Ebrahim Raisi will be buried tomorrow before sunset at the Razavi shrine in Mashhad, Iranian TV quoted Vice President Mohsen Mansouri as saying

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei embraces the grandchildren of late President Ebrahim Raisi

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️In recent days, the Russian Sever Battlegroup has managed to expand the front line; it is already spreading to the eastern part of the Kharkov region, said the head of the Russian administration of the region, Vitaly Ganchev.

According to him, almost 300 square kilometers of the region’s territory are under the control of Russian forces.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Ukrainian forces attacked the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, according to the plant's press service

A kamikaze drone attack in the area of the power plant’s transport workshop was recorded. There were no casualties or critical damage, the press service added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

New details emerge of chopper crash that killed Iran's President Raisi

The weather at the time of the helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi did not give any cause for concern, the late Iranian president’s Chief of Staff Gholam Hossein Esmaili told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

“The weather was clear, there was no weather condition to be worried about,” he said, as quoted by the agency.

The official was on board one of the two helicopters from Raisi's three-chopper convoy that managed to reach its destination safely. After half an hour of flight, they observed a “small patch of clouds,” but there was no fog, Esmaili noted.

“There was fog on the ground, but not up in the air where we were advancing with the helicopters," he recalled.

The pilot of the helicopter carrying the president gave instructions to gain altitude and continue moving above the clouds. Those on board the chopper with Esmaili did not feel any excess turbulence, and after ascending, observed no more clouds. There had not been any forecasts mentioning disturbances in the weather, the Iranian official noted.

He added that once their pilot discovered that the presidential helicopter was missing, they circled around the area a couple of times. They made several unsuccessful attempts to make contact with those on the presidential helicopter, until finally Ayatollah Ale-Hashem, the Friday imam of Tabriz, answered. He said he was “not feeling well,” and didn’t know what had happened, but described trees surrounding him. Ale-Hashem later also died.

Upon realization that the chopper had crash landed, a search team was formed, and immediate emergency help was requested.

Iranian authorities said the helicopter crash landed in a remote mountainous region due to poor weather conditions and thick fog. A probe into the crash launched by the Iranian authorities is ongoing.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya, said that she has lists of 500 Ukrainian prisoners of war, whom Kiev has been refusing to exchange for four months, and promised to publish them.

"Zelensky has selected 38 people from Azov* [Battalion] and the like and is ready to take only them. Ukraine does not need the rest of the Ukrainian soldiers," she said.

*Azov is recognized by Russia as a terrorist organization and banned

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️EXCLUSIVE: We have no business being in Ukraine, GOP Congressman Paul Gosar says

“The United States should not be sending weapon systems, ammunition or taxpayer dollars to fund or prolong a war in Ukraine, we have no business being in,” Congressman Paul Gosar told Sputnik.

His remarks come in response to Sputnik's request to comment on the letter written by a bipartisan group of US lawmakers sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asking that Ukraine be allowed to use American-supplied long-range weapons for strikes inside of Russian territory.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Pentagon clones Ukraine weapons aid initiative to militarize Indo-Pacific

The US Defense Department has taken a leaf from its own Ukraine handbook to maintain a flow of weapons to Taiwan and other allies in the Indo-Pacific.

Amid the Biden administration's saber-rattling over Taiwan and the South China Sea, the newly proposed Indo-Pacific Security Assistance Initiative would be geared to Washington’s mission to militarize the region.

The program appears to be a clone of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative that has allowed the Pentagon to place US government contracts directly with its defense industry to funnel military aid to Kiev. While the pricey military equipment hasn’t fared well in Ukraine, it has helped swell contractors’ coffers.

In line with a proposal submitted to Congress in April, the Pentagon is seeking authorization to establish the initiative, while requesting $500 million in fiscal year 2025 to be able to push its weapons on regional allies such as Taiwan and the Philippines. Cash would be syphoned either via the initiative, or through the Taiwan Presidential Drawdown Authority.

The Department of Defense acknowledged that the proposed authority is “similar to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI),” but “focused on strengthening deterrence and bolstering partners’ self-defense capabilities.”

Unlike the USAI, the Presidential Drawdown Authority is used when dipping into the US’ own stockpiles.

The House Armed Services Committee is set to debate the legislation, since the draft text of the FY25 defense policy bill does not include the requested authorization for an Indo-Pacific Security Assistance Initiative or the $500 million in funding.

Congress passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill in April that included nearly $4 billion in military aid for Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific allies.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt