❗️During the day, the Sever battlegroup attacked Ukrainian troops in the Lipetsk, Volchansk and Russkie Tishki areas of the Kharkov region

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

▪️Ukrainian forces lost up to 480 servicemen in the area of responsibility of the Russian Yug combat group;

▪️The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 285 servicemen in one day as a result of the actions of the Zapad group;

▪️In the area of responsibility of the Russian Tsentr combat group in the DPR, Ukrainian losses amounted to up to 355 servicemen and three armored vehicles, including a Bradley;

▪️ Russian air defense systems shot down 41 drones, five ATACMS tactical missiles and 32 HIMARS rockets during the day.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

West's talks about using US weapons to strike Russia reflect desperation - Lavrov

Talks in the West about allowing Kiev to conduct strikes with US weapons on Russia reflects desperation and understanding that they will not achieve their goals by the "usual honest means," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"As I understand it, these conversations reflect in a sense a desperation and a realization that by the usual honest means that apply in international law even in times of hostilities, they will not achieve their goal. It feels like agony," Lavrov told Russian media.

Russia has shown the West that it will not tolerate attempts to use Ukraine as a threat to Russia's security and as a tool to destroy everything Russian in the historic Russian lands, Lavrov said. After that, Western countries began to make decisions, including on supplying Kiev with weapons, Lavrov added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Thousands of Australians marched in Melbourne today chanting "All Zionists are terrorists"

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian soldier survives after being shot in the head and later in the leg while being tortured in Ukrainian captivity

"[Ukrainian soldiers] put me on my knees, nobody spoke to me, and I was shot in the head," Donetsk People's Republic connoscript Sergei Belitsa told Sputnik.

The bullet went through the head, entering near the left ear and exiting near the right cheekbone, the connoscript said, adding that he later woke up and was able to free himself.

When he tried to return to Russian positions, he encountered Ukrainian soldiers and was initially mistaken for one of their own, so they called medics, Belitsa said. But after they gave him first aid, they discovered Russian markings under his jacket, and Belitsa was interrogated and tortured, he added.

During the torture, Belitsa repeatedly lost consciousness and was revived with water, and the interrogator also shot him in the leg, Belitsa recalled. He was soon transferred to a hospital in the city of Kharkov (also known as Kharkiv), where he received medical care. After the hospital, he spent about two months in Ukrainian prisons and was exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war in March 2023.

Upon his return to Russia, Belitsa again received medical help and his jaw was fused, but his left ear will never be restored.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russia makes artillery shells three times faster and four times cheaper than West

Artillery ammunition is being produced about three times faster by Russia compared to shells made by Ukraine's Western supporters - and at a quarter of the cost, Sky News has complained, citing research by Bain & Company.

Russia's military-industrial complex will produce about 4.5 million artillery shells this year, while all of Europe and the US combined will be able to produce 1.3 million shells. The cost of a typical NATO 155 mm shell is $4,000, while Russian 152 mm shells cost about $1,000. The math is absolutely against Ukraine in the "battle of fire."

The news agency also talked to Ukrainian artillerymen who admitted that for every round they fire, the Russian side fires back up to five. Moreover, according to the Ukrainians, they do not even use Western shells during training and only pretend to do so.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Why is Zelensky illegitimate as Ukrainian president?

Russia will proceed from the fact that Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy as the Ukrainian head of state has expired, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated.

Zelensky's term in office ran out on May 20, so speaking of his legitimacy makes no sense, Andrey Yakovlev, chairman of the Moscow Bar Association "Yakovlev and Partners," explained to Sputnik.

◾️ Ukraine’s Constitution doesn’t contain any other instruments to extend the legitimate five-year power of the Ukrainian president, except for early elections, in line with the 2014 Constitutional Court ruling;

◾️ This means that to amend the Constitution, it is the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) that should introduce a relevant bill, and lawmakers are to vote to authorize the president to continue exercising his powers – something they have not done;

◾️ That said, it is impossible for parliament to even do this because Article 157 of the Constitution states that the Carta Magna cannot be changed under martial law or a state of emergency;

◾️ Martial law was introduced on February 24, 2022, by a presidential decree and then ratified by the parliament’s overwhelming majority. Thus, Kiev cut off its path to chang the Constitution;

