"We are wholeheartedly praying for you"

Russia's Patriarch Kirill blessed Putin after a thanksgiving prayer

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🎥Patriarch Kirill presented Putin with an icon of the Virgin Mary as a blessing for his new presidential term

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Arrest of US serviceman in Russia: what we know so far

▪️The Russian authorities in Vladivostok detained a US soldier charged with theft in early May, US Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told Sputnik.

▪️Gordon Black, 34, who served in South Korea, according to NBC News, is accused of stealing money from his girlfriend, whom he met in South Korea, the press service of the local department of Russia’s Interior Ministry reported.

▪️According to the police, the two had a conflict after the American went to visit the woman. When he left, she found money missing and turned to the police.

▪️Black was detained at a hotel when he was about to fly home, according to the regional department of the Interior Ministry.

▪️Russia informed the US State Department about the detention, and the serviceman is being provided with consular support, the US Army told Sputnik.

▪️The White House said it was aware of reports of the detention, but referred the issue to the Pentagon.

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❗️Putin signed a decree on the resignation of the government, while it will continue to perform its duties

Russia should move to assert control over Odessa and Kharkov later this month, head of Russia's Chechen republic Ramzan Kadyrov told reporters. Once these areas are secured, Ukrainian President Zelensky should be compelled to surrender and sign the required documents, he added.

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❗️ Russia’s Armed Forces have destroyed an Abrams and a Leopard 1 tank in the special op zone: Russian MoD

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❗️ Russia’s Armed Forces hit a Ukrainian solid rocket fuel production shop and military equipment warehouses – Russian MoD

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

▪️ Ukraine lost up to 335 troops in the area of responsibility of Russia’s Battlegroup Zapad;

▪️ The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 600 soldiers and one tank in the zone of responsibility of Russia’s Battlegroup Yug;

▪️ Battlegroup Vostok units destroyed up to 170 Ukrainian servicemen;

▪️ Russian air defenses shot down 32 Ukrainian drones, seven Hammer bombs, and seven Vampire MLRS shells;

▪️ The Russian Armed Forces repelled a counterattack near Ocheretino in the DPR.

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Putin sent message to the West that Russia is “there to stay” as major world power

Newly-inaugurated President Vladimir Putin has sent a clear message to the West that “Russia is there to stay as one of the world’s major powers,” strategic analyst Paolo Raffone told Sputnik.

The director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels noted Putin’s comments as signaling Russia’s intent to “use political and diplomatic means to defend its lawful interests,” while remaining “open to negotiations and dialogue.”

In his inauguration speech, Putin “rightly claims that after 2000 he, with the support of the Russian people, ‘stood firm against the attacks of international terrorism and saved the country from the very real threat of collapse’,” noted Raffone.

He singled out two cornerstone statements by the Russian president. Firstly, that “The main objective of the coming [six] years is now to transform the potential we have built up into a new development energy and to use it to bring about a fundamentally new quality of life for our people and a real, tangible increase in their prosperity”.

The second was that “Russia’s success and prosperity cannot and should not depend on one single person or one political party, or political force alone.”

As for US-driven calls in Western capitals and mainstream press to delegitimize the Russian presidential election process, “It is the continuation of the historic confrontation of Anglo-Saxon powers against Russia,” said Raffone.

“Despite the US/UK-imposed boycott, there is no united Western front against Russia… The reaction of Anglo-Saxon powers against Russia is a weak representation of the relativization of their global standing, a process with which their political elites have difficulty to come at terms. Despite their bellicose rhetoric, there is mounting sentiment that the relation with Russia cannot be eased without fresh diplomatic initiatives,” Raffone concluded.

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📹 Get a glimpse of the most amazing moments from Vladimir Putin's recent inauguration ceremony.

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🇧🇾🇷🇺 Belarus will conduct a surprise inspection synchronized with Russia using carriers of tactical nuclear weapons, the Russian Security Council reported.

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NATO's 1999 Chinese embassy bombing: Misguided Missiles or Misleading Excuses?

On May 7, 1999, NATO once again violated international law. The illegal bombings of Yugoslavia had been ongoing for a month and a half by that time. But on that very day, NATO missiles struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

The attack killed Xinhua news agency correspondent Shao Yunhuan, Chinese newspaper reporter Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying and injured 20 others — severely damaging the building, which was later demolished.

NATO claimed that the target was supposed to be a different building and blamed the use of outdated maps for the error.

Serbian war correspondent Davor Lukac, who covered the conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, witnessed these events. In an interview with Sputnik, he dismissed NATO's excuses.

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Scott Ritter: Putin’s inauguration began final stage of Russia’s purge of malign Western influence

“This time, it was different,” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a fifth term as Russia’s president on Tuesday.

“In his inauguration speech, Vladimir Putin made it clear that the security of Russia and the Russian people are his top priority. Why would he have to say this? Because as we speak, Russia finds itself under attack from many nations around the world – nations that seek the existential extermination of Russia, if not through violence, then through economic strangulation,” Ritter said.

Over Putin’s tenure, Russia has gradually “purged” itself of these attitudes, Ritter said, with the conflict in Ukraine serving as a catalyst accelerating Russia’s transformation, forcing elites and ordinary citizens alike to reconsider who they are and what defines them.

Going forward, Ritter expects Putin’s new term to “redefine Russia in the final stages of this transformation that it has been making continuously since 1999, a Russia that will for once and all purge the poison of Western malign influence out of its system, and create a pure Russian notion of what Russia is.”

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