🇧🇾🇷🇺 Belarus and Russia will hold joint air force and air defense exercises from May 27 to 31, Belarus' Ministry of Defense has announced.

The main efforts during the exercises will look to solve the problems of protecting government and military facilities from attacks, the ministry said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Hamas will not participate in the talks following the Israeli shelling of the Rafah refugee camp, according to the movement.

Scores of people were killed in the attack on the displaced persons camp, according to the Red Crescent Society. Palestinian authorities reported 40 dead and dozens wounded.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Taliban's status as a terrorist organization prevents Russia and Afghanistan from establishing bilateral cooperation, said Moscow's special presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov.

After this status is lifted in Russia, there may be talk of recognition of Afghan authorities, he emphasized.

Earlier, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice sent a proposal to the Kremlin to remove the Taliban's terrorist organization status, said Kabulov. The Taliban continue to be under UN sanctions.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

No country for old men: Western media hints Ukraine must press-gang youngsters

The average Ukrainian soldier is in his forties and there is a solid number of elder soldiers, meaning that the course of the conflict will “depend on mobilizing the young,” says an op-ed in the Bloomberg news outlet.

The article stresses that Volodymyr Zelensky was quite vocal about the weapons the Kiev regime needed, however, it admits that “he is quieter on the much more sensitive matter of the need for men." Young Ukrainians prefer to dodge the draft at any cost, while mothers who fled the country with teenage sons are also reluctant to send them back to the front lines.

In April, Ukraine partially suspended its adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – one month before its draconian mobilization law came into force. The new legislation lowers the minimum connoscription age from 27 to 25 and introduces fresh measures that help press-ganging Ukrainians into military service.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the start of the special military operation, Ukraine has lost up to half a million soldiers and is running dramatically low on human resources.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Estonian drone maker expands unmanned ground vehicle production

Robotic vehicle manufacturer Milrem Robotics has announced the opening of its new ground drone production facility.

Located near Milrem’s HQ in Estonia’s capital, this new plant ostensibly allows the company to “manufacture more than 500 units” of its THeMIS (tracked hybrid modular infantry system) ground drone.

“Many end-users, satisfied with the results of testing the robotic vehicles, are preparing to launch high-quantity procurements. With the opening of our new facility, we are better prepared to answer these calls,” Milrem Robotics CEO Kuldar Varsi said in a press release issued by the company.

THeMIS is an unmanned ground vehicle platform that can function as either a transport or combat drone.

A number of these ground drones have been supplied by Milrem to the Kiev regime in August 2022, and it was reported that at least one THeMIS unit has been captured by Russian forces. Russian researchers have promised a reward for such a trophy, meaning they might have already got their hands on one of the platforms – and if any new THeMIS vehicles arrive in Ukraine, they may meet a similar fate.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

NATO 'allows' Ukraine to attack Russian territory

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly confirmed that Ukraine can use weapons from the alliance for attacks on Russian territory, according to organization's declaration № 489.

Earlier, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged partners to formally allow Kiev to use Western-supplied long-range missile systems to strike deep into Russian territory.

Russian officials repeatedly warned against military supplies to the Kiev regime, stressing that this move only fuels the conflict with no chance of affecting the ultimate course of the special operation.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

French military instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers

Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky has signed a permit for French military instructors to work in training centers in Ukraine.

“I cordially welcome France’s initiative to send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian military personnel,” he said.

Earlier, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, in an interview with Sputnik, said that there was information that not only French mercenaries are in Ukraine, but also instructors along with the special services from other European countries.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Despite all odds: Meet Otto Hirsch, a man who committed himself to giving hope to the people of Donbass

Otto Hirsch, owner and manager of the Austrian company Hirsch International GMBH (Linz), is involved in charity work around the world.

In mid-May, Hirsch brought material assistance to residents of a multi-storey building in Alchevsk near Lugansk who suffered from a Ukrainian drone strike.