◾️ Currently, there is sort of legal absurdity in place, in which the constitutional norms and steps made by Zelensky and the parliament exclude the possibility of changing the Constitution and re-granting the president legitimacy;

◾️ 2015 martial law legislation, now cited by Kiev, contradicts the Constitution, which directly refers to the preservation of only the parliament’s legitimacy during martial law, not presidential legitimacy. Apparently, the Constitutional Court never checked this legislation;

◾️ Even if Zelensky is recognized by others, any act signed by him after May 20, without any clarification from the Constitutional Court, is unlikely to have legal force, Andrey Yakovlev concluded.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Get your priorities straight: Example of the US police

It's been four years since George Floyd's death caused massive protests all over the US. During pro-Palestinian protests, police don't shy away from using their batons, unraveling their wrath on those who dare to criticize Israel. While at the BLM rallies on May 25, protestors seem to enjoy their time...

🤔Why is that so? Write your opinion in the comments

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

‘Expired president’ Zelensky remains legitimate only to the West – expert

”The West believes that they have invented a very savvy formula for keeping Zelensky in power until they decide whether to change or leave him and with whom to replace him,” Alexander Dudchak, leading researcher at the Institute of for CIS Studies, has said.

Zelensky is legitimate only for the West, “but Russia is not obliged to follow the lead of those who do not observe the laws, and who have been destroying international law for decades. Moscow doesn’t consider Zelensky a head of state, albeit a puppet one,” he underscored, recalling that even in Ukraine, Zelensky is nicknamed the “expired president.”

As for who Russia should negotiate with now, the expert said “there is no one to negotiate with in Ukraine, which is also the case with the West.”

“If a regime remains on any Ukrainian territory that the West will see as a successor to the current government – the Zelensky regime or that of similar functionaries whom the collective West could put in power – it would be a constant threat to Russia because the West will pump this territory with weapons,” Dudchak said.

Per him, it’s all the same to Russia who will finally be at the helm of Ukraine because Moscow will pursue the main goal of its special military operation – to rid the world of the neo-Nazi threat posed by the Kiev regime, as such regimes are “contagious” and could spread further across the globe.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Vladimir Putin arrives in Uzbekistan, where his talks with the country's leadership will take place.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇿🇷🇺 The Russian president was met by his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev in the airport.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

France’s Macron on first visit to Berlin in 24 years to mend cracks in 'Franco-German unity'

Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Germany on an official state visit on Sunday. This trip has become the first official visit by a French president to Germany since 2000, with Reuters reporting that the visit is apparently meant as a show of unity between Berlin and Paris amid unresolved tensions.

Managing Director for Europe at the Eurasia Group think tank Mujtaba Rahman told the media outlet that Macron’s visit is "an attempt at the highest political level to demonstrate that the relationship is working."

Meanwhile, Berlin and Paris keep disagreeing on many issues - such as the defense and security situation in Europe.

Whereas Germany is keen to rely on the US military protection, France favors self-reliance, with Macron consistently advocating for Europe’s greater autonomy in defense matters. Paris’ recent belligerence – extremely obvious in comparison to Berlin’s slow pace – may be well explained by the fact that France has its own, albeit small, nuclear arsenal while Germany has no nukes of its own.

During a cabinet meeting slated to take place on Tuesday, May 28, top French and German officials are expected to discuss important matters related to the bilateral relations between the two countries.

The French president’s visit takes place mere days before the elections for the EU Parliament, scheduled on June 6 through 9, with a report suggesting that France and Germany are now seeking to “find common ground on the EU agenda for the next five years.”

A year earlier, Macron had to scrap plans for his visit to Berlin – originally expected to take place in July 2023 – amid protests that broke out in France over the death of a 17-year-old teenager who was killed by police.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Baltic states and Poland are warning Germany that they could send troops to Ukraine if the situation gets noticeably worse for Kiev due to its allies being reluctant to supply it with weapons, according to Spiegel

“If the Russians succeed in a strategic breakthrough in eastern Ukraine because the West is reluctant to help Kiev, the situation could escalate sharply. In this case, the Baltic countries and Poland will not wait for Russian troops to deploy on their borders, Baltic politicians warn, they will send troops themselves to Ukraine,” the magazine writes.

