Russian air defenses destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

No injuries or damage were reported per preliminary information, according to the governor.

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A Ukrainian drone damaged power supply lines in the Kursk region, leaving the village of Ponyri with a population of about 5,000 people without electricity, Governor Roman Starovoit said.

Emergency services are working to restore the power supply, the governor wrote on Telegram.

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The readiness of the US Fleet is currently below the established standards, partly due to weapons and equipment deliveries to Ukraine, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army General James Mingus said.

“Our fleet readiness currently is below the standards that we hold for ourselves, and part of that is a confluence of cascading of equipment from one unit to other, back to depot, some of it is equipment that we've given to Ukraine and the supply parts that have to go to Ukraine … It's been a host of things that have caused this,” Mingus clarified.

The general made the remarks while testifying before a Senate Armed Forces Committee on the current readiness of the Joint Force.

Mingus noted that the fleet overall operational readiness standard is of 90%, however, with the current shortfalls and diversion of resources, the current level stands at 80%.

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Russian forces disarmed several Ukrainian drones in the Orel region, however the energy infrastructure was damaged as a result of neutralizing the UAVs, partially disrupting power to the Glazunovsky and Sverdlovsky districts, Governor Andrey Klychkov said.

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Israeli Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi assessed the security situation in the defense forces' northern command and announced preparation for an offensive on the northern front amid ongoing shelling by Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

"You [commanding officers] are doing an excellent job of operational defense in the north, and we are preparing for an offensive in the north. We are preparing for an offensive in the north. We are taking the difficult event of October 7th, we have recovered, moved forward strongly, and are making a very clear statement about our presence here going forward. The reserve force plays a significant role in this," Halevi was quoted by the IDF as saying.

Hezbollah has been exchanging airstrikes with Israel since October 2023, as the situation in the region deteriorated dramatically after Israel announced a military operation against Palestinian movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Lebanese Foreign Ministry has said some 100,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in southern Lebanon because of Israel's shelling. Israel has also said that about 80,000 residents of northern Israel have found themselves in a similar situation.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel and breached the border, attacking both civilian neighborhoods and military bases. Nearly 1,200 people in Israel were killed and some 240 others abducted during the attack. 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 34,400 people have been killed so far by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, according to local authorities.

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Russia calls for an independent international investigation to bring to justice the perpetrators in relation to the reported mass graves in the Gaza Strip, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia said.

"We received chilling reports about mass graves that were discovered in the Gaza Strip. We need an independent international investigation to ensure that the perpetrators are held to account," Nebenzia told the UN General Assembly.

Palestinian officials reported that more than 300 bodies - including of women, children, elderly and injured persons - were found in mass graves on the grounds of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza's second-largest city and al-Shifa medical compound in Gaza City.

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Russian air defenses destroyed another two Ukrainian drones over the Bryansk region, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

No injuries or damage were reported per preliminary information, according to the governor.

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Israel has, for the first time since the beginning of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, opened the Erez border crossing, which is the only one in the north of the enclave, as part of the efforts to increase the deliveries of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

"As part of the effort to increase the quantity and routes for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, for the first time since the beginning of the war, the IDF ... opened the Erez Crossing ... after careful security inspection, 30 trucks of humanitarian aid including food and medical supplies for the northern part of the Gaza Strip, arrived from Jordan and entered Gaza today," the IDF said on Telegram.

The IDF added that the entry of humanitarian assistance through the border crossing became possible after "engineering work" to build "the renewed crossing."

"Using engineering tools, the renewed crossing was built, having previously been used only as a civilian crossing. The forces constructed inspection and protection infrastructure in the area and paved roads in both Israeli and Gazan territory, enabling the entry of substantial amounts of aid to the northern part of the Gaza Strip," the statement read.

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According to a statement by Jordan's Foreign Ministry, some Israeli settlers reportedly assaulted two Jordanian humanitarian aid convoys en route to Gaza. Despite the attacks, both convoys successfully reached their destinations in the conflict-affected Gaza Strip, having traveled through the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel.

The convoys were carrying essential supplies such as food and flour to assist the people of Gaza.

Video from social media

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Russian air defenses destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region, Governor Vasily Golubev said.

No injuries or damage were reported per preliminary information, according to the governor.

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The US Marines' F-35B variant of the Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is still failing to meet its minimum performance goals by 45%, and both other versions of the aircraft are also at least 13% below minimum performance requirements, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report.

"We found in April 2024 that the F-35 has not met its targets for mission capable rates for the past several years," the report said. "In fiscal year 2023, the F-35A and F-35B variants were below the full mission-capable minimum-performance target by more than 27 and 45 percentage points, respectively."

Also, each F-35 variant in fiscal year 2023 did not meet its target for mission-capable minimum performance by at least 13 percentage points, the GAO said.

"Slow repair times for the F-35 fleet have resulted in over 10,000 components waiting to be repaired -substantially above desired levels. At the same time, a lack of technical data, spare parts, and training hinders the ability of maintainers to maintain the aircraft," the report said.

According to the program’s 2023 estimates, the Air Force will pay $6.6 million annually to operate and sustain an individual F-35 aircraft, well above the $4.1 million 2018 target, the GAO said. Since 2014, the GAO has made 43 recommendations to improve the F-35 program but 30 of them (about 70%) remain unimplemented, the report said.