Since 2015, he has been sponsoring the renovation and construction of kindergartens, schools and hospitals, as well as buying equipment for medical institutions in Donbass. Hirsch told Sputnik about his visit to the Lugansk People's Republic.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Friendly fire: US officials all mixed up over Georgia's foreign agents bill

The southeastern US state of Georgia was caught in the crossfire amid the smear campaign by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Congress against the nation of Georgia over its foreign agents bill, which the country's president has attempted to veto – wrote Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

According to her Telegram post, Americans were once again perplexed by the existence of Georgia, the country that shares its name with a US state.

▪️In April, Georgia's [the state] Senate passed and sent its own Bill 368 on foreign agents to the governor, in an attack against US democracy on all fronts;

▪️This coincided with the US State Department issuing an official statement condemning “the Kremlin-inspired ‘foreign influence’ legislation advanced in Georgia’s [the country] parliament” – quite a bold statement, considering the fact that the US has been enacting a similar regulation since 1938;

▪️After this, Georgia [the state] Governor Brian Kemp - apparently having read the State Department’s statement and being surprised that “Kremlin inspiration” is thriving in his own backyard - decisively jumped into action and vetoed Bill 368;

As a result, the State Department has gotten itself into hot water:

▪️Due to Kemp's veto, the Georgia state’s foreign agents bill was never passed, while in the country of Georgia, the parliamentary committee on legal issues launched a procedure to override the Georgian president’s veto;

▪️It turns out that democracy in America’s Georgia state is much more fragile than in the former Soviet republic country, and politicians in Tbilisi are way more informed and consistent than their counterparts in Atlanta or Washington

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Compulsory draft: Are EU's 27 states ready to send their youth to war?

"The idea of a compulsory European army is insane," Hungarian PM Viktor Orban told the Patrióta YouTube channel on May 26, commenting on European People's Party (EPP) President Manfred Weber's proposal to introduce EU-wide connoscription. "We don't want someone else to decide where our young men are deployed." Less than half of EU members have compulsory military services in place.

▪️Eleven European countries have various types of compulsory military service: Austria, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Three of them - Austria, Switzerland and Cyprus - aren't NATO member states while Switzerland is also not an EU nation.

▪️Germany's opposition center-right CDU/CSU alliance is advocating reinstating compulsory military service, whereas the nation's ruling Social Democrats (SPD) avoids picking sides prior to the European Parliament's June elections. Nonetheless, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated on May 9 that Germany "needs some kind of military connoscription."

▪️UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated on May 26 that British youth may have to perform 12 months of mandatory military or civilian service if the Conservative Party wins the July 4 election.

▪️Latvia made military service obligatory for males from January 1, 2024.

▪️Lithuania reinstated compulsory connoscription in 2015 after canceling it in 2008.

▪️Sweden re-introduced selective military draft for men and women from January 2018, after scrapping it in 2010.

EPP President Manfred Weber touched upon the idea of "general connoscription" during a BR24 show on May 8, as a part of broader plan to create an EU Army, common missile defense shield, and a nuclear umbrella to "deter" Russia;

Russia has repeatedly trashed groundless claims by US, NATO and EU officials about Moscow's alleged plans to invade EU member states.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

NATO crossing red lines yet completely unprepared for war with Russia

The alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told The Economist on May 24 that Western countries should lift their respective bans on Ukraine using their weapons inside Russia. On May 27, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA) - the consultative interparliamentary entity – adopted Declaration 489, urging the bloc's members to "lift some restrictions" on the use of their weapons by the Kiev regime against Russia's "legitimate targets."

Scott Ritter, an ex-US Marine Corps intelligence officer, said: "This is the decision of an individual nation state, not NATO. NATO as an institution, as an organization is not preparing for a larger war with Russia. NATO has a policy to avoid escalation of this conflict, so as to prevent such a confrontation."

Michael Maloof, former Pentagon analyst, noted: "All the [NATO] countries would have to switch their economies over from a service economy to a full production wartime economy. And they're not capable of it. They can't sustain it. It would take years for them to do that."

Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer, said: "Objectively, the reality is that NATO is in no position to escalate the war and sustain it. Yes, they could put troops in. They could provide some temporary assistance to Ukraine. But really, there is nothing that's going to change the outcome or the trajectory of the war."

