🇷🇺🤝🇨🇳 New Russia-China economic pact will be impervious to any Western sanctions or blockade

The expanded technological partnership with China proposed by President Putin, and the complementary nature of Russian-Chinese economic potential make the two countries impervious to whatever economic bullying the US and its allies manage to think up, says Jeff Brown, a veteran China expert and author.

“China could play to Russia’s strengths, and the list is long: nuclear energy, arms, aerospace, machinery, petrochemical, metallurgy, plant breeding and agriculture for starters. As well, China is tops in supercomputers, robots, 5G-6G, supply chains and logistics, which all complement the aforementioned... They each have unique advantages in medicine and pharma. China’s top high-tech schools (Tsinghua, Peking, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Fudan, USTC, etc.) could build campuses in Russia, with a strong focus on R&D. Both countries need to get much better at AI and microchips, so finding mutual synergies would be beneficial to both sides,” Brown told Sputnik.

💬 “It also helps tremendously that Russia and China have a long, shared border, with connecting rail, road, electric grid and hydrocarbon infrastructure, that the West cannot sabotage,” the observer added.

“All of these possibilities would go great lengths to help each country individually and together, as Western empire desperately throws NATO and every boycott, blockade, tariff and sanction it can at both countries,” Brown emphasized.

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📄 Zelensky has signed a law allowing those convicted of non-serious crimes to be released on parole to be mobilised in a war zone, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said.

The measure will not apply to those convicted of:

▫️ Crimes against Ukraine's national security;

▫️ Committing particularly serious crimes;

▫️ Crimes against sexual freedom and inviolability;

▫️ Terrorism;

▫️ Fatal traffic accidents under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Do you think that such a measure will increase the Ukrainian army's combat capabilities, or will it increase the crime rate in the military? 🤔

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🇷🇺🇨🇳 What are the major takeaways from Putin's China visit?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has concluded his state visit to the People's Republic of China, which took place on May 16 and 17.

◻️ Putin's China trip is his first foreign tour since his March re-election. Chinese Presidnet Xi Jinping also paid his first visit to Russia after re-election in March 2023, signaling the special nature of Russia-China relations.

◻️ The solemn meeting ceremony between the two leaders took place in Tiananmen Square. The Russian president was accompanied by newly appointed officials including Minister of Defense Andrei Belousov.

◻️ Xi announced that "China and Russia have set an example for others to build a new type of interstate relations and relations between major neighbors."

◻️ Putin stressed that Russo-Chinese bilateral turnover has grown by almost 25 percent in 2023 up to $240bn, according to Chinese data. The leaders agreed to step up deliveries of Russian gas to China, enhance cooperation in civil nuclear programs. Putin signaled readiness to provide investors from China with economic incentives and access to the technological base.

◻️ Russia and China will continue de-dollarization with 90 percent of mutual settlements being carried out in national currencies.

◻️ Putin stressed that Russo-Chinese cooperation is not aimed against other countries and condemned the formation of new military alliances in Asia-Pacific.

◻️ Putin praised China’s approach to the Ukraine conflict and confirmed that preliminary Istanbul accords with Ukraine and the situation on the ground would be the basis for future talks. He stressed that future accords should be signed by a legitimate Ukrainian leader.

◻️ Putin explained that Russia is not planning to take the city of Kharkov and its advance is meant to create a "safe zone" to shield Russian civilians in Belgorod shelled by the Kiev regime.

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🪖 Watch NATO troops marching where? On Red Square!

In 2025, Russia is shutting its doors to Western countries for the May 9 Victory Day parades. Citing the West's denial of the Soviet Union's pivotal role in defeating Hitler, the Russian Foreign Ministry draws a line.

Flashback to 2010: a monumental parade with 1,000 troops from the US, UK, Poland, France, and Ukraine, celebrating the USSR's 65th Victory Anniversary.

Times have changed!

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Russian forces have taken more territory during their advance in recent weeks, including in the Kharkov region, than Ukraine did during its counter-offensive in 2023, the Washington Post reports.

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Why is France accusing Azerbaijan of meddling in New Caledonia?

French Home Affairs Minister Gerard Darmanin has accused Azerbaijan of colluding with pro-independence forces in New Caledonia – the French overseas territory in the southwest Pacific about 1,200 km east of Australia.

“This is not a fantasy. This is reality. Unfortunately, some independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan, this is indisputable,” Darmanin said in an interview with France-2 on Thursday.

Is there any truth in the claim? What’s the backstory? Here’s what we know.

🔻 Baku rejected Paris’s allegations, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada urging Darmanin to “focus on his country’s failed overseas policies” which caused the wave of violent protests in New Caledonia, “instead of blaming Azerbaijan” for its troubles.

🔻Darmanin’s assertions followed the memorandum of cooperation between the Azerbaijani Parliament and New Caledonia’s Congress, which was signed last month, envisioned as a treatise for developing a framework for parliamentary cooperation.

🔻 The agreement sparked accusations by Paris that Baku was stoking separatism in the French overseas territory. Azerbaijan dismissed the claims, and recalled France’s own controversial policies in the Caucasus.

🔻“It’s known that the French Parliament, at the initiative of the ruling party of France, adopted decisions and resolutions which recognized the separatist regime, challenged and harmed the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, and enabled the activity of a ‘friendship group’ with the former so-called separatist regime,” Baku said in an April 30 statement, referring to the Karabakh conflict.

🔻 New Caledonia has been rocked by violent clashes starting May 13 over the constitutional reform proposals to change voting law. Protests have claimed four lives, with France deploying the military and imposing a state of emergency until the end of May.

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Patriot games: why Zelensky’s calls for more American air defenses won’t help Ukraine in its hopeless battlefield situation

💬 “Two new Patriot systems would strengthen Ukrainian defenses but they would be no game changer on the Kharkov front. The most important thing might be the strengthening of the low and falling Ukrainian morale,” Mikael Valtersson, a former Swedish Armed Forces officer and air defense expert, told Sputnik, commenting on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s desperate plea to Washington this week to send at least two more Patriot SAMs Kiev’s way.

“To be useful against Russian aircrafts using glide bombs, the Patriot launchers must be placed not too deep inside Ukraine, thereby making them vulnerable to Russian attacks,” Valtersson explained.

On top of that, “they also have no effect on Russian drones and artillery, which play an important role in the Russian offensive,” he said.

Valtersson isn’t sure Kiev would even send any new Patriots it gets to the Kharkov front, “since there are many more important holes to fill in the Ukrainian air defense.” The observer doesn’t rule out that Zelensky’s appeal “might be an attempt to get any new Patriot systems at all” into Ukraine, “by claiming that they are needed to save Kharkov.”

To stand any chance, Ukraine would need a lot of new Patriots, and quickly, along with “a steady flow of replacements” to compensate losses to Russian attacks. If it’s only a couple more, it will make only a “small difference for Ukraine’s prospects in the continued fighting,” Valtersson summed up.

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The explosion occurred in one of St. Petersburg's universities, a source told Sputnik. The press service of the Kalininsky district administration told the agency that a resident of St. Petersburg reported a popping noise near the Budyonny Military Academy of Communications to district authorities.

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🇷🇺❄️🇨🇳Why does Russia-China deepening Arctic partnership bother NATO?

Russia and China have agreed to set up a joint commission for the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), said Russian nuclear corporation head Alexei Likhachev.

The goal is to create “a joint program for expanding Chinese transit” in the region “boasting enormous development potential," he noted.

As the Arctic region increasingly becomes a new frontier for competition, Moscow and Beijing see eye-to-eye on the need to preserve the Arctic as "a territory of peace, low military-political tension, and stability," stressed the framework of president Putin's visit to China.

Moscow and Beijing have boosted cooperation in the Arctic, prompting a private US intelligence report to warn of “national security” implications.

Russia-China interaction in the Arctic is making impressive strides, seen by the PRC as a strategic extension of its Belt and Road Initiative.

◻️ Cargo traffic via the Northern Sea Route reached a record 35 million tons since the start of 2023, with Chinese shipping company COSCO a leading international operator since 2013.

◻️ China is involved in Russia’s federal project to develop the NSR, involving new port facilities, oil, LNG and coal terminals, and ice-class vessels to boost cargo traffic to 110 million tons by 2030.

◻️ Yamal LNG — an integrated project for natural gas production, liquefaction and shipping — is a flagship of cooperation in the Arctic.

◻️ Investors from China controlled about 30% of NOVATEK's Yamal LNG project, and become the largest foreign co-owners of its second liquefied natural gas plant, Arctic LNG-2. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and China National Petroleum (CNP) each have a 10% stake.

An estimated 80% of Russia's natural gas and 17% of its oil production lies in the Arctic. The Russian Arctic continental shelf contains up to 17 billion tons of oil and 85 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves.

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