Footage has appeared, apparently of the moment a projectile hit a residential building in Belgorod

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❗️A criminal case has been opened into the Belgorod shelling incident, the Russian Investigative Committee said.

As a result of the shelling there are dead and injured, the IC added.

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❗️The Kiev regime carried out a terrorist attack on residential areas of the city of Belgorod using Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles, Alder and RM-70 Vampire multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Russian air defense systems destroyed six Tochka-U missiles, four Vampire and two Alder MLRS rockets. Fragments of one of the downed Tochka-U missiles damaged a residential building.

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❗️Russia's Sever Battlegroup liberated the villages of Gatishche, Krasnoe, Morokhovets and Oleinikovo in the Kharkov region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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Why is French-German tank project fraught with “very high risks?”

In late April, the French and German divisions of arms companies KNDS, as well as Rheinmetall and Thales, unveiled plans to set up a project company to work on the future tank known as the main ground combat system. However, the French branch of the KNDS consortium recently announced that the planned project company to develop a main battle tank for Germany and France will remain closed to other shareholders for now.

“I think it's a very high risk program,” Earl Rasmussen, an international consultant and retired lieutenant colonel with over 20 years in the US Army, told Sputnik.

“One, we have to coordinate requirements across both - the French and the Germans, and also NATO in general. We're looking at incorporating new technologies, we're probably talking at a 7 to 10 years development time, potentially. So this is a very high risk project. And I'm not sure there's going to be much success in that,” Rasmussen pointed out.

When asked whether the project will be able to compete in the international market, the analyst argued that he didn't think so.

“It's going to have to be tailored specifically, quite a bit, if it's very innovative and the performance is good, and depending what the cost is, if they can limit the cost, perhaps it could potentially have some potential competitiveness in the international market. I don't have high expectations of it,” Rasmussen noted.

According to him, both sides, as well the EU and NATO, have yet to resolve “political issues between the countries” related to the implementation of the project. “There's a lot of issues and a lot of challenges”, includes those pertaining to the discussions that a French-German joint production facility is to be placed in Ukraine - not a very good idea,” the analyst concluded.

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❗️The Vostok Battlegroup occupied more advantageous positions over the last day. Ukrainian losses amounted to 125 soldiers.

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

▪️Ukrainian forces lost up to 100 soldiers, two tanks, a Kozak armored vehicle, four artillery pieces and two Vampire MLRS due to the actions of the Sever Battlegroup;

▪️Units from the Zapad Battlegroup repelled four attacks by Ukrainian troops and occupied more advantageous positions. Ukrainian losses amounted to 190 soldiers;

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to 620 military personnel, two tanks, and a combat vehicle of the Strela-10 air defense system over the day in the zone of responsibility of the Sever Battlegroup;

▪️Units from the Tsentr Battlegroup hit two tanks, including an Abrams, and a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. Ukrainian losses amounted to 415 soldiers;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 plane and intercepted 36 drones and eight Tochka-U missiles.

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The tragedy in Russia's Belgorod. What is known so far:

▪️The first reports of the collapse of a stairwell as a result of the shelling appeared around 8.30 GMT.

▪️Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov soon said that the city had been subjected to massive shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as a result of a direct shell hit into an apartment building, the entire stairwell collapsed.

▪️Belgorod was shelled by Tochka-U missiles and MLRS shells, the building was damaged by fragments of one of the downed Tochka-U missiles, Russia's Defense Ministry later said.

▪️Air-raid sirens before the emergency allowed many lives to be saved, the emergency services told Sputnik.

▪️About an hour after the shelling, the attic floor and the roof of the stairwell collapsed. It is not yet clear whether there were casualties as a result of the repeated collapse.

▪️The Russian Investigation Committee reported that as a result of the Ukrainian shelling there are dead and injured, the exact number is being determined.

▪️At the moment, 17 people have been sent to medical organizations, Russia's Health Minister Murashko announced.

▪️The IC has opened a criminal case into the terrorist attack.

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Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the shelling of Russia's city of Belgorod by Ukrainian forces

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❗️19 people were injured in Belgorod as a result of Ukrainian shelling, including two children, Governor Gladkov said.

The dead have not yet been entirely removed from the rubble, the head of the region noted.

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Rabotino becomes a mass grave for Ukrainian army: here’s why

Village of Rabotino in the Zaporozhye region became a mass grave for Ukrainian servicemen and their attempts to reclaim it result in an immediate rendezvous with their “Bandera daddy” [death], member of the Civic Chamber of Russian Federation and Zaporozhye official Vladimir Rogov told Sputnik.

“The enemy dug in behind the village, on the cemetery. The attempts to counterattack in order to reclaim lost positions in the village failed. Our soldiers forced the enemy to flee. He lost servicemen and retreated back. The cemetery on the north of Rabotino de-facto became a grave for Ukrainian militants where they sustain tremendous losses and immediately depart to meet their Bandera daddy”, said Rogov.

He added that Ukrainian officers are constantly sending new reserves to die in futile attempts to storm Rabotino.

Rabotino is a village in Zaporozhye, and Kiev regime insists that contest around this hamlet is a key achievement of counteroffensive attempt of summer 2023. In order to seize Rabotino Ukraine deployed West-trained brigades reserved for strategic operations.

Earlier, Rogov said that the village of Rabotino is now in the “grey zone” which means that Ukrainian troops no longer control it.

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Zelensky, Poroshenko and other representatives of the Kiev regime are war criminals and war crimes do not have a statute of limitations, the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin told Sputnik

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David Cameron: NATO won't shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has ruled out the possibility of NATO forces intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine.

Speaking to The Times, Cameron cited “many” allegedly “non-escalatory things” the UK “can do”, like supplying anti-tank weapons, tanks, and long-range artillery to the Kiev regime — military aid that Russia has repeatedly warned would only exacerbate the Ukraine conflict.

“But the one thing we have to try to avoid is NATO forces in conflict with Russian forces,” Cameron stressed. “And that’s why, from the start, I’ve said I don’t think we can do a no-fly zone or NATO interception into Ukraine.”

At the same time, he argued that with NATO soldiers “not directly fighting off” Russian servicemen, any aid to Ukraine by the alliance is “acceptable.”

The British foreign secretary spoke after an array of German MPs backed the idea of NATO “cross-border” anti-aircraft units downing Russian missiles in Ukrainian airspace, something they claimed could “relieve the burden on Ukrainian air defenses and allow them to protect the front line.”

Nico Lange, senior researcher at the Munich Security Conference, earlier insisted in a televised interview that NATO allies should use their "numerous" Patriot anti-aircraft systems to destroy "all Russian missiles and drones" over Ukraine from the territory of Poland.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed out that Europeans are deliberately stoking tensions over Ukraine because they realize that Kiev’s forces face a complete collapse amid Russia’s ongoing offensive. "The moment is very important and, of course, this is very provocative on their part," Peskov warned.

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Two victims were pulled from the rubble of the shelled Belgorod tower block, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.

More people remain under the rubble and rescuers are doing everything to save their lives, he added.

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A Ukrainian soldier complains that Kharkov authorities stole fortification funds

The authorities of the Kharkov region, where hostilities have now intensified, have reportedly stolen money allocated for the construction of defensive fortifications. According to the Ukrainian soldier, there were not even minefields on the first line of defense, local media writes.

"The first line of fortifications and mines simply did not exist. (...) In two years, there should have been concrete fortifications of minus three floors on the Ukrainian border! But there were not even mines. We come to the conclusion That this is either insane theft or deliberate sabotage!” he wrote on social networks.

Earlier today, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Alexander Syrsky called the situation in the Kharkov region difficult for Ukrainian units. The regional authorities announced the evacuation of the population from part of the region’s settlements, in particular from Volchansk.

Since last year, Ukraine has announced a transition to defense and the construction of three lines of fortifications on the borders. Since the beginning of this year alone, the government has allocated almost $770 million for the construction of fortifications.

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Why is Ukraine so eager to peddle its assets to foreign investors?

The invitation extended by the Ukrainian government to Poland to participate in massive privatization of its assets may be interpreted as a sign that Kiev regime officials are considering an exit strategy, says Vladimir Olenchenko, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Studies in the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Olenchenko also speculated that Ukraine may first and foremost seek to put up for privatization assets in Western Ukraine, relatively close to the Polish border.

“That might beget a supposition that, if that privatization comes to pass and some large assets would become Polish, then the new Polish owners would receive an official pretext for petitioning the Polish authorities,” he says, referring to reports of Warsaw’s alleged plans to officially send Polish troops into Ukraine.

The overall context of this privatization is “the likely collapse of the Ukrainian military,” argues Rodney Shakespeare, visiting professor of binary economics at Trisakti University in Jakarta, Indonesia, and co-founder of the Global Justice Movement.

The likely collapse of Ukraine might result in Russia “liberating regions in the east and across the south to Transnistria,” he claims, suggesting that Moscow might “agree to Poland having a large part of western Ukraine in exchange for a regional security treaty with no NATO membership for the enlarged Poland.”

“Ukraine will soon be in complete collapse - military, political, economic and social. The two governments are trying to salvage something from a disastrous situation,” he postulates.

Meanwhile, “Ukraine's political class thinks that selling off a nation's assets to foreign corporations is a good idea (whereas, in reality, it is disastrous) but in the present situation, it is a way of cementing ties between Poland and (the rump of) Ukraine,” Shakespeare adds.

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❗️The number of victims in Belgorod has increased to nine, Russian emergency services told Sputnik.

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⚡️ Vladimir Putin proposed appointing Andrei Belousov as Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, according to the Federation Council of Russia.

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⚡️Vladimir Putin proposed reappointing Sergey Lavrov as the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, according to the Federation Council of Russia.

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Andrei Belousov was appointed first deputy prime minister of the Russian government in 2020.

▪️He was born on March 17, 1959, and graduated with honors from the Economics Faculty of Moscow State University.

▪️From 2000 to 2006, he held the position of director general of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting (CAMAC), serving as an external advisor to the chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation.

▪️From 2006 to 2008, he served as deputy minister of economic development and trade, and then as deputy minister of economic development.

▪️From 2012 to 2013, he worked as minister of economic development, then became an assistant to the president of the Russian Federation, and later joined the Cabinet of Ministers.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed reappointing:

▪️Konstantin Chuichenko as the head of the Ministry of Justice

▪️Alexander Kurenkov as the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations

▪️Vladimir Kolokoltsev as the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs

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