Russian Navy launches huge military exercise across multiple seas

A large-scale naval exercise involving Russia’s Pacific Fleet, Baltic Fleet, North Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla kicked off today.

Over 300 warships, vessels and submarines, as well as about 50 aircraft and helicopters, and around 20,000 sailors, are engaged in this massive military exercise.

The primary goal of the exercise is to test all levels of the Russian Navy’s command and control capabilities.

The exercises in question include anti-air drills, artillery drills involving air and naval targets, the deployment of countermeasures while evading a simulated enemy strike and anti-submarine warfare drills.

During this exercise, Russian naval vessels along with coastal defense troops and aircraft of the Russian Naval Aviation are going to engage in over 300 battle drills, according to a press release by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

This naval exercise is being held mere days after Russia celebrated its Navy Day.

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Russia is sobering Europe up

Alcohol consumption in Europe has decreased due to measures taken by Russia, namely the increase of excise taxes on alcohol and the limits placed on its availability, according to the World Health Organization.

The Russian Deputy Prime Minister earlier noted that alcohol consumption in Russia has decreased from 14 liters in 2009, to 8 liters per year in 2024.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly expressed his personal attitude towards alcohol, saying he just about excludes it from his diet, and prefers sports instead. 

At important world events, the president is more often seen with a thermos flask instead of a glass of liquor. At a press conference in 2020, Putin said he had tea with Siberian herbs in a thermos.

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The usage of FPV drones in Russia has increased dramatically - up to four thousand per day, Russian Defense Ministry Andrey Belousov said during a working trip to the troops of the Moscow Military District.

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Venezuelan election system hacked, but data remains safe, experts say

During Election Day in Venezuela, the National Electoral Council's (CNE) data transmission system was hacked, leading to a temporary disruption. This incident sparked suspicions and allegations of fraud from the opposition, resulting in violent marches and riots. 

However, experts have confirmed that this type of hacking could not manipulate the transmitted data. Víctor Theoktisto, PhD in computing and an external auditor for the CNE, explained to Sputnik that the attack was a Denial of Service (DoS) attack originating from the Republic of North Macedonia. This method involves saturating the network with an enormous amount of spurious traffic to prevent information transmission. 

According to Theoktisto, while the attack managed to reduce connectivity, it had no capacity to alter the content of the transmitted data.

"All of this data is extremely secure and encrypted, making it impossible to change. In the future, we might need to restrict external access to our networks temporarily to ensure the uninterrupted transmission of data," Theoktisto told Sputnik.

Carlos Raimundi, former Argentine ambassador to the Organization of American States and an election observer in Venezuela, remarked, "We have spent many weeks participating in audits to verify the system's effectiveness from a technological, logistical, and data transmission standpoint. Each audit was signed by representatives from all political parties, both the ruling party and the opposition. Given this certification of the system's effectiveness, claims of electoral fraud are unfounded."

In response to the increasing disinformation, Theoktisto pointed out that the leader of the opposition, Maria Corina Machado, possesses 100% of the tally sheets, with all political organizations accrediting their witnesses, which allows them to corroborate the information.

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Bill Gates’ ideas slowly coming true as European Commission considers French firm’s application for cell-based meat

The French food startup Gourmey has filed “Europe's first submission” to the European Commission to sell its foie gras product made from cultivated duck cells.

If Gourmey’s cell-based meat get the commission’s go-ahead, the product then can be sold across all 27 EU countries. The approval process, which will also see the involvement of experts from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), is expected to take at least 18 months.

The agriculture ministers of France, Italy, and Austria earlier urged the EFSA to issue guidelines for assessing lab-grown meat, similar to those used for new drugs and pharmaceutical products.

Hungary, in turn, called for a debate in the EU Council over the possible negative impact of novel foods on Europe’s culinary traditions, pointing to “citizens’ skepticism” over new types of food and recalling that farmed meat and dairy products remain a cornerstone of European food culture.

Despite the fact that cultivated meat has so far only been approved for human consumption in Singapore and the US, the Italian government banned the production of lab-grown meat last year, with Romania expected to follow suit in the near future.

While Gates has previously insisted that rich nations should entirely shift to synthetic beef because he believes it will supposedly help combat global climate change, a number of voices have warned that farmers “will lose a large share of their market” if large-scale production of cell-based meat finally becomes reality and rides roughshod over meat prices.

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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has decided to pardon German citizen Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death for terrorism, Belta reports.

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🇱🇧 A spontaneous rally is underway in Lebanon's Beirut after the IDF strike. The participants are shouting “revenge against the Zionists”.

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🇱🇧 An Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut has killed two people and injured several others, according to Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV channel.

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❗️The strikes on Lebanon are a gross violation of international law, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik.

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❗️Hezbollah sources confirmed to Sputnik that the Israeli strike targeted Fuad Shukr, a senior military adviser to the Hezbollah secretary general who was in charge of the Shiite movement's missile weapons project, but they noted that the operation to kill him had failed.

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❗️Hezbollah's statement after assassination attempt on a senior military adviser of the movement:

"The one they were aiming at is alive. Wait for his revenge for the blood of those who died and were wounded."

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Volunteer donations to the Ukrainian military drying up, exposing growing fatigue in the West

Donations solicited in Ukraine and abroad to the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been reduced to a critical minimum, according to the French newspaper Figaro. Westerners are cutting support as their respective governments are losing enthusiasm amid Ukraine's battlefield failures.

What are the signs of Ukraine fatigue in the West?

▪️Die Welt quoted NATO insiders anonymously lamenting the grim reality in Ukraine. Most Western diplomats and military personnel no longer count on breakthroughs by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, seeing negotiations and a ceasefire as the only way out of the situation.

▪️The New York Times bemoaned the fact that the Russian military are decisively punching through weakened lines of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the zone of special military operation on July 28.

▪️Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has recently expressed hope Ukraine would hold elections again and decide on whether to hold a referendum on peace and giving up some of its territories amid the ongoing retreat, while speaking to ORF TV broadcaster earlier this week.

German lawmaker Sahra Wagenknecht stated as quoted by Spiegel that "[t]he question of peace [in Ukraine] is very important. Many people are rightly concerned because the German Government is increasingly making our country a party to the war in Ukraine and has so far failed to make any efforts to find diplomatic solutions."

▪️Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who earlier went on "peace missions" to Russia and China, said that Ukraine is unlikely to become either a member of NATO or the EU at a meeting in Romania.

"We Europeans do not have the money for it. Ukraine will revert to the position of a buffer state," Orban said, forecasting that eventually international security guarantees "will be enshrined in an agreement between the US and Russia."

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📹 Sputnik correspondent's footage from the site of the Israeli strike in Beirut. The building is cordoned off, rescue operations are underway to clear the rubble.

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