Jeff Monson, mixed martial arts fighter, in an interview with Sputnik explained his rejection of American citizenship by the fact that he didn't want to be a citizen of a country that finances murder and supplies weapons.

📌 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️LIVE: Lavrov holds round-table meeting on Ukraine with heads of diplomatic missions

👉 Watch the livestream here or on Sputnik's website

📌 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Russian aviation destroyed two Ukrainian naval drones approaching Crimea, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

📌 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Massive shelling is taking place in Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and Energodar, where the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is located, Zaporozhye governor Evgeny Balitsky said, urging residents not to go outside.

📌 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹Russian Grad MLRS crew annihilated Ukrainian stronghold in Donetsk People's Republic near Seversk settlement.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Key statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a roundtable on Ukraine with heads of diplomatic missions:

💬 Russia believes that the United States may ask Asian countries to host medium- and shorter-range missiles.

💬 Many analysts believe that after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Warsaw Pact, the NATO bloc should have been dissolved.

💬 The reason for the non-dissolution of NATO was the ineradicable desire of the United States to preserve the alliance as an instrument of control over Europe.

💬 NATO is trying to completely take over Moldova by installing leaders who act in the interests of the West, not the people, and there are many examples of this.

💬 The West's struggle for hegemony is a struggle for the passing era, the agony of the world order that the United States imposes on others is beginning.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Macron has completed his three-day visit to Berlin, and the media are actively discussing the results:

🔸 Tagesschau:

The biggest differences still exist on the subject of the economy. While Macron wants an investment shock for Europe, a doubling of the investment budget, Scholz dodges at this point. Perhaps he knows that even the discussion about new debts should not please his traffic light partner FDP (Free Democratic Party).

🔸 Berliner Morgenpost:

As for Ukraine aid, the Chancellor and the President of France are pursuing different strategies. Macron and Scholz are not pulling in the same direction on key issues. Macron is more offensive than Scholz on the issue of Ukraine's military equipment. Although he is in favor of maximum support, but – to put it casually – with the handbrake on. Germany is the second largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine... but the Chancellor is building in "red lines". He fears an escalation of the war in Ukraine and the danger that NATO could become a war party.

🔸 Bloomberg:

Scholz and Macron, whose sometimes difficult relationship and lack of chemistry are in the spotlight, face pressure to show the Franco-German engine can drive progress on issues such as joint defense, aid to Ukraine and how to meet the EU’s funding needs.

🔸 Bild:

There is a big money fight going on behind the scenes. As the politicians strolled around the estate, dark clouds gathered in the sky. This has become serious because: Macron wants to double the EU budget - Scholz has not commented on this yet. There is not a word about this in the joint article written by both politicians.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Ukrainian losses amounted to 245 military personnel and six ammunition depots in the area of responsibility of the Yug Battlegroup

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

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to 125 soldiers in the area of responsibility of the Vostok Battlegroup;

▪️Units of Russia’s Zapad Battlegroup occupied more advantageous positions, defeated six Ukrainian brigades and the National Guard;

▪️Units of Russia’s Vostok Battlegroup occupied more advantageous positions and defeated the troops and equipment of two brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

▪️The Sever Battlegroup defeated enemy brigades and repelled four attacks by Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian losses amounted to 165 soldiers;

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to 400 soldiers in the area of responsibility of the Zapad Battlegroup;

▪️Units of the Yug Battlegroup improved the situation along the front line and hit troops and equipment of three brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 plane and 31 drones in one day.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Iran reacts to Nikki Haley's innoscription on Israeli bomb

While Nikki Haley is writing a "memorial" on an Israeli shell, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah are being cut off from the Internet so that residents can't even talk about what has happened to them in recent days, Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, wrote on his X page.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Israeli National Security Council chief opens up about the possible duration of Gaza hostilities

"Fighting in the Gaza Strip will continue for at least another seven months," Israeli National Security Council chief Tzachi Hanegbi said, as broadcast by Israel's 12 TV channel.

The Israeli army already controls 75% of the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, running along the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the official added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️EXCLUSIVE: Zelensky has become an impostor since May 21 – former Ukrainian PM

"It is absolutely obvious to anyone who is familiar with electoral law and the Constitution of Ukraine that Zelensky has become an impostor since May 21," former Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolay Azarov tells Sputnik. Under the Ukrainian Constitution, the president's tenure is limited to five years.

Despite calls from the West to secure a second tenure via general elections in Ukraine, Zelensky refused to do so using the pretext of martial law. The problem is that Zelensky's martial law pretext doesn't hold water, argues the former prime minister.

"Zelensky did not declare war [against Russia]. He also did not announce any military operation. He simply introduced martial law. Why did you introduce martial law if you are not declaring war?" Azarov asked.

As Zelensky's tenure expired on May 20, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) and its speaker are now the only legitimate power in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters on May 28, adding that the Ukrainian Constitution provides for the extension of the powers of the parliament, but not the president, in the event of martial law.

Earlier, Zelensky sabotaged the work of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court, continued Azarov, explaining why the former Ukrainian leader did not submit a request to the body to allow him to extend his powers.

The West, including the US, is well aware of the fact that Zelensky has lost his legitimacy, according to Azarov. Hence, the latest visit of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Kiev.

"Now the West can do whatever it wants. It can hold all sorts of meetings and summits anywhere. But that cannot cancel the norm of the Constitution [of Ukraine]," Azarov concluded.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

British ex-pilots sue MoD over cancer linked to helicopter fumes

Nearly 40 former British Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and aircrew who developed cancer after being exposed to toxic fumes from military helicopters are taking legal action against the Ministry of Defence (MoD), The Times reported.

The government has been aware of the risks posed by the fumes since 1999, but has done nothing about it, according to testimony from sick personnel and their family members.

The number of those taking legal action is expected to double in the coming weeks. At least three of the plaintiffs are known to have died, and some former personnel have received out-of-court settlements.

The pilots, who flew Sea King, Westland Wessex, Puma and CH-47 Chinook helicopters, have been diagnosed with lung cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, throat cancer, multiple myeloma and testicular cancer. Notably, while the Sea King and Westland Wessex helicopters have been retired, the Puma and Chinook remain in service with the RAF.

Jonathan Dingle, a leading barrister at Normanton Chambers who is working on the cases, told The Times that exhaust gases from the engines, which contain the carcinogen benzene, "were apparently sucked through the cabin and out through the cockpits - mixing as the air which everyone onboard the aircraft was breathing".

A MoD spokeswoman has since responded by saying that those who "believe they have suffered ill health due to service from April 6, 2005, have the existing and long-standing right to apply for no-fault compensation under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt