Ukraine's attempt to launch a terrorist attack on facilities on Russian territory using an RM-70 Vampire multiple rocket launcher system was foiled at around 08.00 local time, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Air defense destroyed 10 missiles over the Russia's Belgorod region.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

▪️ Why France’s plan to send troops to Ukraine doomed to fail?

▪️ Election and polls show Russia is united while West fractures

▪️ Georgian Legion’s PoW told Sputnik about mercs from UK, Japan, Israel fighting in Ukraine

▪️ “Entire European continent within our military alliance.” How does US politics endanger all Europe?

▪️ Texas Constitutional Crisis: Round Two?

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

"European countries are waking up to Russia’s danger, but the cost of building robust defenses able to withstand a potential U.S. pullback is so great that it threatens Europe’s post-Cold War social model," The Wall Street Journal reports in an article noscriptd “Russian Threat Forces Europe to Choose: Bolster Defense or Protect Social Spending.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Biden's point man makes surprise Ukraine visit with pitch to get stalled aid 'out the door'

Vague promises is what Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser brought with him on his recent surprise trip to the Ukrainian capital.

Jake Sullivan placated the Kiev regime with a rehash of Washington’s promises of commitment to supporting Ukraine. But there was a conspicuous absence of specific timeframes in his remarks. Sullivan exuded confidence that gridlock in Congress over supplementary aid to Ukraine would end, at some point. He ruled out any ‘Plan B’, saying:

“I’m confident that we will achieve Plan A... We will get a strong bipartisan vote in the House for an assistance package for Ukraine… It’s already taken too long." At the same time, he noted "I’m not going to make predictions about exactly when this will get done.”

Sullivan also put a damper on the Kiev regime’s hopes of getting their hands on American longer range ATACMs (Army Tactical Missile Systems).

“ATACMS, I am going to disappoint you, I have nothing to announce here publicly today on that issue,” Sullivan said.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

US military recruiting crisis: Military families are discouraging their children from enlisting

"The proportion of active-duty family respondents who were likely to recommend military service has dropped by nearly half from 2016, when it was 55% to just 32% in 2023. Furthermore, the proportion who were unlikely to recommend service has more than doubled from 15% in 2016 to 31% in 2023," a new report from Blue Star Families, a US veteran’s group, concluded.

"The military is in the midst of a well-publicized recruiting crisis, with a diminishing military end-strength as a result of missed recruiting targets, all while maintaining a consistently high operations tempo," it added.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Turnout in the Russian presidential election amounted to 77.49%, the Central Election Commission has summed up the results

⚡️ Head of Russia’s Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova has announced the official voting results of the presidential election: Vladimir Putin won 87.28%, Nikolai Kharitonov - 4.31%, Vladislav Davankov - 3.85%, and Leonid Slutsky - 3.20%

🗳🇷🇺 Official voting results of the presidential election

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇷🇸 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets with his Serbian counterpart in Moscow

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

‘Don’t presume I’m not corrupt’: Joe Biden issues prescient warning from 1974

"You shouldn't presume I'm not corrupt.... in order to get elected, you have to go to those people that have money and they always want something," he said in an interview shortly after being elected to the US Senate for the first time.

Fifty years later, Biden’s family members are under investigation for using his political office to enrich themselves.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ Putin has addressed the Russian people following the Central Election Commission’s release of the official presidential election results, where Vladimir Putin was re-elected president of Russia

❗️ A strike with high-precision weapons, including Kinzhal missiles, was carried out at night against decision-making centers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. The objectives of the strike were achieved and the facilities were struck.

The EU and US continue to put pressure on China, but this cannot become an obstacle to the development of trade and economic relations with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. 

Commenting on the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine, Peskov said that "sending any foreign military contingents to Ukraine is fraught with very negative, even irreparable, consequences.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Russian troops captured the Alebastrovaya railway station in the DPR, the Defense Ministry said.

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

▪️ Russian troops struck places of concentration of foreign mercenary formations in the Sumy region;

▪️ Ukrainian forces lost three tanks during the day, and two Vampire MLRS vehicles were hit near Kupyansk;

▪️ Russian air defenses shot down 163 Ukrainian UAVs as well as 20 HIMARS and Vampire rockets overnight;

▪️ Russian forces hit a drone storage depot and a production and repair workshop for Ukrainian UAVs;

▪️ Ukrainian forces lost up to 120 military personnel, a tank, and a US-made radar station in the southern DPR;

▪️ Ukrainian forces lost up to 250 military personnel in the DPR;

▪️ Ukrainian forces lost more than 320 servicemen near Avdeyevka overnight.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹🇷🇺 Full footage of Vladimir Putin's address to the citizens of Russia after the official results of the Russian presidential election

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 The Russian Ministry of Defense showed footage of the destruction of manpower and equipment of Ukrainian saboteurs on the border with the Belgorod region.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💥Smerch MLRS crews wipe out artillery crews of Ukrainian terrorist formations in border area in Belgorod region

A Zoopark radar station crew located the deployment of enemy MLRS and foreign-made howitzers in the border area in the Belgorod region. Smerch MLRS crews promptly moved to firing positions after acquiring their targets. The crews eliminated US-made M777 howitzers, Grad MLRS, and armored fighting vehicles of Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🏴‍☠️ Olaf Scholz has said that income from Russian assets does not belong to anyone, so he believes they can be used for military assistance to Ukraine

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

What’s the plea deal the US is reportedly offering Assange?

According to The Wall Street Journal, the US government is contemplating offering a plea deal to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Insiders revealed that the Justice Department might dismiss the 17 charges under the Espionage Act if Assange agreed to plead guilty to a lesser offense of mishandling classified information, which is only a misdemeanor.

Assange could potentially accept this plea deal from his current location at London's HM Prison Belmarsh, where he has been detained since April 2019.

The plea bargain would bring an end to the legal battle the whistleblower has been engaged in over his extradition to the US. In addition, any time spent in prison in London would be considered time served, potentially resulting in Assange being released shortly after the deal is finalized.

In response, one of Assange’s defense attorneys, Barry Pollack, said in a statement: “It is inappropriate for Mr. Assange’s lawyers to comment while his case is before the UK High Court other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case and the United States is continuing with as much determination as ever to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison.”

Britain’s High Court is expected to decide shortly whether to grant Assange a further right to appeal his extradition.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt