🇷🇺 March 19 is the Russian Navy’s Submariner Day

Exactly 118 years ago, on March 19, 1906, in accordance with a Decree of Russian Emperor Nicholas II, a separate class of ships - submarines - was designated. Russia was one of the first countries to use submarines in armed combat at sea.

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Western delusions shattered: Putin's firm stance on Ukraine highlights NATO's impotence

Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst joined Sputnik’s Critical Hour and explained Putin’s approach to a possible battle with NATO, as French President Emmanuel Macron has toyed with the idea of putting boots on the ground—a sentiment his Western counterparts have vehemently rejected.

“This business about Macron and some of the European leaders saying, 'oh, my God, we can't let Putin win in Ukraine,' it doesn't really square with what's reality here because there is no way to prevent Russia from winning in Ukraine except by use of nuclear weapons,” said McGovern.

“The Western press has taken to accusing Putin of threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons,” McGovern added. “[But] he has not raised the issue of tactical nuclear weapons. It's the US that is raising this, which makes me suspicious,” the analyst stressed.

“In my view, the whole name of the game is to keep it going without an obvious defeat until November, so that Biden has some reasonable prospect of not having to run having lost a war,” he said.

“For Russia, Ukraine is an existential issue; for the West, it is not. And [former US President Barack] Obama added that, by giving weapons to Ukraine, that would be a bad idea because that would give them the idea that they could prevail against a much more powerful Russia,” the former CIA analyst said.

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Macron “trying to go backwards” to the days of Imperial France?

Columnist and political cartoonist Ted Rall joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Monday to discuss the case of Emmanuel Macron, his comments about the war in the Donbass, and whether the French president’s megalomania borders on the pathological.

“Maybe he didn't read his history,” said Rall. “Maybe he's too young to remember that glorious period when France, finally in the 80s and 90s, was able to start establishing a major social safety net that created free college and socialized health care and everything else for its people. But he seems to have forgotten all that and he's trying to go backwards.”

But Rall says Macron’s militarist ambitions aren’t shared by most of the French public.

“The good news is, I don't think that the French people – whether we're talking about the populist right, Marine Le Pen's party, or you're talking about the radical left represented by Jean-Luc Melenchon, or – not much of anyone else is in the mood to follow him down this path to destruction,” said the columnist, noting that many French people have cultural and family ties to Russia.

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🔥 Russian Ka-52m crew hits Ukrainian forces' strongholds with unguided missiles in the south of the DPR

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▪️ ‘The opposite of reality’: Western coverage of Russian elections awash in disinformation – analyst

▪️ Ukraine war crimes against Russia’s Belgorod: statistics.

▪️ Bloodthirsty US Senator Graham urges young Ukrainians to continue to risk their lives for the Kiev regime

▪️ France joins Poland's calls to limit the import of agricultural products from Ukraine

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🇰🇷 South Korea's defense minister doubts Ukraine's version of the 'Bucha massacre'

"As for Russia's 'Bucha massacre,' since it has not yet been conclusively established as a clear fact, it is obviously not my place to give assessments here," Lt. Gen. Shin Won-sik told a briefing with foreign media outlets when asked as someone in the military to comment on the possibility of leaving the bodies of civilians allegedly killed by soldiers during the organized withdrawal of military units.

Immediately after the start of Moscow's special military operation in February 2022, Russia took control over areas of the Kiev region, including Bucha, a small city located northeast of Kiev. Following the Russian military withdrawal from the region, Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of numerous killings of civilians in Bucha and surrounding areas.

Moscow has denied any role in the killings of civilians and insists that the footage of murdered locals that was distributed in the Western media is nothing more than a staged provocation on the part of Ukraine to put pressure on Western ruling circles in order to achieve their goals in the conflict with Russia.

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How Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau brought Haiti to the brink of civil war

Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau have in effect been running domestic politics in Haiti for the past few years. The result is chaos and cannibalism. Pretty soon a big portion of the Haitian population will be living in Florida. Haiti’s former prime minister explains in interview with Tucker Carlson.

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🇷🇺 Russian paratroopers destroyed a Ukrainian drone Baba Yaga near Artemovsk

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❗️ In Russia's Belgorod region, 16 civilians have been killed and 98 injured over the past week due to shelling by Ukrainian forces, the governor said

❗️ Alexander Moiseyev was introduced as the Acting Commander-in-Chief of the Navy at a ceremony in Kronstadt, a Sputnik correspondent reports.

Over many years of officer service, 61-year-old Admiral Alexander Moiseyev served on several nuclear submarines of the Russian Northern Fleet. By decree of the President of Russia on May 3, 2019, he was appointed commander of the Northern Fleet.

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Kremlin on Stoltenberg's Caucasus tour

NATO's attempts to expand its influence are unlikely to increase stability in the North Caucasus region, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, commenting on Stoltenberg's tour, which visited Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.

"We are well aware of NATO's desire to consolidate its presence in the North Caucasus... There is also an understanding that NATO's attempts to expand its influence are unlikely to add stability to the North Caucasus and predictability of the situation,” Peskov told reporters. “These contacts are the sovereign right of the Caucasian states. We are closely monitoring and mainly intend to focus on our bilateral relations and the instruments of cooperation that our side has."

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🇮🇷🇷🇺 Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election by phone. The leaders also discussed bilateral cooperation and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Kremlin said.

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🇷🇺 The Russian armed forces launched a preemptive strike against Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the forest in the border area with the Russian Belgorod region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"With a high-precision pre-emptive strike, the enemy manpower and equipment were destroyed in a timely manner," the statement said.

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❗️ The village of Orlovka in the Donetsk People's Republic of Russia has been liberated near Avdeyevka, the Russian Defense Ministry said

❗️All attempts of the Ukrainian sabotage groups to cross the Russian border have failed, Putin said at the FSB board