The Elysee Palace has denied reports that Macron intends to resign.

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Riots break out across France following right-wing victory in EU elections

Violent clashes have erupted in Paris, Marseille, Rennes, Bordeaux, Montpellier, and Besançon as leftist demonstrators protested against the recent right-wing win in the EU elections.

Police resorted to tear gas in Paris, where protestors were heard chanting "ACAB" (All Cops Are B*stards).

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❗️Russian special services have established the involvement of Ukrainian military intelligence in the organization of the terrorist attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall, the director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, has reiterated.

In May, at a meeting in Kyrgyzstan, he said that "the military intelligence of Ukraine is directly related" to the terrorist attack.

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❗️Russia's military liberated the settlements of Artemovka in the Lugansk People's Republic and Timkovka in the Kharkov region, the Ministry of Defense reported.

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

▪️Units of the Yug Battlegroup have improved their situation along the front line. Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 740 soldiers;

▪️Units of the Tsentr Battlegroup improved their tactical situation in their area of responsibility and repelled five counterattacks by Ukrainian troops;

▪️ Units of the Vostok Battlegroup occupied more advantageous positions, Ukrainian forces in their area of responsibility lost up to 135 military personnel and a tank;

▪️Units of the Sever Battlegroup defeated two brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kharkov region, enemy losses per day amounted to over 265 military personnel;

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 560 soldiers in the zone of responsibility of the Zapad Battlegroup in one day;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down 45 Ukrainian drones, two Hammer bombs and ten HIMARS missiles.

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💥Another Abrams was destroyed near the village of Progress, Donetsk People's Republic.

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Poland braces for EU procedure over high budget deficit caused by massive Ukraine military spending

The EU’s infringement procedure “will be definitely launched” against Poland due to its excessive government deficit, the country’s Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski has told reporters.

He expressed hope that the bloc’s recommendations will be very "mild" because Poland purportedly “invests in the security for the whole of the European Union," which is why he said Warsaw needs to increase defense spending.

In the EU, if a country’s deficit is above 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), it is put under an excessive deficit procedure and must cut it by 0.5% annually. Domanski earlier said that “4.1% of the GDP is the share we [Poland] spend on defense this year and next year it will be more."

The country’s general governance deficit stood at 5.1% of GDP in 2023, with economists projecting the figure will soar to 5.4% before the end of this year, according to a Reuters poll.

Per Poland’s Ministry of Finance, the country’s high deficit is the result of the arms supplies to Ukraine and Warsaw’s massive expenditure on the Polish Army.

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The vice president of Malawi and all other plane passengers did not survive the crash — reports

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Small missile ship ‘Stavropol’ launched near Kazan

The ship is part of the “Buyan-M” project and is expected to be sent to the Baltic Sea after it is lowered into the waters of Russia's Zelenodolsk, according to the media.

“The appearance of the new ship is certainly a strengthening of the Baltic Fleet. Sweden and Finland have decided to abandon their neutral policy. Therefore, eight more long-range missiles are not superfluous for the Baltic Fleet,” military expert Dmitry Boltenkov explained.

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❗️Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu called the nuclear drills an appropriate response to Ukraine's actual permission to launch missile strikes against civilian targets.

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❗️"All delegations spoke in favor of reforming the global system of international relations, taking into account the interests of the countries of the Global South," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference following the BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting.

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❗️Key statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a press conference following the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting:

🔸 The mood of the West to defeat us [Russia] on the battlefield is not supported by any of the BRICS participants.

🔸 The United States and its allies are undermining the international financial architecture.

🔸 They are using neocolonial and unscrupulous methods by manipulating the dollar basket.

🔸 We [the participants of the BRICS FM meeting] stressed the need for consistent efforts to create a new world order, where the equality of independent states will be the key.

🔸 We are of the common opinion that BRICS should play an initiative role in these processes.

🔸 Everyone knows that the BRICS countries already serve as the locomotive of the world economy.

🔸 Following the results of the BRICS meeting, a joint statement was adopted yesterday, outlining a common position on key issues on the international agenda.

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EU Parliament campaign fail: Mainstream clings to anti-Russian dogma to smear opposition

The European polls proved that the public is likely to back pragmatic pro-peace politicians despite any major propaganda crusade against them, before, and even during the vote.