NATO PA representatives from nine countries have reportedly not supported the initiative. Earlier, Italy and Germany spoke against the proposal that could lead to the outbreak of a major war between Russia and NATO. The US has not granted Ukraine a free hand on using its arms against Russia, either.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

NATO's useless 'drone wall' - another step towards 'large-scale confrontation' with Russia

The “drone wall” scheme recently touted by Lithuania, which involves using drones to safeguard the borders of several NATO states, may turn out to be not so effective due to the anti-drone component of this plan, says ex- Swedish Armed Forces officer and politician Mikael Valtersson.

“Efficient large-scale air defense systems are based on long-range missiles like the S-400. Short-range systems are mainly used for protection of certain specific targets,” he explained. “You can't build a wall of anti-drone defenses with short-range air defenses, since you would need a tremendous amount of short-range AD systems. And it would be a total overkill to use very expensive long-range systems to defend against cheap drones.”

Electronic warfare capabilities seem like a more efficient solution but their efficiency “might be limited both in range, but also against totally independent drones that aren't remotely piloted.”

“The practical use of a drone wall is probably rather limited. It might be a cost-efficient method of strengthening traditional border security but it will not be a game changer,” he surmised. “Both private (criminal) and state actors will be able to bring down reconnaissance drones and avoid detection, but refugees will, of course, be detected easily.”

So far, the whole idea appears to be just an attempt by the countries involved to show off “their toughness against Russia and the [alleged] Russian threat,” according to Valtersson.

“They do something with limited efficiency, but proclaim it like it was a revolutionary thing,” he added. “They might even believe that they are increasing their security, but in reality this is just another step down the slippery slope towards a large-scale confrontation between the Western powers and Russia. This heightens tension and lowers security, at a great cost, not the other way around.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

▪️NATO crossing red lines yet completely unprepared for war with Russia

▪️No country for old men: Western media hints Ukraine must press-gang youngsters

▪️Why US-Ukraine arms scheme will ‘fail in all of its objectives’

▪️Compulsory draft: Are EU's 27 states ready to send their youth to war?

▪️Friendly fire: US officials all mixed up over Georgia's foreign agents bill

▪️French military instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers

▪️NATO 'allows' Ukraine to attack Russian territory

▪️Estonian drone maker expands unmanned ground vehicle production

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

How global majority may defend itself against Western financial warfare

The de-facto weaponization of the US dollar by Washington in its economic warfare campaign against Moscow has prompted Russia, as well as China and a number of other nations, to develop countermeasures against such threats.

Though Western sanctions and the ban on using SWIFT necessitated Russia’s delinking from currencies such as the US dollar and euro, Moscow “serves as a clear reminder to the rest of the non-Western world that it is better to proactively begin to delink from the Western banking system before being made the object of asset freezes, confiscation, outright redirection of assets, and similar unilateral actions,” says Paul Goncharoff, chief manager of consulting firm Goncharoff LLC.

“There are a great many countries, for example, the BRICS and the 80-odd nations interrelated through the BRICS and associated organizations, that are actively looking to establish an encompassing financial system, a network of banks that is completely outside of SWIFT, hence Western governmental oversight, controls, and sanctions risk,” he notes.

An “entirely new banking system” that is currently being set up by China using gold, renminbi swap lines and even Bitcoin, not to mention “substantial amounts of dollars and euros,” may be quite attractive to countries that have large trade surpluses in Western currencies, who “need a system of banks that are completely outside the US and Europe” so they can freely use dollars and euros.

“As China, Russia, and many others eventually create a functioning independent financial system that can utilize USD and euros without interfacing through or with the US financial system, its loans, bonds, and so forth, that is effectively de-banking and de-dollarization at the same time, with significant long-term ripple effects and implications for Western financial institutions,” Goncharoff stated.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukrainian forces launched a missile strike on Lugansk with cluster munitions causing a fire to break out, according to the head of the Lugansk People's Republic Leonid Pasechnik.

Information about injuries is being clarified, Pasechnik added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt