Tesla CEO Elon Musk took notice of online outlet Politico's dueling narratives on Ukraine, published less than a year apart.

"Easy to predict," the tech magnate responded. "In fact, I did predict it."

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian air defenses destroyed three Ukrainian drones over the Rostov Region. Consequences on the ground are being clarified, Governor Vasily Golubev wrote on his Telegram channel.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Former US President Donald Trump welcomed Polish President Andrzej Duda at Trump Tower in New York.

Meanwhile Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced his support for Biden over Trump in the upcoming US presidential election because of the latter's insufficiently pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia stance.

Video from social media.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Middle East at the crossroads: Seek peace or risk ‘escalation & possibly World War III’

Holding a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the aftermath of Iran’s counterattack against Israel was a logical move for President Ebrahim Raisi, considering the friendly nature of the ties between Moscow and Tehran, said Dr. Vladimir Morozov, Associate Professor and Vice-Rector at the MGIMO University.

“I believe Iran regards our country not just as a formal sponsor of the Middle Eastern conflict resolution, but as a country that can influence all sides of the conflict and has a vote in the UN Security Council,” he said.

He argued that it was crucial for the Iranian leadership to demonstrate to their people that Iran has powerful allies abroad with whom Tehran can engage in discussions about the current situation.

Morozov also mentioned the upcoming visit to Moscow by the Iranian deputy foreign minister, who will be attending a non-proliferation conference this week. He noted that the West has not provided any evidence to support its allegations against Iran.

“We all remember the situation with Iraq and how Colin Powell was waving a vial at a UNSC session, accusing Saddam Hussein’s regime of possessing weapons of mass destruction which, as expected, no one found after Iraq was invaded that the regime was toppled,” he recalled. “The same thing has been going over the past few decades with Iran, who is being accused of being poised to build a nuclear bomb in the next two months,” he pointed out.

Instead of trying to portray Iran as a threat to global security, efforts should be made to involve Iran in discussions on regional security, Morozov suggested.

He also warned that other countries in the Middle East should be aware that they are currently at a critical crossroads. They must either attempt to negotiate and pursue peace, even if it is fragile, or the situation in the region may quickly spiral into “a very serious escalation, up to World War III.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian air defenses shot down 21 air targets over the city of Belgorod and the Belgorod Region, one person was injured, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Government surveillance panopticon grows more powerful with attempted TikTok ban, backdoors

The revelation the FBI attempted to pressure Telegram’s founder into creating a “backdoor” portal to the app for police and intelligence agencies has drawn attention to online government surveillance. Commentator James Carey joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program to discuss the latest developments in US government agencies’ quest to control the flow of information.

“First of all as a Telegram user I'm glad I stuck with Telegram,” said Carey. “I think that it's pretty plausible… we've seen in cases like the San Bernardino shooting where Apple didn't have a backdoor ready for the US government and they were essentially ready to threaten even Apple, which is a giant American company, over getting a backdoor to encrypted software.”

“Doesn't shock me at all,” added host Garland Nixon. “Kind of what I expect from the FBI, all kinds of criminal activity and miscreant activity for the FBI – that's just any given Tuesday for them.” For more than a decade the FBI engaged in an illegal program of disruption, surveillance, and subversion of activist groups known as COINTELPRO.

Cohost Wilmer Leon also noted efforts to discourage the use of 5G routers by Chinese tech company Huawei in the US and Europe. Officials alleged the hardware may contain backdoors for the Chinese government. But revelations about the FBI’s interest in Telegram suggest the problem was perhaps that the Chinese equipment did not contain backdoors.

Former UK cabinet minister Vince Cable once admitted Washington’s allegations of security threats from Chinese technology are unproven, confessing the UK government banned Huawei equipment as a diplomatic favor for the United States.

👉 Follow the link for more details

🇨🇴🇧🇷 Colombia is interested in joining the BRICS bloc as a full member as soon as possible, and the government of Brazil will assist in promoting its candidacy, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a joint statement.

"President Petro has expressed the interest of Colombia to join BRICS as a full member as soon as possible, and President Lula welcomed this initiative and vowed to promote Colombia's candidacy," the joint statement published by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry read.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates joined the BRICS bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as full members on January 1, 2024.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Israel is unlikely to launch a retaliatory strike on Iran until after the end of the Jewish holiday of Passover, also known as Pesach, which is celebrated on April 22 - 30, a senior US official has told the ABC News broadcaster.

The report said on Wednesday that the official did not rule out that the plans "could always change."