🌏 Politico compiled a list of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs), which “opposed, abstained or missed” the 16 “anti-Russia” resolutions. The outlet examined lawmakers’ voting records on 16 resolutions since 2020 and uncovered 30 MEPs that “withheld their support”. On the day of the vote, Politico published their names, as most of them were from Identity and Democracy and The Left blocs.

🌏 Mainstream media continues to dismissively label Slovak PM Robert Fico as “pro-Russian” for his refusal to engage in the Ukraine crisis and antagonize Moscow. Moreover, the EU press mostly ignored the attack on the leader, and instead focused on the narrow gap in votes between the Progressive Slovakia and Fico’s Smer-SD as “a triumph” of “Pro-EU liberals”.

🌏 The Slovak premier forgave his attacker who wounded him, but denounced the smear campaign against him: “I want to ask the media… co-owned by George Soros, to conduct the so-called Robert Fico test. Here is my question: How would they act if something similar happened to one of the leaders of the Slovak opposition and the attacker was someone with connections to the Smer– SD party?… I basically disagree with the only-one-right-opinion policy that some major Western democracies are aggressively promoting today,” he said.

🌏 Rivalling Polish parties smeared each other for “collaborating” with Moscow, despite their clearly anti-Russian stance. PM Tusk reinstated a government commission opposing “Russian influence”, which he had previously denounced as “un-democratic.” Ironically, Tusk’s main adversary, ex-PM Morawiecki, claimed that ”all political groups in the Euro-Parliament are infiltrated by Russia.”

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More statements by Russian Foreign Minister:

▪️It is the West that is trying to divide the world by creating different blocs.

▪️Borrell's infamous saying that Europe is a garden surrounded by a jungle, and Blinken's statement that those who do not want to sit at the democratic table risk being on the menu served at that table - this is pure neocolonialism. And BRICS is against it.

▪️The countries of the Global South no longer want to be dependent on the double standards of the West and its whims.

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Russian FM Sergey Lavrov spoke about the creation of a state of Palestine during a press conference following the meeting of BRICS ministers

Lavrov said that Russia consistently condemned the measures that Israel began to apply in response to the Hamas terrorist attack, noting the unacceptability of these actions. He added that Israel's operation must be stopped immediately and that after, it is necessary to proceed without pause to the full creation of the State of Palestine according to UN rules. The foreign minister noted that all initiatives of Russia and Arab countries at the UN were blocked by the United States.

“Literally yesterday, the UN Security Council adopted an American draft resolution. It contained information about supposedly reached agreements between Hamas and Israel and the transfer of hostages. We tried to get confirmation that such an agreement exists. But the Israeli delegation did not confirm anything; The Israelis said they would not participate in endless and pointless negotiations. They noted that the goal of eliminating Hamas remains unchanged. This is sad,” said Lavrov.

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China intercepts Dutch helicopter near Shanghai, lambasts the Netherlands for provocation

The Dutch military has created a dangerous situation in the East China Sea using a UN mission as a cover-up, Chinese Ministry of Defense representative Zhang Xiaogang has said. He added that Beijing urges the Netherlands to limit any activities of their armed forces in the region and vows decisive counter-measures in response to provocations near China’s territory.

The statement came in response to Netherlands saying that one People’s Liberation Army helicopter and two fighter jets approached a helicopter assigned to a Dutch frigate in the East China Sea. The Dutch claimed that the incident happened in international airspace and that the vessel was overseeing the implementation of a UN Security Council resolution on North Korea sanctions.

Beijing debunked these claims, explaining that the helicopter assigned to the Tromp-class frigate of the Royal Netherlands Navy entered the airspace east of Shanghai. The command of the People’s Liberation Army had to use its fighter jets to expel the helicopter from the area after warning its crew.

“[These steps] were legal and purposeful, everything was done professionally and according to standards. It is the Netherlands not China who created the dangerous situation," Zhang underlined.

He added that the Netherlands uses the UN mission as a pretext for the power projection in the regions that are under the jurisdiction of other countries.

“Dutch statements and activities have a malevolent nature, we condemn them and we’ve send a demarche," he stressed, adding that China will take decisive countermeasures on any future violations or provocations.

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Ukraine needs $10-30 billion per year over the next ten years to recover - Prime Minister Denis Shmygal

As the official mentioned on his Telegram channel, he made the statement during a two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference held in Germany's Berlin.

Wonder which countries' taxpayers' money will be paying for this...

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