Residents of the Italian city of Genoa came to the cemetery where Soviet partisans are buried to honor the memory of the soldiers. At the cemetery Staglio there is a grave and a monument to the Hero of the USSR, Hero of Italy Fyodor Poletaev. He was a participant of the Italian resistance movement.

💬"The Italian youth today commemorates, remembers and thanks the struggle of the Red Army in it’s collaboration with the legitimate Italian Kingdom during the Italian Civil War in fighting and defeating the Italian Social Republic, which was the rogue puppet state controlled by the german army occupying northern Italy..." said Pietro V. A. Stramezzi, freelance journalist, World Youth Festival Italian Delegate, International Relations student from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.

"We also thank the struggle that the Red Army conducted for nearly 50 years in resisting against American hegemony, zionist terror, and NATO terror," Stramezzi added.

"These actions won’t be forgotten, and today we, members of the Italian delegation of the World Youth Festival announce to the world that we side with the Russian Federation in it’s fight against vassalage to American Imperialism in Europe, against Ukrainian fascism, against russophobia, and against the degenerate and satanic values which the western deepstate forces on the youth," he said.

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Victory Day celebrated in Germany despite official bans

In Berlin, despite pressure from police and collapsing German-Russian relations, many locals held events commemorating “the 79th anniversary of liberation from fascism.”

Police confiscated several copies of Junge Welt newspaper with the front page depicting the famous photo of a Soviet banner on the roof of the Reichstag in 1945.

Nevertheless, several thousand people marched from Frirdichschain to the monument of the Soviet Soldier in Treptow Park and 17th of June Street.

Meanwhile, German authorities opposed Victory Day events and imposed bans on symbols associated with the Soviet and Russian armies such as the Red Star, the St. George ribbon and even the letters Z and V. They also prohibited music, songs and posters with themes of the Soviet victory over fascism.

The Eurasian Crime department of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) has placed the German affiliate of the Moscow-based Night Wolves motorcycle club under ‘police oversight measures’.

Last year the Night Wolves were able to ride to Berlin through Slovakia and Austria on motorcycles lent by local activist bikers sympathetic to Russia.

This year’s Victory Day celebration was marred by anti-Russian moves from Germany, worsening already-strained ties between the two nations. Berlin targeted Russia-friendly Germans in a bout of spy mania, mainly directed against Alternative for Germany (AfD) MPs.
The party’s top candidate for the European Parliament elections in June, Maximilan Krah, had his office raided on May 8 on the orders of the federal General Prosecutor’s Office.

Days before the victory celebrations, Berlin recalled its ambassador to Moscow, Alexander Graf Lambsdorf “for consultations”. Spiegel Plus weekly read that as a “final warning” to Moscow, after which the "status of Russo-German relations could be lowered, with Russian diplomats declared persona non grata in Germany.”

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Will Boeing's setbacks plague other US manufacturing firms?

Boeing's problems are continuing to stockpile as the company is facing new inquiry over B787 Dreamliner inspection doubts and is suffering from the Russian sanctions blowback.

• The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opened a new probe on May 7 into whether the aerospace giant broke rules in its inspections of its B787 and whether its employees falsified aircraft records.

• Boeing's space mission faced problems on May 7 with the first manned launch of the company's Starliner being postponed over technical problems.

• The Wall Street Journal revealed on May 3 that Boeing's decision to sever ties with a Russian temperature-regulating parts maker has resulted in delays in the production of Dreamliner aircraft. Consequently, this has led to a reduction in the number of long-haul flights offered to US customers.

• In April, two Senate panels looked into safety issues at Boeing, with Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour revealing how the company puts production goals over safety — and complained that potential whistleblowers are intimidated.

• Two Boeing whistleblowers, Joshua Dean, former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, and John Barnett, a former Boeing employee, abruptly died in May and March. According to the Independent, at least ten more whistleblowers are ready to step forward.

• On January 5, a Boeing 737 Max 9 passenger jet lost a door panel in mid-flight, triggering a series of audits by the FAA and turning the spotlight on technical problems and crashes haunting the company since 2018.

