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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👉 Check out the amount of work Sputnik did during SPIEF 2024

Sputnik worked up a sweat so that you would hear the most interesting things before anyone else!

22 languages. 27 hours of radio airtime. 130 interviews. 3,481 publications on social networks. 837 articles on websites.

This is all Sputnik at SPIEF 2024!

#SPIEF2024

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🇮🇷 The finance ministers of the BRICS countries are in the process of completing the de-dollarization of financial and trade relations between members of this group, all within the framework of a program, Iran's IRNA news outlet writes, quoting acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri.

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“You are just being encircled, end of story” – Ukrainian POW tells how soldiers hide in “mini-pits” around Kharkov

Ukrainian Army detachments took refuge in numerous “mini-pits” around Kharkov, Kirill Docenko, a surrendered soldier of the 415th Rifle Battalion of the Ukrainian Army, told the press.

"Everyone knew what was going on... We saw your [Russian] equipment, saw your troops. There was no counter-battery fire on our behalf, we saw no support from heavy military equipment. We just sat and waited until the moment when your army approached our positions. The battle broke out and that’s it,” Docenko explained.

He added that Ukrainian troops ignored orders to establish perimeter defenses and started to retreat, being caught in the “mini-pockets” by the Russian Army.

“Those who could – retreated, fled. Platoon strong points [were made]... to establish at least some kind of defense... But everything was done wrong and you just get encircled, end of story. And you will not break out,” POW said.

Docenko was wounded and his peers hid in a cavity from shelling. He blacked out and spent up to five days in a pit earlier used by the Ukrainian Army as a cesspool. He woke up when Russian forces had already taken the location.

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US and Israel to establish ‘counter-tunneling military exercises’ amid Gaza war

The US and Israeli militaries are expected to conduct joint drills to check the Jewish state’s capability to combat militants and smugglers in underground tunnels, in line with the latest draft of the House Armed Services Committee’s proposed defense spending bill worth $895 billion.

The document’s Section 1233 would “require military exercises in the US Central Command area of responsibility to conduct an annual counter-tunneling exercise with Israel,” aimed at tackling a key advantage of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

According to the bill, US-funded technology initiatives developed by the Department of Defense’s “Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate” made it possible to detect more than 1,500 “new tunnel shafts built under community structures including hospitals, schools, and homes in Gaza," since the escalation of the Palestine-Israel conflict last fall.

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"This train has been slowed down" — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the results of the European Parliament elections

Orban pointed out what needs to be done to prevent war and achieve peace:

The first is to achieve the victory of the "peace parties" in the European Parliament elections. The second condition, according to Orban, is the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections.

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the upcoming conference on Ukraine in Switzerland a "plant" that needs to be watered in order for the "garden" of peace negotiations to blossom.

According to Scholz, there may come a time in the future when Russia will sit down at the negotiating table. But Ukraine should decide when such a time comes, the German Chancellor noted.

Earlier, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Europe a "garden" that needs to be protected from the "jungle" of the outside world.

🤔 Is this the garden Scholz is talking about?

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Azov battalion: US says ‘no evidence’ of human rights abuses, but facts prove otherwise (Part 1)

The US State Department allowed American arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion (banned in Russia) after it “passed inspection for compliance with the Leahy Law,” which prohibits the provision of US military aid to foreign units convicted of serious human rights violations.

The State Department claimed it found “no evidence” of such abuses committed by Azov militants. It seems, however, the US executive body is deliberately turning a blind eye to a mountain of reports from various international organizations, listing their crimes:

▪️Since its foundation in 2014, the Azov battalion, created as a radical nationalist militia and eventually brought under Ukraine's National Guard, has repeatedly tortured civilians and POWs, in addition to committing violent criminal felonies such as rape, robbery and terrorism.

▪️Prior to the Russian special military operation, international organizations, including rights groups, reported on “Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem,” and the war crimes carried out by Azov militants in Donbass.

▪️The US-based Anti-Defamation League listed the Azov brigade in 2019 as a “Ukrainian extremist group” with ties to the US-based neo-Nazi organization, Atomwaffen, and similar white supremacist movements in Europe.

▪️A previous UN report highlighted that the Azov militants committed mass acts of the looting throughout Donbass and regularly shelled residential areas.

▪️The head of the UN monitoring mission, Matilda Bogner, stated that there was "reliable information" regarding the torture of Russian servicemen by Ukrainian soldiers.

▪️Human Rights Watch for its part expressed concern that cases of torture and other crimes by the Azov battalion could go "completely unchecked."

*The 'Azov' battalion is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia.

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❗️Hunter Biden found guilty on all three counts in his gun possession violations case

The US president's son now faces up to 25 years in prison.

The 54-year-old was charged of illegal possession of a Colt Cobra 38 Special revolver, purchased in October 2018, as well as providing false data to the seller of the weapon and registration authorities.

According to the investigation, when filling out the mandatory documents for the purchase of weapons, he indicated that he did not use drugs - in reality, he experienced drug addiction from 2015 to 2019, about which he wrote in his own memoirs and repeatedly publicized.

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