Jim Rogers: Durov’s detention could end France’s status as safe zone for high-tech business

“Whenever a country starts arresting high-level executives, especially [in] technology, or in an industry which is international and usual, it attracts attention, and many people will think it is unjustified and many people will say it's unjustified,” Jim Rogers, renowned investor and chairman of Beeland Interests and co-founder of Quantum Fund, told Sputnik.

“So I don't know, I hope that France knows what it's doing. If France has an ironclad 100% case, then it probably will not hurt them. Otherwise, many people will say ‘wait a minute, we don't want to do anything in France. It is too dangerous,’” Rogers warned.

“I don't know if anybody's guilty or not, but I will say this will make many people wonder about doing business in France. This will make many people check to see that everything they are doing in France is okay. It's an added level of expense. It's an added level of operation. Nobody wants to be caught doing something wrong in the country. And if people now worry about France, it's another expense. Another level of caution,” the veteran investor explained.

Pavel Durov was transferred to a Paris court for “initial questioning and possible indictment” today, days after his arrest at Paris’s Bourget Airport on a long list of dubious charges.

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◻️ How did Durov's arrest affect the cryptocurrency realm & country's reputation

◻️ Russia’s military medics are celebrating their professional holiday

◻️ Who's Pavel Durov's brother Nikolai and why are the French after him?

◻️ Russian hackers expose identities of over 7,700 revamped Neo-nazi Ukrainian militants

◻️ Did Macron set up Telegram CEO at US deep state’s behest

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Pavel Durov was placed under judicial supervision and is forbidden to leave territory of France, reports Paris prosecutor's office, adding he must pay bail in of 5 million euros

Durov was charged with six offenses, including administering online platform in order to commit illegal transactions, Paris prosecutor's office stated.

After being released on bail, Durov will be required to report to police twice per week.

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Why US-led ICE Pact won’t help NATO match Russia’s Arctic superpower status

The US, Canada and Finland have recently announced an ‘Icebreaker Collaboration Effort’ (ICE Pact) initiative in July – with the ultimate aim of building some 70-90 vessels over the next decade.

The US, which lacks experience or shipyards suitable for Arctic-class icebreakers, can simply dump money into the initiative, as Finland historically has been an important icebreaker-building power in its own right and Canada too has respectable icebreaker construction and operation experience owing to its large Arctic frontiers, pointed out Alexander Vorotnikov, coordinator of the Russian Project Office for the Development of the Arctic and associate professor at the Institute of Social Sciences at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

That said, the observer stressed that even together, these countries lack Russia’s Arctic “know-how,” from its experience using drifting ice stations, to knowledge on ice floes’ movement, unique knowledge of local weather, and information gleaned from decades of long-term observations by polar stations. “No one else has this. Only Russia has all of this knowledge together,” Vorotnikov said.

That’s because “we need these icebreakers to service the Northern Sea Route, which is critically required not only for cargo transit, but providing our northern territories with freight. The US has never had such tasks. They have only one Arctic-facing state – Alaska,” Vorotnikov explained.

Even as the US and its allies expand their icebreaker ambitions, Russia will remain one step ahead, the observer assured, since its icebreaker fleet (whose size already exceeds 45 large conventional and nuclear-powered icebreakers) will only continue to grow, with two new massive Project 22220 ships – the Stalingrad and the Leningrad, now under construction.

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Zelensky’s gas threats making Europeans ‘realize it’s not profitable to go to war with Russia’

“After the Hungarians, the Slovaks, the Austrians, the Italians, and even the Germans are beginning to realize that it is not profitable to go to war with Russia, pump money into Ukraine, and cut the umbilical cord between the eastern and western half of Europe,” Hungarian Community for Peace president Endre Simo told Sputnik, commenting on Volodymyr Zelensky’s announcement that Kiev has no plans to “extend the [gas transit] agreement with Russia” after the current agreement expires on December 31.

“The European Union has fallen victim to its own policy, as the announcement by...Zelensky fits perfectly into the European Union's policy of sanctions against Russia,” Simo said.

“Nevertheless, Kiev will probably not be thanked for the move, since the gas will bypass Ukraine, presumably through Turkiye, and from there through the Balkans and Hungary to EU western countries, and will be much more expensive. As a result, consumer goods and services will become even more expensive. Its price will be paid by Western European consumers. It is a question of how much they will accept the further reduction of their purchasing power and the further deterioration of their standard of living,” he added.

“We actually owe Zelensky a debt of gratitude for his decision, as he proved to the country and the world who is a reliable economic partner and who is not. While Ukraine stops the gas supply for political reasons, Russia sees no obstacle to continuing it in other ways,” Simo summed up.

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Gabbard and RFK Jr joining Trump is harbinger of tectonic shift in US politics – Wall Street analyst

"Patriotism – love of America and celebration of each nation – is on the march,” Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik after former Democrats Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endored Republican nominee Donald Trump.

“I expect an amazing tapestry of surprising partners to embrace Trump-Vance and crush corrupt and silly Harris-Walz."

Ortel argued that the trend cannot be overestimated. "Tectonic plates that underpin American politics have shifted suddenly," he said.

"Globalist platforms protest otherwise, but American families want to celebrate and enjoy life, not meddle around the world enriching monopolists and other fat cats," the Wall Street analyst stressed.

Kennedy began the 2024 presidential race as a Democrat, but then shifted to run as an Independent. Last week he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump in a shock move for a member of the Democrat Kennedy family dynasty.

Former Democratic congresswoman Gabbard also endorsed Trump on August 27. Trump has appointed both Kennedy and Gabbard to his transition team to help him pick his cabinet and work out policies if he wins in November.

Gabbard and Kennedy both praised Trump's plan to solve ongoing conflicts through diplomatic means and condemned the Biden govvernment for media censorship and politically-motivated prosecutions.

Earlier this month Gabbard revealed that she had been put on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) terror watch-list – which she interpreted as retaliation for her criticism of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

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🇨🇳 A Chinese drone manufacturer has unveiled a remotely-operated grenade that can fly like a drone.

The device is equipped with propellers on all four sides, but the developers have not disclosed what speed and range the device can achieve.

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Russia has already identified more than 4,000 mercenaries in the Ukrainian Army, and absentee investigations have been completed on a number of them, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told Sputnik.

"At some point, these people will have to constantly look over their shoulders. They will be under constant scrutiny," he noted.

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🎥 WATCH: ‘Winged infantry’ anti-tank crews destroyed Ukrainian soldiers during rotation in the Kherson region

A Kornet anti-tank missile system crew from a Battlegroup Dnepr Airborn Forces artillery unit launched a guided missile from the coast of the Kinburn Spit and destroyed an entire detachment of Ukrainian troops.

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Trump claims Zuckerberg plotted against him in 2020

Former US President Donald Trump has claimed that Mark Zuckerberg plotted against him during the 2020 election. The Meta* CEO would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he did it again, Trump says in his new book, cited by US media outlets.

Trump writes that Zuckerberg “would come to the Oval Office to see me. He would bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting to install shameful Lock Boxes in a true plot against the President,” referring to the $420 million Zuckerberg invested in the election campaign in 2020.

Conservatives slammed the donation, suspecting that Zuckerberg tried to influence the vote to ensure Joe Biden's victory, calling the money "zuckerbucks."

“We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump said.

*Banned in Russia for extremism

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◾️ Pavel Durov was placed under judicial supervision and is forbidden to leave France

◾️ Trump claimed Zuckerberg had plotted against him in 2020

◾️ Zelensky’s gas threats making Europeans ‘realize it’s not profitable to go to war with Russia’

◾️ Gabbard and RFK Jr joining Trump is harbinger of tectonic shift in US politics – Wall Street analyst

◾️ Why US-led ICE Pact won’t help NATO match Russia’s Arctic superpower status

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EU countries should completely lift restrictions on Kiev’s strikes on Russian territory, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said.

Earlier, against the background of the Kiev regime's attack on Russia’s Kursk region, he claimed that lifting the ban on Kiev's strikes using Western weapons on Russian territory could "contribute to peacekeeping efforts."

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine's attack on Russia's Kursk region is taking place with the comprehensive support of the West, which authorized these actions.

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Pavel Durov's arrest in France likely got green light from Biden-Harris White House

"That’s a big step. Very hard for a bystander without direct knowledge, being me, to believe that Macron could or would have done that without the encouragement or at least [the] agreement of the Biden administration," Tucker Carlson noted during his interview with Mike Benz, a former Trump State Department official.

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US uses Telegram against ‘unwanted regimes’

"There is a great point along this, which gets right to the France story and this intersection between US and French interests – US and French shared military intelligence and diplomatic and economic interests in arresting Pavel and finally getting the leverage they’ve craved for so long to be able to both control Telegram’s content moderation practice, to ban all Russian propaganda channels, which are infecting the minds of everyone from Ukraine to Belarus to, you know, to sub-Saharan Africa. But also, you know, the ability to get this back-end access, you know, to read every Russian text message effectively. There’s a great example of this in terms of blowback on Americans," Mike Benz, a former Trump State Department official, emphasized during his interview with Tucker Carlson.

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🎥 "We will save them all!"

Families of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack staged a protest near the Gaza Strip barrier.

Their aim was to show they are ready to "run and save them all" themselves if the state does not take steps to free their relatives.

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❗️Russian troops have liberated the settlements of Nikolayevka in the DPR and Stelmakhovka in the LPR, the Defense Ministry reported

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

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Sever has started operations on the Bryansk front.

◻️ Russian forces hit a stockpile of long-range Storm Shadow missiles manufactured in the UK.

◻️ Units of the Russian Battlegroup Yug took more advantageous positions, with Ukraine losing up to 740 militants.

◻️ Russian air defense systems shot down three Hammer bombs, a HIMARS rocket, and 36 Ukrainian drones.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Vostok repelled three Ukrainian counterattacks, inflicting losses of up to 105 militants.

◻️ The Russian Battlegroup Zapad repelled six counterattacks, including from the Azov unit (recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia), with enemy losses totaling up to 520 militants.

◻️ Ukraine lost up to 45 militants and an ammunition depot in the Dnepr Battlegroup's combat zone.

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🇷🇺 Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June peace offer to Kiev was the universal plan for resolving the Ukrainian conflict.

She noted that discussion at the time was not about freezing, but rather about the final end of the conflict.

👉 We went into more detail about the Russian proposals for settlement put forward in June here

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Turkish parliament speaker blames US for suspension of Russia-Ukraine talks

Peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 were disrupted because of the US position, Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus said, according to Turkish media.

"The US is trying to consolidate the European continent because of the hostilities in Ukraine, wants to involve Russia in serious problems and considers regional turbulence important for the balance of power," he said.

Kurtulmus said that during the talks in Istanbul, the sides were close to signing an agreement to end the conflict, but some countries did not want that.

After the start of the special military operation, Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of talks in February and March 2022. After that, the negotiation process was frozen, as the Ukrainian authorities withdrew from it.

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