Russia respects Serbia's independence’ unlike other countries – Serbia’s deputy PM

Moscow maintains that other nations have the right to determine their own political path, in contrast to other geopolitical actors, Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia Aleksandar Vulin told Sputnik.

“I would be happy to meet a British Foreign Secretary who would say that Serbia has the right to its own elections, its own future,” he stressed.

Russia has never said that the EU is a problem — unlike NATO, which is actively involved in the fight against it — which is understandable, Vulin emphasized.

“It’s your choice, you have to develop, if you think that's the way, fine,” he commented on the different approaches to international relations.

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Iran hawks’ hacking claims designed to distract Americans from nation’s real problems

“There is little doubt that the rhetoric itself has more impact than the substantiation of these accusations,” political scientist Dr. Mehmet Rakipoglu of Mardin Artuklu University told Sputnik, referring to the recent US intelligence officials' claims that Iran had tried to hack the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns.

“Creating artificial agendas such as [the Iran hacking allegations] intensifies hostilities between the parties involved. This accusation seems to be aimed at diverting attention from Israel's actions in Gaza and refocusing it on the US election process,” Rakipoglu said.

“It is already clear that the American public is deeply divided, regardless of whether there is an alleged Iranian attack. It is not Iran or any other external actor that is responsible for these divisions, but rather the US administrations themselves,” the academic added.

In some sense, the claims against Iran are reminiscent of similar allegations made against Russia ahead of and following the 2016 elections, Rakipoglu said.

“While the US propagated a narrative of Russian interference during the 2016 elections, it continued to lose influence over time. It seems that the current accusation against Iran serves the same purpose as the allegations against Russian interference in 2016,” the observer concluded.

Iran has vocally denied the hacking allegations, saying they are “unsubstantiated” and that the US has provided no evidence to back them up.

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Poland’s role in the Nord Stream incident: inciter and accomplice?

August Hanning, former head of the German intelligence service BND, accused the Polish president of “having backstage agreements” with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.

Those deals got Poland “massively involved in the preparations” of the attack against Nord Stream pipeline, Hanning said, adding that it was the reason why Poland “had no interest” in helping to investigate who blew up three out of the four Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022 – and why.

Hanning’s statement is just one of many revelations pointing to Poland’s role in the sabotage:

◻️ According to a Wall Street Journal story, after leaving the German port of Rostock, the yacht Andromeda made a visit to the Polish port of Kolobrzeg on September 19, where the saboteurs allegedly loaded the explosives.

◻️ Polish authorities let one of the Andromeda’s alleged crew, identified by Germans as Volodymyr Z., escape from Poland to Ukraine in late summer, despite Germany issuing an arrest warrant in June and a specific request for help from a German prosecutor.

◻️ Wolodymyr Z. not only escaped to Ukraine but also made a public statement to the media there, denying his guilt. Ukraine did not arrest him, and the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk turned down German requests for help – telling Germans that “the only thing you should do today is to apologize and keep quiet” and calling them “initiators and patrons” of Nord Stream.

◻️ There was also no Ukrainian response to the allegations against another diver – who is in Ukrainian jail for an unrelated crime.

Unlike Germany, for which the explosions cost tens of billions of lost profits, Poland and Ukraine had a material interest in the destruction of Nord Stream, because the pipeline would have greatly reduced both Ukraine's and Poland's role in transiting natural gas to the EU.

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Pakistani Army successfully launches a Shaheen-II surface-to-surface ballistic missile

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🇮🇳📹 A massive landslide has hit the 510 MW Teesta-V power plant in the Indian state of Sikkim.

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❗️Air defenses shot down 10 UAVs flying toward Moscow overnight

This was one of the all-time largest attempted attacks on the Russian capital with drones, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said

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Russia has accused Latvia of involvement in the Ukraine conflict

A statement by the Latvian Defense Ministry on sending drones to Kiev is confirmation of Riga's growing involvement in the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

According to her, Riga is deliberately adding fuel to the fire, provoking the geographical expansion of military operations, and does not hide its glee at the use of its weapons by the Kiev regime to kill civilians and shell Russian cities.

At the end of July, Latvian authorities reported the delivery of 500 UAVs to Kiev. Later, Latvia’s Defense Minister Andris Spruds said his country had already prepared another 500 drones to be sent to Ukraine.

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❗️Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region was prepared with the participation of US, UK, and Polish intelligence services, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said.

The agency’s press office told Russian media that units involved in the Ukrainian aggression in the Kursk region had undergone combat coordination at training centers in the UK and Germany.

Military advisers from NATO countries are helping to control the Ukrainian units that have attacked Russian territory, and are transmitting satellite reconnaissance data to them.

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❗️A direct hit was reported in Galitsinovo, Nikolayev region, where the Neo-nazi Kraken* unit is stationed, the local pro-Russian resistance told Sputnik.

The strike likely hit a warehouse with missiles.

*Kraken is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.

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