According to them, in this way NATO will become a party to the conflict, and this is exactly what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden fear.

On Sunday, Scholz said that he opposes revising the rules for the use of German weapons by Ukraine and giving Kiev the opportunity to strike them on Russian territory. Previously, the chancellor has repeatedly emphasized that Berlin does not want the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to escalate into a conflict between Russia and NATO.

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with The Economist that the alliance does not intend to send troops to Ukraine.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Why EU attempts to develop new main battle tank unlikely to succeed

Moves by the European Union to design a new main battle tank for the EU members’ militaries are unlikely to produce any meaningful results in the immediate future, says retired US Army Lt. Colonel and veteran international consultant Earl Rasmussen.

Aside from the actual development and prototyping, the parties involved in this undertaking would also have to ensure that they have sufficient production capabilities. Training in the use of the new tank would also have to be provided to the buyers’ militaries, and “the whole supply chain needs to be coordinated and integrated as well,” Rasmussen notes.

“We're talking 7-10-12 years before we see anything out there. Then we're going to have to find buyers. So I'm assuming that they'll probably be working on buyers during the design and testing, similar to the F-35 [that] had partners in early on and contributions being made,” he speculates.

Commenting on Poland’s apparent involvement in the European tank scheme, despite the fact that until now, Warsaw seemed keen to rely on purchasing US and South Korean military hardware, Rasmussen says that it remains to be seen how it may affect US-Polish relations.

“I'm sure the US does not want to lose anyone unless they're going to be behind the scenes backing this project as well. Poland is perhaps trying to buffer themselves to see where the US is going to go as far as NATO goes as well,” he muses.

Regarding the purpose of this tank development project, Rasmussen postulates that the EU likely came up with this idea after considering all the logistical complications the Ukrainian military faces after being supplied with a mish-mash of US and European weapon systems that often require different ammunition and parts.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya, has explained that disputes arose in the newsroom about how to call Zelensky now: "former" president of Ukraine, "illegitimate" president, "self-proclaimed", or something else.

"I suggest - 'expired'," she wrote on Telegram.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

▪️‘Expired president’ Zelensky remains legitimate only to the West – expert

▪️Why is Zelensky illegitimate as Ukrainian president?

▪️Russia makes artillery shells three times faster and four times cheaper than West

▪️Russian soldier survives after being shot in the head and later in the leg during tortures in Ukrainian captivity

▪️Russia hammers Ukrainian military airport adapted for Western F-16 fighter jets

▪️French President Macron on first visit to Berlin in 24 years to mend cracks in 'Franco-German unity'

▪️Major non-NATO ally: What does the designation mean?

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The idea of returning universal military connoscription to the EU is insane, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said.

“Europe is so involved in a war that it does not even have an estimate of the magnitude of the costs and means necessary to achieve its military objective. I have never seen anything more irresponsible in my life,” Orban emphasized in an interview with YouTube channel Patrióta.

According to the prime minister, NATO wants to become a party to the conflict in Ukraine and “the chances that the alliance can be kept from doing so are limited because they don't want to be persuaded.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Budapest is against having decisions on the service of Hungarian citizens made "in Brussels or Germany," Hungarian PM Viktor Orban emphasized.

"We don't want anyone else to be able to make decisions about connoscription and sending our young men of draft age anywhere. We have to forget about a European army with compulsory connoscription, this is a crazy idea," Orban said in an interview with the Patriota YouTube channel.

Earlier in May, Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People's Party, the largest one in the European Parliament, suggested reinstating compulsory military service across the entire European Union.

If Weber's idea was implemented, "Hungarian families would be told from Brussels or Germany that their children would be compulsorily connoscripted into the European army and told where they would go," the Hungarian prime minister added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admitted that Ukraine may not become a NATO member within the next 30 years.

“It is not expected in the near future, maybe for the next 30 years,” Scholz said at a forum.

Ukraine applied for accelerated NATO membership in September 2022, following the start of Russia's special military operation. In March, NATO Military Committee chair Rob Bauer said that the matter concerning Ukraine’s membership in NATO was settled, however, the discussion on the timeline was ongoing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that NATO's expansion to include Ukraine would create a direct national security threat to Russia and that Moscow considers the non-aligned status of Ukraine to be extremely important to put an end to the years-long conflict.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt