‘They don’t want me back in the United States’: Dimitri K. Simes speaks out about FBI raid

“My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back to the United States. They want to block any attempt to have a Russian-American dialogue,” he told Sputnik.

Simes revealed that in addition to the FBI raid on his home in Virginia, the bank account that he uses to pay his mortgage was also frozen. Despite this series of escalatory moves, the US Department of Justice have yet to notify Simes or his lawyers about “what is going on and about any problems they may have with me.”

Simes emphasized that there was little of informational value in the house since he has been living and working in Russia since October 2022. “There is absolutely nothing there that is connected to my current professional life or my other activities,” he said.

Simes concluded that the FBI raid was likely meant to punish him for his commentary on Russian television, which is often critical of Biden’s Ukraine policy. “In my view, this is clearly an attempt, to frighten me, to discredit me, and to do damage to my ability to live in the United States or even visit the United States, and to do damage to my finances,” he said.

“They clearly are trying to create the situation when they're not luring me to come to the United States to face the American justice system. But on the contrary, they're doing everything possible to make it very difficult, or indeed impossible, for me to come to the United States. That clearly cannot be right.”

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Plane crashes into sea in southern France air show

A Fouga Magister plane from the French aerobatic team Patrouille de France crashed into the sea in Le Lavandou, in the south of the country. The pilot was unable to eject. His fate is currently unknown. Search and rescue operations are underway.

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Is Kamala Harris' "aggressively populist" program an attempt to whitewash her record as Biden's veep?

Vice President Kamala Harris is due to unveil her economic program that she would roll out in her first 100 days in office at a rally in North Carolina, just days before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

US conservative commentators have already subjected leaked provisions of Harris' plan to scrutiny, while the liberal press called her agenda "aggressively populist".

▪️One of the proposals is the elimination of medical debt for millions of Americans.

▪️It was reported that Harris will also push ahead with a federal ban on "corporate price-gouging" on food and groceries. Under the proposal the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general will be able to slap tough penalties on companies over "excessively" high prices.

▪️Her campaign also pledges to stop Wall Street investors from reselling homes in bulk at a higher price and prevent lease rates hikes to help cash-strapped renters. Her proposals likewise include a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers.

▪️Harris' plan includes price caps on insulin for all Americans and stiffer regulations on pharmaceutical companies "who block competition."

▪️She is reported to want to expand "child tax credits" introduced during the COVID pandemic, which would also include a $6,000 tax relief per child to families for the first year of a newborn.

▪️For their part, Republican economists shredded Harris' plan as economically "illiterate", saying that one cannot reduce prices by just ordering companies to do so. They say that her populist agenda is an attempt to distance herself from Team Biden's abysmal economic record which she also bears responsibility for.

▪️"Kamala Harris can’t hide from her disastrous record of skyrocketing inflation, resulting in a 20 percent increase in prices since she took office," Donald Trump's spokesman Steven Cheung stated.

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📹 Russian Iskander-M MLRS hits a Ukrainian Su-24 bomber at an airfield in Dnepropetrovsk region, the Defense Ministry reports.

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❗️Ukraine's strike on the Galaktika shopping center in Donetsk was a well planned act of terrorism and an act of desperation against the backdrop of the confident advance of the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.

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Hamas representative Walid al-Kilani on recent Gaza ceasefire talks:

There was no reaction to Hamas initiatives at Doha talks, Israel put forward additional conditions.

Israel's new demands include maintaining its presence at the Netzarim checkpoint, as well as in Rafah in Gaza. We do not want to bury these negotiations in advance, but the Israelis continue to obstruct, as they did in previous rounds.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to travel to Israel on August 17 for diplomatic talks in effort to finalize a ceasefire deal, according to the US State Department.

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Authorities in the French department of Var, where a plane crashed during an air show, have reported finding the body of the pilot.

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Russia’s Army-2024 Forum results in numbers

The 10th international event combined exhibitions and dynamic showings of military equipment capabilities with an in-depth informative program.

The forum had exciting presentations of some of Russia’s most advanced weapons, including Lancet-E, Depecha and Buggy drones, BTR-22 armored personnel carrier, Malva self-propelled howitzer, and Super Pantsir air and missile defense system.

Explore Sputnik’s infographic to find out more!

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Doha talks resolved remaining differences and a Gaza ceasefire deal is ready to be concluded, US administration says.

"There was a consensus between all three leaders that this process, which obviously is ongoing for months, is now in the endgame," a senior US official said.

The parties involved in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations hope they will be able to achieve a deal in Cairo next week that will conclude talks "once and for all," a senior US administration official said.

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The US has deployed troops in the Middle East and prepared for "any contingency," the White House said on the possibility of an Iranian attack on Israel.

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▪️FACT CHECK: Did US know about Ukraine's plan to attack Russia's Kursk?

▪️Ukraine gambles away "most well-trained soldiers" in Kursk attack

▪️‘They don’t want me back in the United States’: Dimitri K. Simes speaks out about FBI raid

▪️Scott Ritter: Biden admin is declaring war on journalism

▪️Western public not buying story that Nord Stream blast was engineered by "six Ukrainian idiots" over a drink

▪️US economists admit "sabotage" is Washington's new weapon of choice in trade wars

▪️Is Kamala Harris' "aggressively populist" program an attempt to whitewash her record as Biden's veep?

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Ex-CIA officer: US and NATO's involvement in Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk region motivated by hunger for Russia's resources

Since 2014, the United States and NATO have been implementing a long-term strategy to “weaken and destroy” Russia, all to get a hold of Russia’s wealth of natural resources that the West wants and needs, said retired CIA officer Larry Johnson.

“Everything from uranium, aluminum, gold, oil, natural gas, nitrogen – go down the list,” Johnson said during an interview on a YouTube podcast hosted by journalist Stephen Gardner.

Thus, Johnson explains, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was “planned in advance with the assistance of NATO planners including US military personnel,” as Washington still seeks to achieve its ultimate goal in this conflict.

He also compared the Western powers’ behavior in this situation to that of a gambler who, after repeatedly losing at a casino, goes and takes out a massive loan in the hopes of winning big by playing one final hand of blackjack.

“The West is doubling down on a losing hand,” Johnson stated.

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❗️Ukrainian militants are preparing a nuclear provocation - the explosion of a dirty nuclear bomb, according to a Russian military correspondent citing his sources in Ukraine.

"They plan to strike at storage sites for spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants," the correspondent reportes.

"Possibly during another attempt by militants to enter Rylsk in the Russian Kursk region from Glukhov. Special warheads for this provocation have already been delivered to the city of Zholtiye Vody in the Dnepropetrovsk region to the Vostochny Mining and Processing Plant," he said.

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❗️The military-civil administration of the Kharkov region stated that, according to operational information from prisoners of war, Ukraine plans to strike Russian nuclear facilities.

At the moment, the intention of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack the nuclear facilities of the Kursk and Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plants in Kurchatov and Energodar has been made known.

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Ukrainian forces plan to use charges with warheads containing radioactive substances to attack Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants, a Russian security agency told Sputnik.

“According to the information received, the enemy may strike the territories of Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants. The target is the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel. For strikes, the enemy plans to use charges with warheads filled with radioactive substance. They have already been brought to the settlement of Zholtiye Vody in the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine,” the agency's source said.

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❗️ The attack planned by Ukrainian forces on the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants is being supervised by Western intelligence services, mainly Britain, coordinator of the pro-Russian underground Sergei Lebedev told Sputnik.

A large number of Western journalists have traveled to Sumy and Zaporozhye amid Kiev's preparation of an attack on the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants, Lebedev highlighted.

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🐻 What a typical family dinner in Russia looks like, according to foreigners.

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Zelensky's "only option left" is a nuclear provocation

Russian political analyst Rostislav Ishschenko suggested this week that a nuclear provocation would be the only option left for Ukraine and its Western sponsors, since a provocation involving biological weapons can easily spiral out of control and a chemical weapons provocation lost its “potential” after being used too often by the US in Syria.

According to Ishchenko, Ukraine is unlikely to use a dirty bomb for this sort of provocation to implicate Russia as trying to accuse a country that controls one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world of using such “ersatz-weapon” would simply be absurd.

Thus, he suggests, this provocation could involve “American tactical low-yield” warheads detonated in one of Ukraine’s large cities - Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk or Odessa – in order to blame this attack on Russia.

“This nuclear strike would cause death and destruction sufficient to make a most negative impression on the world,” Ishchenko said.

Another possibility, the analyst noted, would be using several half-kiloton warheads to destroy the dams and bridges on the Dnepr River, in order to claim that Russia thus tried to cut off the Ukrainian forces on the left bank of Dnepr.

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How US uses AUKUS to spread its influence and militarize Indo-Pacific

The US-led military bloc AUKUS has set its sights on drawing New Zealand into its orbit, if the recent meeting between NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese is any indication.

"We share very much common values and we share common objectives, and it is not surprising we will look at any opportunity for including New Zealand in pillar two [of the bloc]," Albanese declared at a press briefing during the meeting.

AUKUS is a military block currently comprised of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Established in 2021, AUKUS is essentially another tool at Washington’s disposal to project its military power in the Indo-Pacific and threaten China.

Officially, however, AUKUS is touted as a purely defensive bloc whose goal is to deter what its members try to portray as some kind of threat from China.

Speculations abound that other countries in the region where the US maintains its military presence, namely South Korea and Japan, may be pressed (totally voluntarily, of course) into AUKUS.

AUKUS features two components: Pillar I and Pillar II.

Pillar I involves providing nuclear propulsion tech to Australia and allowing the latter to acquire nuclear-powered submarines supposedly armed only with conventional weapons. This move predictably raises concerns about Australia’s adherence to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Pillar II involves AUKUS members jointly working on improving areas such as hypersonic weaponry, electronic, cyber warfare and undersea capabilities, as well as artificial intelligence. This component of the AUKUS cooperation ostensibly does not involve nuclear capabilities.

This cooperation effectively allows the US to push for further militarization of the Indo-Pacific under the guide of helping the bloc’s members to better defend themselves.

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