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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The judicial supervision of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France may last until the end of the investigation – which could take several years.

His lawyer David Libeskind told Sputnik that Durov can ask the judge to at any time to relax the supervision regime.

The fact that Durov was not sent to jail means that he was able to prove that he has a place of residence in France, Libeskind said.

Judicial supervision does not imply restrictions on the use of the internet and phones, so Durov can continue to work, the lawyer added.

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West doesn't care as long as they make money, as long as bombs are dropped - Aussie Cossack

"This is great for business, this war. And the West is laughing, the West is happy. The West is supplying more weapons. And that's what we can't forgive the West for. And this is what they do everywhere," independent journalist Aussie Cossack comments on how the West profits from global conflicts.

He pointed out that the West doesn't care as long as they can make money and the bombs fall.

"They turn Iraqis on Iranians, North Koreans on South Koreans, South Vietnamese on North Vietnamese," Aussie Cossack said.

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Romania is about to snatch up Moldova's only outlet to the Black Sea

Romania is in talks to purchase the port of Giurgiulesti, Moldova’s sole indirect outlet to the Black Sea. Here’s what we know about the port and the deal:

▪️ Giurgiulesti port was built in 2006 and consists of two infrastructure entities – Giurgiulesti State Port and Giurgiulesti International Free Port, which eventually fell under the ownership of Danube Logistics SRL in 2011.

▪️ In 2021, under Moldova’s President Maia Sandu, a Romanian citizen, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reportedly bought 100% of its shares for a mere 1,000 euros.

▪️ The new deal concerns only the International Free Port, Moldovan government spokesman Daniel Voda said.

▪️ The deal originally sparked debate, as Romania said that the Moldovan side would not be a party to the talks with the EBRD. Critics among the opposition slammed the deal as a blow to Moldova’s sovereignty.

▪️ Romania would be the main beneficiary of the cargo flow through the port, seeking to boost its role in the region while capitalizing on creating a hub for Ukraine’s post-conflict reconstruction.

▪️ The port sits in close proximity to Ukraine, and is crossed by a land route from Odessa to the Romanian logistics hubs of Galati and Constanta. This route is used to supply Ukraine with fuel and export its grain. By late 2023, port cargo turnover reached 2.17 million tons.

Earlier, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said Romania intends to acquire the company RED Nord, which provides electricity and heat generation for the north of Moldova. Ilan Shor, leader of the Moldovan opposition Victory bloc, regards this as another step towards uniting the two countries.

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US intelligence provided Ukraine with satellite images of the Kursk region from the start of its invasion

“We made available commercial imagery through a portal called G-EGD,” Frank Whitworth, Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, told the Intelligence and National Security Summit.

“The availability of the commercial industry is sustained,” Whitworth said. “If that is what they are using for purposes of this particular campaign in Kursk, then I will refer to them to confirm that, but the availability is always there.”

Since the start of the offensive, the US and UK have provided Ukraine with satellite imagery and other information about the Kursk region, the New York Times claimed based on comments by two unidentified ‘officials’.

The Kremlin regards Western countries' assistance to Ukraine as evidence of their direct involvement in the conflict.

"Many countries of the so-called collective West have already got into this conflict up to their ears," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

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Ukraine was aided by US satellite images during its incursion: check out the latest news from Russia's Kursk region

The Ukrainian losses during the last 24 hours were more than 400 troops and more than 56 armored vehicles, as well as one artillery gun, one MLRS launcher, one mortar, and 17 motor vehicles, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

◾️ Russia has information that Ukrainian militants kidnap civilians in the border areas of Kursk, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large on the Kiev Regime's War Crimes Rodion Miroshnik told Sputnik, adding there was information about sexual violence committed by mercenaries amid harrowing accounts from Kursk residents.

Like in the case of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the West deliberately overlooks irrefutable evidence of attacks on the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant by the Kiev regime, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine.

◾️ Ukraine had access to hundreds of thousands of US satellite images during their incursion, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth said at an AFCEA/INSA Intelligence and National Security Summit. He added the commercial images were available through the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (G-EGD) program.

◾️ Following the attacks on the Kursk region, any talks with the Kiev regime are irrelevant, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated at a joint press conference following talks with Senegalese Foreign Minister Yassine Fall.

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Russia's international gold and foreign exchange reserves have reached their highest level since February 2022, totaling $614.5 billion as of August 23.

As the Russian authorities previously stated, around half of these reserves were frozen as a result of sanctions imposed in February 2022.

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❗️US-made F-16 fighter jet crashed in Ukraine

A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet was destroyed in a crash on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting a US official, just weeks after the first of the US-made aircraft arrived in Ukraine.

"Initial reports indicate the jet wasn’t shot down" by Russian forces, the official said, speculating that the crash was likely a result of pilot error.

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August 29, 1949: The day the USSR ended America’s monopoly on nuclear weapons

75 years ago today, the USSR tested its first atomic bomb, becoming the second country in the world after the US to master the fearsome technology.

◻️ Armed with an explosive yield equivalent to about 22 kt of TNT, the 4.7-ton RDS-1 used in the test was a combat-ready weapon designed to be dropped from a Tupolev Tu-4 strategic bomber. About 30 RDS-1s were produced by the mid-1950s after the successful August 29, 1949 test.

◻️ The test ended America’s nuclear monopoly, adding much-needed balance in international politics, reining in American and European imperialism, preventing the Cold War from going hot, and ultimately, providing modern Russia with a guaranteed capability to respond to large-scale military aggression.

The Soviet State Defense Committee approved work on what would become the Soviet nuclear program in September 1942, at the height of the Battle of Stalingrad

Some claim Russia only got the bomb because of spies, but by the early 1940s, the USSR amassed dozens of world-class atomic scientists, from Igor Kurchatov and Yuli Khariton to Isaak Kikoin, Andrei Bochvar, Igor Tamm, and many others.

Towards the end of the Second World War, Moscow “realized that the [nuclear] threat that initially came from Germany was turning into a threat from our erstwhile ally, the United States,” Dr. Lev Ryabev, the former chief of the USSR’s nuclear industry from 1986-1989, told Sputnik, adding the “Americans understood that they were in possession of an ‘absolute weapon’ through which they would be able to dictate any conditions to the world.”

◻️ That, Ryabеv recalled, led to the acceleration of Soviet nuclear research via the creation of a powerful Special Committee headed by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria in August 1945.

The 1949 test surprised the CIA. Agency analysts had expected the first Soviet nuclear bomb to appear only by the early-to-mid 1950s, underestimating the USSR’s scientists, Beria’s organizational skills, and Moscow’s possession of high-grade uranium ore deposits.

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Telegram's Durov case: should tech CEO bear responsibility for users' crimes?

French authorities announced preliminary charges against Telegram CEO Pavel Durov for allegedly enabling criminal activities on his messaging app. He was ordered to pay €5 million bail and barred from leaving France while the probe continues.

Sputnik reached out to international experts to ask if social media bosses should be held personally responsible for what happens on their apps.

Zach Vorhies, a former senior software engineer at YouTube and Google turned whistleblower, believes that "in an era where a digital footprint can directly lead to a jail cell, the concept of 'privacy by design' becomes not just a best practice but a moral imperative."

He stressed that "if tech companies continue to acquiesce to government demands that undermine user privacy, we may be witnessing the end of digital anonymity as we know it."

Ryan Hartwig, Facebook whistleblower and co-author of Behind the Mask of Facebook said: "No, social media owners shouldn’t be responsible for what is on their platform, unless they are aware of illegal activity and do nothing to stop it or report it."

"A dictatorship can declare political activity illegal, thus instantly turning millions of political posts into 'illegal content'," Hartwig said.

Philip Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former CIA field officer, said it was clear that "if free speech is the standard there should be no such responsibility as the actual poster is the one who should be responsible for the content if it is criminal in nature."

"To behave otherwise would require a massive censorship presence as well as detailed rules about what is acceptable, which would defeat the purpose of having free speech online," he said.

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The Russian military destroyed a COBRA radar, two rocket launcher launcher vehicles and transporter-loader trucks for them in the Sumy region with a strike by an Iskander-M missile system, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

"After conducting additional reconnaissance, the coordinates of the target were transferred to the calculation of the Iskander-M tactical missile system,” the ministry said.

“As a result of the missile strike, the following were destroyed: a German-made COBRA counter-battery radar station, an Uragan MLRS combat vehicle, a Grad MLRS combat vehicle, and the MLRS transport and loading vehicle," the statement said.

In addition, seven armored combat vehicles, two trailers for transporting equipment and three pickup trucks were destroyed.

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The Ukrainian general staff acknowledged the loss of a US-made F-16 fighter, donated by NATO countries, in a statement on Thursday.

The crash was reported earlier that day by US media, which claimed it was due to pilot error.

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Durov arrest sparks domino effect of threats to probe and ban Telegram

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest in France on a series of dubious charges has opened the floodgates for censorious officials looking to take advantage of the situation to crack down on the platform.

◻️ The EU has reportedly begun a probe into whether Telegram has breached the bloc’s draconian Digital Services Act, which requires online services with over 45 million active monthly users to face higher regulatory scrutiny, ‘disinformation’ and ‘hate speech’ content moderation and requirements to provide requested data to the European Commission. In February, Telegram said it has about 41 million users in the EU.

◻️ German domestic intelligence deputy chief Sinan Selen has accused Telegram of “limited” cooperation with the state in official investigations. Berlin already considered banning Telegram outright in 2022, ostensibly for the violation of ‘hate speech’ laws, but decided on a €5 mln fine instead.

◻️ Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said this week that he would “very much like” to ban end-to-end encrypted messaging services like Telegram, as they complicate police efforts against criminals, even though Hummelgaard and over 70 members of the Danish parliament use the services themselves.

◻️ Indonesia is also mulling blocking Telegram, with the potential crackdown related to concerns over the spread of pornography and online gambling. Communication Minister Budi Arie Setiadi said Telegram had offered “inadequate” responses to authorities’ requests on censorship.

◻️ India announced an investigation into Telegram on Sunday, citing concerns over its suspected use by criminals. The app complies with India’s Information Technology Rules legislation, but does not have an office in the country (Durov told Tucker Carlson in April that Telegram only has “about 30 engineers” worldwide), complicating local efforts to regulate it.

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Zuck, Musk and Durov: who championed free speech and liberty and who caved to government demands?

As social media’s clout surges, Big Tech titans are clashing with Western governments over "limits" to freedom of speech.

Mark Zuckerberg

◻️ Zuckerberg has faced criticism from both ends of the US political spectrum. Republicans accuse the Meta* CEO of censoring conservative voices, while Democrats slam him for failing to adequately moderate online content.

◻️ Republicans say Zuck’s election spending – to the tune of $420 million – was "orchestrated" to influence the 2020 vote in the Dems favor; they accuse him of censored news reports of Hunter Biden’s "laptop from hell" a month before the election.

◻️ On August 26, Zuckerberg admitted the Biden administration pressured him into censoring some COVID-related information – and he caved in.

Elon Musk

◻️ Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 with a promise to end censorship on the platform – which alarmed Democrats. He released the "Twitter Files" exposing the role of US federal agencies in content moderation.

◻️ Dems accuse Musk failing to moderate of ‘misinformation’, ‘hate speech’ and ‘anti-Semitism’ on the platform.

◻️ Congress Democrats recently claimed Musk is suppressing content favoring Vice-President Kamala Harris to help ex-President Donald Trump’s re-election bid.

Pavel Durov

◻️ Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France on August 24 and charged with allowing alleged criminal activities, including organized crime, drug trafficking and fraud, on his encrypted messaging app.

◻️ European Commission Vice-President for ‘Values’ Vera Jourova said in May that Telegram may now have 45 million monthly users in the European Union – the threshold for applying online self-censorship rules under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

◻️ Telegram insists it fully abides by European laws. Durov has previously revealed that US intelligence agencies approached him seeking a backdoor to his app to spy on users.

*banned in Russia for extremism

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