He added that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other leadership are still on a "high state of alert," with some of them still being in safe houses and underground facilities, the report said.

🔻 On Saturday night, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched over 300 drones and missiles at Israel in its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. The attack came in response to Israel's airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital in early April. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel had intercepted 99% of the aerial targets fired by Iran, including all drones. Tehran claimed that its retaliatory attack “hit designated targets.”

🔻 On Tuesday, media reported that Israel had decided how to respond to Iran's recent retaliatory strike but has yet to decide on its timing.

🔻 Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Wednesday that Israel would face a powerful and fierce retaliation if it carried out even the slightest attack on Iran.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Private military companies from the US and Canada can be contracted to pilot F-16s in Ukraine, French aviation expert Cyrille de Lattre told Sputnik.

"There is a possibility to attract trained pilots. In fact, there are two private companies in the world: the Canadian Top Aces and the American Draken International - military companies that already have 100 percent trained pilots for F-16s... In the worst-case scenario, these two private military companies can be contracted to operate these aircraft in Ukraine."

According to the analyst, there are many problems with the training of Ukrainian pilots who, among other issues, have a poor command of English. The only thing they have been able to do is to fly F-16s from base to base in Europe while military operations are not carried out by Ukrainian pilots, de Lattre stressed.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Attempts by Ukraine to carry out terrorist attacks on Russia with Tochka-U missiles, Vampire MLRS, drones and balloons were suppressed overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry announced.

Two missiles, 19 rockets, 16 drones and two small balloons were destroyed over the territory of the Belgorod region, three drones were destroyed over the Rostov region, one drone was intercepted and three balloons were destroyed over the Voronezh region.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹✈️ Frontline Su-34 bombers with guided bombs struck the Ukrainian stronghold in the south of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian Defense Ministry announced.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

France has become the leader among EU countries in gas purchases from Russia

In February, the country imported liquefied natural gas for 322 million euros ($343 mln), and Hungary, which had maintained its primacy two months earlier, imported pipeline "blue fuel" for only 210 million euros ($226 mln), according to Eurostat data.

In total, the EU purchased 1.1 billion euros worth of gas from Russia at the end of winter, of which 619.4 million ($661 mln) for liquefied natural gas supplies and 493.3 million ($526 mln) for pipeline gas.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukrainian officials extort millions of euros from major Western investor - media

Arnulf Damerau, an Anglo-German businessman and one of the largest investors in Ukraine, has said that corrupt officials, including those in the Zelensky administration, are extorting tens of millions of euros from him to stop prosecuting his business, the Financial Times reported.

Damerau is co-owner of the major online casino Cosmolot, Ukraine's tenth largest taxpayer. Following an inspection by Ukraine's Economic Security Service, the company was accused of violating gambling laws and evading 560 million euros ($598 million) in taxes.

According to the businessman, a Ukrainian individual met with Damerau in Vienna in December and told him that the charges against Cosmolot would be dropped if Damerau agreed to hand over control of half the company to an offshore trust.

The victim said he shared photos and details of the meeting, as well as the names of those involved, with security services in Europe and the US.

"This is a country which aspires to be part of NATO and the European Union, but what’s happening there right now — by a small minority — gives me déjà vu of the darkest Yanukovych times," he claimed.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

What's behind the US decision to impose more sanctions on Iran?

The US imposing additional sanctions on Iran makes no sense because the Islamic Republic is "so sanctioned that more such measures will do almost nothing," Hossein Askari, political analyst and Iranian professor emeritus of international business and international affairs at the GW School of Business, told Sputnik.

"It is more for politicians to show that they are doing something rather than admitting that the isolation of Iran has been a disaster," Askari said, adding that the Iranian authorities have "realized that they live in a world where they have to be militarily strong and independent."

Asked how the new sanctions will affect Iran's relations with Western countries, the expert noted that Iran has "written off the West at least for the next decade."

"They don't trust the West and the gap between Iran and the West cannot grow much more than it is," the analyst said, pointing to "the bias of the US and Europe in defending Israel's crimes against the Palestinians while attacking everything Iran does."

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced earlier that the US would impose new sanctions in the coming days on Iran's missile and drone programs, as well as the country's defense ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The sanctions are being imposed in response to Iran's first direct attack on Israel late last week, which saw a wave of over 300 missiles and drones fired from the Islamic Republic, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Espanola brigade has become an intellectual platform for the testing of modern weapons and robotic military vehicles, its commander has told Sputnik.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt