the Italian ship and was flying towards it," the Italian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto called the Houthi attacks "terrorist," adding that they were a "serious violation of international law" and an "attack on the safety of maritime transport" on which the country’s economy depends, the statement read.

Yemen's Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, vowed in November 2023 to attack any ships associated with Israel until it halts military actions in the Gaza Strip. This led the US to announce the creation of a multinational operation to secure navigation in the Red Sea. Forces of the US and the UK later launched major strikes against Houthi positions in a bid to degrade the rebels' ability to target commercial vessels.

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