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“Russia is more effective in its war effort,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba admitted in an interview with Foreign Policy when asked whether the recently approved US aid to Kiev changes Ukraine's military strategy.

Kuleba fretted about the weapon shipment, bemoaning the lack of an expedient delivery from the countries he depends so heavily on, while “Ukraine’s allies are behind schedule, despite their efforts.”

“When I look at what Russia achieved in restoring the production of its defenders’ industrial base and what the entire West has achieved so far, we have to face the truth and recognize that Russia is more effective in its war effort,” he said.

According to Kuleba, the West faces a “more fundamental question” about its military capability.

“If it [the West] cannot be efficient enough in this particular war effort, then how efficient can it be if other wars and crises of the same scale break out?” Kuleba wondered.

The Ukrainian foreign minister also complained about Russia becoming more efficient in weapons production than “the whole Western alliance” during the two years of the conflict and called it a “bad sign.”

“Russian ballistic missiles are the real scourge of this war,” he lamented.

On April 23, the US Senate passed a $95 billion bill containing approximately $61 billion in Ukraine-related funding. US President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on April 24. The US Department of Defense later unveiled a $1 billion military aid package for Kiev, including cluster munitions and air defense supplies.

Russia has repeatedly warned NATO countries that arms supplies to Ukraine would be considered legitimate targets. Moscow has accused NATO countries of "playing with fire" by arming Ukraine, emphasizing that such actions hinder the possibility of Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

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2014 Odessa massacre pushed Donbass residents to secede from Ukraine - Russian envoy

The May 2, 2014 massacre in the city of Odessa, when hundreds of pro-Russian protesters were trapped inside a burning building, pushed residents of Donbass to secede from Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry special envoy Rodion Miroshnik told Sputnik.

On May 2, 2014, Ukrainian nationalists locked anti-Maidan protesters, who opposed Euromaidan and Ukraine's rapprochement with the European Union, in the Odessa Trade Union House and set the building on fire. Almost 50 people died, and some 250 protesters were injured in clashes with the radicals, according to the United Nations.

"This tragedy had dispelled the last doubts of those who still believed that it was possible to come to an agreement with this regime and live in one country and obey their laws. This tragedy had pushed thousands and thousands of residents of Donbas to the ballots to vote for secession from such a Ukraine," Miroshnik said.

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A citizen of Russia's Primorsky Territory has been detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on suspicion of spying and transferring information to Ukraine's military intelligence, a spokesperson for the FSB branch in the region told Sputnik, adding that a criminal case of state treason has been opened, and the detainee has been placed under custody.

"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has thwarted the illegal activities of a citizen of the Primorsky Territory, involved in committing state treason in the form of espionage in the interests of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry," the spokesperson said.

The detainee, on the instructions of the Ukrainian military intelligence, had been "collecting and handing over to its representative information about the military infrastructure objects in the region" while being "fully aware of the possibility of its use by the addressee against the security of the Russian Federation," the spokesperson added.

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Student protests are among the ‘most important things’ to happen in the US in decades - Scott Ritter

The growing student protest movement against the continued bombardment of Gazans by the Israeli government is among one of the most important things to happen in the US in “many, many decades,” former UN inspector and military expert Scott Ritter told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.

“If you were an American like myself, who is not inclined to go out and protest and hold signs and disrupt things, man, we have to wake up,” he explained. “I have to wake up. We have to join these students one way or another and join their cause in letting the government know that we will not stand silent in the face of police oppression of the right of American citizens to speak out, to assemble, to hold their government account."

“I think these student protests right now are some of the most important things to have happened in American society in many, many decades,” Ritter emphasized.

Colleges being a place for the free exchange of ideals is a critical part of our society, Ritter argued, adding that he believes the crackdown is designed to end this.

Part of the purpose of colleges is "to create an incubator for the development of good citizenship, not compliant zombies," Ritter explained, arguing that the US needs, "citizens who think, who empower themselves with knowledge and information and express that individually and collectively.”

Ritter noted the US government is doing “just about everything possible wrong,” underscoring that the US “needs these students to come out and they’ve picked an issue, Gaza, which is the manifestation of the totality of all we do wrong as a government.”

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On Tuesday, US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) condemned comments from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) calling for students engaged in pro-Palestinian protests to be added to a terrorist watch list and be banned from flying in the United States.

“Any student who has promoted terrorism or engaged in terrorists[sic] acts on behalf of Hamas should be immediately be [sic] added to the terrorist watch list and placed on the [Transportation Security Administration] No Fly List,” Blackburn wrote on Twitter on Monday.

Omar said Blackburn’s suggestion was “insanely dangerous” and would label “Americans protesting against a foreign country accused of carrying out a genocide with our tax dollars as terrorists.”

Protests have been breaking out at college campuses across the country. Over the weekend, police aggressively acted to remove encampments at several colleges, leading to numerous arrests.

The reason for the intense crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests in America stems from the deep-rooted belief, particularly among the older generations, that Zionism is inseparable from Judaism, Kavanaugh argued.

“And that's what the young kids don't have so much. They didn't know anything about it and now they know about it. ‘This is ridiculous. This is colonialism. And we’ve been taught… to reject colonialism and we reject this,” he added.

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