State propaganda and harassment explain restrained public reaction to US long-range missile deployment in Germany – former MEP 

Gunnar Beck, former European MP from AfD party, notes that there was no public discussion on the fateful decision to deploy US long-range missiles in Germany. 

“It’s a fait accompli,” Gunnar Beck told Sputnik. “All that talk of an imminent Russian threat to Europe, in my view, is just a pretext for justifying further military and financial assistance to Ukraine and… for intimidating the European population and forcing them to accept ever larger amounts of military spending.” 

The politician underscored that restrained public reaction comes from “relentless propaganda over Ukraine” for the last two and a half years.

"People who speak out against government policy are harassed, they may lose their jobs. If they post critical comments on the Internet, they may be sued. We have a real problem with freedom of speech and the rule of law now… It explains why there's been no significant public reaction. I think people are tired," Beck explained.

According to the Forsa opinion poll, 47% of Germans believe that the planned deployment of US missiles in Germany will increase the risk of a military confrontation between NATO and Russia. Only 17% of the surveyed think that it would boost German security.

“That's the propaganda situation we have in the EU, and that's perhaps why there's been no real public protest,” Beck laments. “There comes a point when most people submit and are simply weary… The Europeans are simply giving up on their own continent, and their governments will triumph and have their way because the Europeans are so afraid.”

In 1990, the Two Plus Four Agreement on the reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic stated that no foreign troops and nuclear weapons could be deployed on the territory of the latter.

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🇻🇳 General Secretary of Vietnam's Communist Party Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong passed away at 1:38 p.m. Friday at the 108 Military Central Hospital in Hanoi due to old age and severe illness.

The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam is expected to issue a special notice on his state funeral.

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‘Domestic cybersecurity software’ has protected Russia’s IT infrastructure from Microsoft/Crowdstrike outage

Thanks to timely import substitution, in this case “precisely because airlines use Russian means of protection,” Russia has been able to dodge computer outage caused by a faulty code update to US cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike’s software, says Russian cybersecurity specialist Alexei Lukatskiy.

“If Russian airlines had been using Crowdstrike for protection, rather than domestic cybersecurity software, Russian airlines would be facing exactly the same problem…,” Lukatskiy told Sputnik.

Lukatskiy noted that Russian timely investments in homegrown cybersecurity tools alongside with “switching away from products by foreign vendors to Russian ones” was the right path and Friday’s outages thus confirm it.

Another important takeaway, according to Lukatskiy, lies in the modern world’s heavy dependence on information technology.

“IT has penetrated into a wide array of different areas, and the owners of companies working in critical industries must understand all the consequences and evaluate the unacceptable events...,” the expert stated.

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⚡️A court has sentenced WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in a high-security prison, a Sputnik correspondent reports

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Yemen's Armed Forces: Tel Aviv is no longer a safe place

The official spokesman of the Yemeni Armed Forces, General Yahya Saree, in his statement taking responsibility for the morning drone strike on Tel Aviv, declared: "The drone unit of the Yemeni Armed Forces attacked an important target in the occupied territory of 'Jaffa,' which Israel calls 'Tel Aviv.'"

Saree added that the operation was conducted using a radar-protected drone named "Jaffa" and successfully reached its predetermined targets.

He stated that the Yemeni Armed Forces now "declare the occupied area of 'Jaffa' as unsafe", marking it as one of the primary targets within Yemen's strike range, focusing their efforts on hitting deep within the enemy's territory.

The official spokesman of the Yemeni Armed Forces emphasized that Yemen has a bank of military and sensitive security targets "deep within occupied Palestine and will continue to target these in response to the enemy's daily crimes" against the residents of the Gaza Strip.

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❗️"It was established and documented that the American journalist from The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, on assignment from the CIA, had gathered classified information in the Sverdlovsk region in March 2023, on the activities of the defense enterprise Uralvagonzavod, which is involved in the production and repair of military equipment," stated the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, adding that "his illegal actions were carried out within strict instructions of secrecy."

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Beijing Capital International Airport is operating normally on Friday despite a global IT outage, a Sputnik correspondent reports

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❗️ Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) lost up to 13,075 militants over the past week.

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

◻️ The Russian air defense system shot down three Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft and 305 drones.

◻️ Since the beginning of the SMO, Kiev has lost 630 aircraft.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Dnepr hit seven Ukrainian brigades, resulting in up to 715 militant casualties.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Sever repelled 23 counterattacks, with UAF losses amounting to up to 1,370 militants and five tanks.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Yug destroyed ten electronic warfare stations and 24 field ammunition depots of the UAF.

◻️ Ten Ukrainian unmanned boats were destroyed.

◻️ Russian forces carried out 11 strikes and drone attacks on Ukrainian airbases, air defense systems, and energy facilities.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Vostok liberated Urozhaynoye and repelled five UAF counterattacks, with enemy losses reaching up to 925 militants.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Zapad hit nine enemy brigades, resulting in UAF losses of up to 3,920 militants.

◻️ UAF lost up to 2,215 militants, 11 combat armored vehicles including Bradley and MaxxPro, in the Russian Battlegroup Tsentr's combat zone.

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Independent war correspondent and Chinese blogger Zhu Haozheng went to the front lines of Donbass, where he visited a training camp and spoke with volunteers from the international brigade "Pyatnashka."

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‘PR Nightmare’: CrowdStrike IT outage exposes risks of putting all cybersecurity eggs in one basket

"The PR aspect is, of course, a nightmare for CrowdStrike. Their stock tanked over 10% after the incident made global headlines," veteran independent cybersecurity expert Lars Hilse told Sputnik, commenting on the global IT infrastructure mess created by a faulty update to the US cybersecurity giant’s software. 

How will today's attack affect the company's revenues?

◻️ CrowdStrike continued its slide in shares throughout the day, falling as much as 20 percent in pre-market trading, and settling at $286 a share, or about 17% down, before the start of trading on Friday. 

◻️ Microsoft saw its own stock price tank slightly, from about $440 a share late Thursday, to about $435 a share, down 1.8% in pre-market trading on Friday.  

◻️ As CrowdStrike saw its stock tumble, other cybersecurity vendors benefited, likely on the back of investors betting that businesses may turn away from CrowdStrike and flock to competing firms: Fortinet cybersecurity company’s shares climbed 1.6%, shares of Palo Alto rose 1.3%, while those of Zscaler and Cloudflare were both up around 1% in pre-market trading. 

◻️ Analysts have also raised questions over CrowdStrike’s value — the company was worth $83.5 billion as of Thursday’s close. Nina Marques, an analyst at Redburn Atlantic, said that the firm faces challenges in competing with other cyber firms in the market, CNBC reported.

The main 'lesson' from the mess, will be heightening testing requirements for cybersecurity firms, prior to their update roll-outs, Hilse concluded.

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The UN Court considers Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories as de facto annexation, stated a judge.

The court also declared that Israel's settlement activities violate international law.

The UN Court believes that Israel must end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as soon as possible and pay reparations for the damages.

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Meet Astra, the Russian airline booking system that proved immune to global IT outage

Russia’s critical infrastructure hasn’t been affected by the global IT collapse triggered by a critical flaw in an update to CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software. Russia’s resilience has been attributed to the fact that the country uses homegrown cybersecurity tools, and Russian-made software for critical infrastructure applications.

Among the latter is Astra – the Russian automated system for processing passengers and baggage at airports. Here’s what we know about it.

◻️ Used by major Russian airports including Moscow’s Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo, and airports abroad in countries including Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, Astra is a widespread registration system developed by Russian technology provider Sirena-Travel.

◻️ The system is used to register up to six million passengers monthly. The ‘Departure Control System’ (DCS) provides for passenger and baggage check-in, schedule maintenance, the monitoring of the implementation of daily flight plans, interaction between passport and border control services, and dynamic monitoring of the weight loads of commercial flights.

◻️ Astra is compliant with the standards and requirements of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association representing over 80% of global air traffic, and supports all types of standard messages between other registration and booking systems. The system is bilingual (Russian and English), and training to use it can be completed in two days.

◻️ The software comes with standard support for various peripherals, including printers, scanners and weighing machines, and is compatible with the Russian security services’ ‘Magistral’ online passport and control service tool.

In the wake of Friday’s global airline booking system collapse, a representative from Domodedovo Airport said the airport was prepared to provide Astra to other airports as a backup registration system.

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When they told you that you don't need to run for president

Biden may announce his exit from the race this weekend, according to media reports.

Come up with your own caption for this video! Let's go!

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🇷🇺🇻🇳 Russian President Vladimir Putin offered condolences to his Vietnamese counterpart, To Lam, over the death of Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee, the Kremlin said.

Last month, Vladimir Putin and Nguyen Phu Trong met during the Russian President's visit to Vietnam.

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Elon Musk announced that the social network X has removed Crowdstrike software from all its systems. This decision comes after a recent update of the software caused a global Windows outage.

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A backup Air India flight has picked up the passengers of the flight that made an emergency landing in Krasnoyarsk a day ago and has now departed for San Francisco, airport officials told Sputnik.

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Former Ukrainian MP Iryna Farion, known for her controversial anti-Russian remarks, has sustained a gunshot wound in Lvov. Her condition is reported to be serious, according to Ukrainian media.

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CrowdStrike’s history of hijinks: the cybersecurity firm’s shady connections

A massive IT outage resulting from a faulty code update to CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software has afflicted infrastructure worldwide. Here are a few cases from CrowdStrike’s controversial and politicized past:

1️⃣ During the 2016 US election, the Clinton campaign asked none other than CrowdStrike for help investigating the hack attack against the Democratic National Committee – which had revealed embarrassing info about the party’s effort to rig the nomination process in Clinton’s favor.

◻️ CrowdStrike’s probe gave rise to the claim that Russia was behind the DNC hack, and the company provided its “forensic evidence and analysis” to the FBI, starting the ball rolling on the Russiagate conspiracy theory.

◻️ CrowdStrike executive Shawn Henry admitted under oath in 2017 that the company had no “concrete evidence” to back up its “Russian hackers” story.

2️⃣ CrowdStrike’s name also came up in the infamous 2019 phone call between then-President Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, with Trump asking him to “do us a favor” and “find out what happened” with CrowdStrike’s server, which Trump said was in Ukraine.

◻️ The Trump team was convinced CrowdStrike planted evidence on the DNC server to frame Russia while covering up Ukraine’s own efforts to “weaken the Trump bandwagon” during the 2016 election.

◻️ The Trump-Zelensky phone call, in which he also asked Kiev to look into Joe Biden’s role in firing of a prosecutor probing his son’s alleged corruption, sparked the first Trump impeachment.

3️⃣CrowdStrike was one a handful of firms tapped by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in 2021 to work out a ‘whole-of-nation’ cyber defense plan.

◻️ The same year, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz blamed Russian hackers for the 2020 SolarWinds hack attack on the US Federal Government, but admitted the company had no information of its own “to corroborate that finding.”

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