❗️The German Defense Minister said that the reason for the scandalous leak of the officers’ conversation was the use of an unsecured connection by one of the participants.

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❗️Russian troops did not allow the Ukrainian militants who escaped from Avdeyevka to gain a foothold at the Petrovskoye-Lastochkino-Severnoye line and keep pushing them back, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

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❗️Key points from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's statement:

🔺A prototype of the new light military transport aircraft IL-212 with jet engines is planned to be created by the end of 2026.

🔺Serial production of Russian D-18t engines for the An-124 is planned for the 4th quarter of 2027.

🔺Repairs and modernization will extend the service life of heavy An-124 military transport aircraft from 20 to 45 years.

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❗️Against the backdrop of building up NATO's military potential near its borders, Russia has taken measures to strengthen troop groups in the northwestern and western strategic directions, creating the Leningrad and Moscow military districts, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

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“Both existing genders”: Lavrov clarifies how the two sexes are united by sport.

The West will definitely not like the answer.

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‘Who’s in charge in Germany?’ Scott Ritter asks amid leak of Bundeswehr’s Crimea attack plans

“There's a crisis in civil military affairs in Germany today, and the whole world seems to be ignoring this,” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, ex-UN weapons inspector and independent military analyst Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on the leaked conversation between senior Bundeswehr officers discussing plans to target the Crimean Bridge using German-made Taurus missiles.

“What’s interesting about this conversation is, a few days prior to it the German chancellor, the senior civilian executive authority in Germany today, had specifically said that Germany will not be providing the Taurus missile to Ukraine. Who's in charge in Germany? The civilian leadership or the military? Because, according to the conversation being held by these four senior German military officers, they were talking about a project that had been greenlighted by the defense minister of Germany,” Ritter emphasized.

“There's a crisis of civil-military relations today in Germany,” the observer said, adding that the key question now is: “What’s the world going to do about it?”

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❗️ Ukrainian forces lost up to 500 military personnel near Avdeyevka

🇷🇺🪖 Other statements from the Russian Defense Ministry briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces are conducting active military operations in the Donetsk direction and have occupied more advantageous positions along the front line;

▪️ Russian troops have improved the tactical situation near Kupyansk;

▪️ The Russian Army destroyed a Stormer air defense system in the southern DPR;

▪️ Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 in the Nikolayev region;

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces repelled five attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Kharkov region;

▪️ The Russian Army continued to occupy more advantageous lines and positions near Avdeyevka;

▪️ The losses of Ukrainian forces in the DPR amounted to up to 300 military personnel, two tanks, two armored personnel carriers, seven pieces of artillery, and a Grad MLRS;

▪️ Ukrainian forces lost up to 230 people in the southern DPR;

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces hit Ukrainian S-300 and Buk air-defense missile launchers in the DPR.

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German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has held a press conference following the leak of a conversation between high-ranking German military officers

A disciplinary review of the officers who took part in the leaked talks will be launched, Pistorius announced. He also said that:

▪️ The leak occurred due to a personal mistake by one of officers involved;

▪️ According to the minister, one of the military officers joined the conversation through an unsecured network;

▪️ The interception of the online conversation occurred due to a "personal application error," and the leak came from a military officer’s device located in Singapore.

Earlier, the WSJ reported that the online conversation was conducted on the WebEx platform and that one of the participants was in Singapore and participated by phone. According to the WSJ’s sources, the platform is actively used for negotiations by the military and other officials. Bild, in turn, suggested that the officer's room was bugged, and that "his phone was compromised or he was dialing through an unsecured network."

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The cookies are over: US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who distributed cookies on the Maidan in 2013, plans to resign

The media cite the fact that Nuland did not receive the post of first deputy secretary of state as a prerequisite for her resignation.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova associated the news with the failure:

“They won’t tell you the reason. But it is simple - the failure of the anti-Russian course of the Biden administration. Russophobia, proposed by Victoria Nuland as the main foreign policy concept of the United States, is dragging the Democrats to the bottom like a stone,” Zakharova said.

What do you think is the reason for Nuland’s resignation?

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Pepe Escobar: Global South youth flocks to ‘isolated’ Russia

“President Putin is once again quite sharp: he emphasized how a clear distinction applies between citizens of the world – including the Global North – and the intolerant, extremely aggressive Western plutocracy. Russia, a multinational, multicultural civilization-state, by principle welcomes all citizens of the world,” says Pepe Escobar, veteran geopolitical analyst, sharing his impressions after visiting the World Youth Festival.

The World Youth Festival has made quite a splash in the media, highlighting how attractive Russia’s vision of multipolarity and equity is to the rising Global South.

The festival serves as an open platform for young ambitious people who share Russia’s traditional/family values, radiating throughout the festival. The cheerful ethos is in stark contrast to the West’s artificial, cancel culture-obsessed “open society”, Escobar stressed.

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