• International observers blames reckless outsourcing of production processes to cut costs and prioritizing profits over safety by Boeing, seeing that as an omen of US industries losing their competitive edge.

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US specifically paused a weapons shipments to Israel

"Specifically, we [the US] paused one shipment of weapons consisting of 1800 2000-pound bombs, and 1700 500-pound bombs," Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said during a press briefing.

Earlier Biden said in an interview that the US will go as far as to stop the flow of weapons to Israel should the PM Netanyahu war cabinet decide on a major military operation in the Gaza Strip.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that the US has paused one shipment of "high payload munitions" to Israel and is "reviewing near-term" shipments amid Israel’s heightened offensive in Rafah.

It remains unclear whether the suspension of weapons deliveries to Israel will make any difference and cause Israel to call off its Rafah operation. Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that his country stands ready to proceed with its military plans no matter what Washington or any other country says or does.

On Monday, Israel started a military operation in the eastern parts of Rafah and took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Hamas said that it had agreed to the provisions of the ceasefire deal proposed by Egypt and Qatar mediators, but Netanyahu called the truce deal unacceptable. Over a million people are believed to be sheltering in the city.

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Anita Dunn, a senior advisor to the White House and the co-founder of SKDKnickerbocker, a crisis management fund that worked with Time’s Up, ostensibly an advocacy group for survivors of sexual assault, was “basically” reporting back to then-candidate for President Joe Biden about the sexual assault accusations leveled at him by former Senate Staffer Tara Reade, Reade said in an interview.

“I went to [the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund] for help to come forward about Joe Biden. And, all the time, Anita Dunn… was basically reporting back to Joe Biden. She was literally getting paid at the same time I was there,” Reade told Sputnik’s Fault Lines. “It was egregious. It was absolutely egregious.”

Reade accused Biden of assaulting her while she worked for him as a Senate aide in 1993. She says the then-Senator and future President assaulted her in the Senate hallway.

In January 2020, Dunn was reportedly given “decision making authority” in the Biden campaign, the same month that the Biden campaign contributed $548,480,27 to the SKDKnickerbocker which also happened to be the same month Reade approached Time’s Up about legal representation.

Last year, it was reported that SKDKnickerbockerreceived more than $200,000 to provide “crisis communications” to Michael Madigan, then the speaker of the House of Illinois and the leader of the Democratic party in that case. Madigan was accused of retaliating against an employee who claimed her immediate supervisor sexually harassed her through text messages. At the same time, that employee, Alaina Hampton, was receiving legal advice from SKDKnickerbocker and Time’s Up.

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Boeing of Germany's Lufthansa bound to Chicago turns around due to air emergency

A Boeing 747-8 of German flag air carrier Lufthansa flying from Frankfurt am Main to Chicago on Thursday had to turn around over the Atlantic Ocean due to a strange smell in the flight deck, German daily Bild reported, citing the air carrier.

"Lufthansa flight LH430 from Frankfurt to Chicago returned to Frankfurt today as a precautionary measure. The reason for this was an unidentifiable smell of electrics in the cockpit. The Boeing 747-8 landed normally in Frankfurt, and all 320 passengers and 19 crew members exited the plane normally. The plane is currently being examined by technicians, the cause of the smell is still unclear," a Lufthansa spokesperson told the newspaper.

The report added that donated bone marrow for a US patient was aboard the plane, and it is not yet clear whether it has been secured.

It is the fourth incident involving Boeing airplanes in two days.

Earlier, Turkish authorities said 190 people had been evacuated from a Boeing-738 bound for Turkiye's Gazipasa from Germany's Cologne after an emergency landing as the plane's landing gear wheel tire burst. Authorities said no one was injured in the incident.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed to the State Duma to reappoint Mikhail Mishustin as prime minister, his candidacy has been submitted by the president for consideration by the lower house of parliament, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin reported.

"President Vladimir... Putin has submitted a proposal to the State Duma on the candidacy of Mikhail... Mishustin for the post of Prime Minister. Today, lawmakers will make a responsible decision... on this issue," Volodin wrote.

The inauguration of Putin, elected in March for a fifth term, took place at noon in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Afterward, according to the law, the current government headed by Prime Minister Mishustin resigned. Mishustin had headed the government cabinet since January 2020.

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A missile, presumably of Western origin, was shot down over the city of Mariupol in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), a DPR emergency service source told Sputnik.

“Air defense systems worked, obviously successfully. Something heavy was shot down, fragments fell in the city center,” the source said.

According to the source, a missile, presumably Western-produced, was shot down.

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Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has stopped short of confirming May 21 as a date when Madrid will recognize Palestine as an independent state, while saying that a decision to this effect has already been made.

On Wednesday, Irish broadcaster RTE reported that Ireland, Spain and several other EU member states were considering recognizing Palestinian statehood on May 21.

"Decisions of the [Spanish] Council of Ministers should never be anticipated … In fact, it is not so much the exact day that is important, but the decision [on the recognition of Palestine], and the decision has already been made," Albares said at a panel discussion with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Madrid.

In late March, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez said that Spain had reached an agreement with Ireland, Slovenia and Malta to take the first steps toward recognizing the State of Palestine to promote the peace process. The nations later issued a joint statement, in which they expressed their readiness to recognize the State of Palestine under the "right circumstances."

The State of Palestine is currently recognized by nine EU member states. Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia took this step in 1988, before joining the EU, while Sweden recognized the State of Palestine in 2014.

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The strikes targeted a way station in Snigirevka, where workshops and hangars used by Ukrainian forces are located, as well as the Armed Forces of Ukraine location in Novopetrovka, according to Sergei Lebedev, the coordinator of the Nikolayev underground, in an interview with Sputnik.

Furthermore, ammunition depots and military personnel locations in Kharkov and the Chuguev landfill were also hit in the attacks.

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Putin’s speech shows that despite US ‘best efforts to isolate Russia, it has only managed to isolate itself’ - former US Marine

“This ‘exclusivity’, or double standards, obviously create a lopsided global balance of power and results in tremendous injustice,” geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic told Sputnik, commenting on Putin’s assertion that Russia rejects the claims of any state or alliance to exclusivity.

“The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is a continuation of the same sort of supremacist mentality that triggered World War 2 and the invasion of the Soviet Union,” Berletic said, pointing out that “the so-called US-led international order is predicated on Washington’s primacy over the globe and its assumption of impunity to do as it pleases wherever it pleases.”

“It allows itself to uphold ‘national security concerns’ on the other side of the planet, while denying other nations the ability to [address] national security concerns right along or even within their own borders,” the retired American soldier stressed.

However, now, “the economic, military, and technological edge the US has depended on for decades to maintain this lopsided balance of power has eroded, and thus nations like Russia are able to tilt the scales back in favor of global fairness.”

“Putin in his speech mentioned specifically the importance of remembering history and warned against the danger of those attempting to now rewrite that history. As the saying goes, ‘those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it’. In this case, the collective West is rewriting history to deliberately repeat it.”

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Ukraine gets US weapons, but Europe to foot the bill

Germany will finance the procurement of three HIMARS missile systems for Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has announced.

“Time was of the essence. So we offered to take over, pay for and deliver three systems from US army stocks.” Pistorius told reporters during talks with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon earlier this week

He added that the idea of Germany picking up the tab for the weapons emerged during the extended wait for the $61 billion US aid package to the Kiev regime, which was finally signed by President Joe Biden on April 24 after months of delay.

At the time, Biden promised the shipments of military hardware would begin “in the next few hours”. Few weeks on, though, the effects on the battlefield have yet to materialize, with Russia continuing to advance on Ukrainian positions in several areas of the front line.

As Europe and the US spend taxpayers' money on weapons for Ukraine, Russia successfully destroys this weaponry. In one day alone, Russian forces downed two ATACMS ballistic missiles and a HIMARS missile, as well as 15 Czech-made Vampire MLRS rockets and five French-made Hammer guided bombs, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

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❗️🇦🇺 Protests outside Bisalloy Steel headquarters in Australia, which supplies armor for Ukrainian Bushmaster armored vehicles and Israeli Merkava tanks

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