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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Durov’s arrest could strike death blow to European tech industry: here’s why

Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s arrest will “have an immediate impact” on the EU’s already struggling tech ecosystem, and “potentially damage Europe’s reputation for tech innovation and free speech,” veteran independent cybersecurity expert and digital strategy advisor Lars Hilse told Sputnik.

The EU already faces a series of hurdles vis-à-vis the US in tech, with a diversity of languages and cultures, stricter privacy, anti-trust and speech laws, lagging infrastructure and lack of state investment in emerging technologies serving to “hinder innovation and the rapid scaling of tech companies,” Hilse explained.

The US, by contrast, has used the monopolization of its tech sector to get “a head start in building infrastructure, expertise, and obviously market share…benefit[ing] from a large domestic and homogenized market, allowing them to scale quickly before expanding globally,” the expert said.

“The US has a very, very, very well established venture capital ecosystem, particularly in Silicon Valley, where they’re providing startups with very easy access to funding and a huge pool of expertise,” Hilse said. “You have a lot of talented European tech professionals moving to the US for better opportunities, higher salaries, contributing to a brain drain effect.”

“We have acquisition strategies where US tech giants often acquire promising European stock before they can actually scale. Then you have cloud service dominance in the US,” he added.

The immediate impact of Durov’s arrest will be the loss of investor confidence, Hilse fears. “This could certainly cause investors to become more cautious or hesitant about investing in European tech companies.” In turn, US big tech may snap up even more market share in Europe, hitting local companies while they’re already down and struggling thanks to their own governments’ policies.

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Macron said he was not aware of Durov's arrival in France and did not plan to meet with him

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◻️ Should tech CEO bear responsibility for users' crimes?

◻️ US intelligence provided Ukraine with satellite images of the Kursk region

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

◻️ 75 years ago the USSR ended America’s monopoly on nuclear weapons

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

◻️ Binance faces backlash over allegedly freezing all Palestinian funds at Israel’s request

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Amid the loss of an F-16 fighter jet transferred to Ukraine, American officials have underscored the risks associated with the accelerated training of Ukrainian pilots, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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'Nuclear power plant is a сontrolled nuclear bomb': Expert warns of risks at Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear plants

Dr Chris Busby, physical chemist and the scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, who has worked for the UK government's uranium committee, has issued a warning about the potential for nuclear disasters at the Kursk and Zaporozhye power plants.

He emphasized that "a missile strike on the reactor could easily lead to a meltdown or even a nuclear explosion," likening the potential disaster to the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents.

He criticized recent claims downplaying the risks, stating, "If you can affect the control systems of a nuclear power station, you can cause it to explode."

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine tried to hit the Kursk nuclear power plant, in connection with which IAEA head Rafael Grossi arrived in the city of Kurchatov and inspected the Kursk nuclear power plant.

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🇸🇩 A doctor in Sudan literally had to swim to visit patients, after floods hit the east African country.

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Pentagon slaps Lockheed with $5mln per F-35 withheld until upgrades work - reports

The US Defense Department is going to hold Lockheed Martin accountable by withholding $5 million each of up to 110 F-35 fighter jets scheduled to be delivered by the end of this year until their hardware and software upgrades are fully functioning, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

The Defense Department’s F-35 program office confirmed the new policy in a statement issued to the news outlet earlier in the day.
Lockheed Martin has informed the Defense Department it plans to deliver 75 to 110 of the super-expensive and repeatedly delayed fifth generation combat aircraft to the US armed forces by December 31.

Lockheed Martin revealed the new policy to the public on Tuesday in a filing it made to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The troubled hardware and software upgrade package is known as TR-3.

Eighteen F-35 jets with the TR-3 upgrade package were delivered to the US armed forces by August 19.

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