EU ministers agreed that training of Ukrainian military will take place as close to Ukraine as possible, but not on its territory, the head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell said.

Borrell promised that EU defense ministers will resolve issue of Hungary blocking the allocation of €6 billion to pay for military supplies to Ukraine. He added that EU defense ministers - following NATO decision - agreed to open a liaison office in Kiev for military assistance to Ukraine.

The diplomat said that EU countries provide Ukraine with military assistance worth €43.5 billion, adding that EU defense ministers decided to increase number of Ukrainian military trained as part of training mission of union from 60,000 to 75,000.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev previously stated that the true purpose of the Western powers' support of Ukraine is their desire to gain access to the resource base, and the economic basis of Ukrainian statehood has been undermined.

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Mario Nawfal: I’m used to being targeted for character assassination covering hot button topics

🗣 “I've covered multiple issues, whether it's the war in Ukraine, whether it's the war in Gaza, US politics…I try to be as objective as possible, but what happens when you’re objective is that the world has become so polarized, it's like you cannot have a stance unless you're labeled pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian,” number one X Spaces host Mario Nawfal told Sputnik, commenting on the extreme levels of polarization online today.

“I've been called a Ukrainian spy, I've been called a Russian spy. I've been called a Hamas sympathizer, I've been called a Zionist. I've been called far-right and far-left. It's because I can have a certain stance about a certain topic, but still not agree... I can criticize NATO or Ukraine on the war that we have in Ukraine without being pro-NATO or pro-Ukraine. I can criticize Israel, I can criticize Palestine, I can criticize Trump and Biden. But every time I take any sort of stance, I'm immediately labeled with something... if it's a very strong stance and they dislike it, it comes with like a campaign of character assassination. And people have become very emotional,” Nawfal said.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s late apology for censorship may be attempt to prepare for Trump 2.0 - Mario Nawfal

“Going back to Zuckerberg's apology, it's a very interesting development. A lot of people are trying to link it to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest,” popular X Spaces host Mario Nawfal told Sputnik.

He commented on the timing of the Meta* CEO’s awkward apology letter to US lawmakers Monday in which Zuckerberg admitted that the social media giant shouldn’t have downranked the Hunter Biden laptop story using its algorithms, and expressed “regret” for not being “more outspoken” about the Biden administration’s Covid-related censorship demands.

But in reality, “these statements take a lot longer to prepare,” Nawfal said, recalling the release of Donald Trump’s new coffee table book threatening to jail Zuckerberg for “the rest of his life” over what amounted to Meta’s meddling in the 2020 vote.

“So Trump and his new book kind of threatened Mark Zuckerberg with jail if he interferes in this year's election. This could be Mark preparing himself for a potential Trump administration. Or it could be just Mark really feeling guilty for either being tricked or complying with the Biden administration's attempts, successful attempts to censor,” Nawfal said.

* Banned in Russia for extremism.

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Mario Nawfal to Sputnik: hopefully Meta will ‘take a page out of Elon Musk’s book’ on censorship

🗣"I hope they've been watching what Elon [Musk has] been doing. I had [Meta* board member] Marc Andreessen…on the show. He told me something I'll never forget. He said ‘Mario, Meta and other companies are watching Elon and Twitter very carefully, almost like an experiment.’ They’ve copied a few things that Elon did with Twitter," X Spaces host Mario Nawfal told Sputnik, commenting on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s apology this week for censoring Americans at the behest of the deep state.

"So I genuinely think Meta will start taking a page out of Elon's book, and while you’ll never see absolute free speech, I hope they start resisting any censorship attempts," he added.

* Banned in Russia for extremism.

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Mario Nawfal: it’s ‘not easy standing up to’ the FBI and the CIA while running a social media company

🗣 “If the FBI comes in with a request, it's not easy to say no to the FBI. That's one. Number two is they're being tricked as well,” Mario Nawfal told Sputnik, commenting on X CEO Elon Musk’s attempts to run a pro-free speech social media platform while being pressured from the US intelligence apparatus.

“If you look at the Twitter Files on how the Biden laptop was censored, the FBI went to Facebook's* team and they warned them in advance saying ‘hey, there's going be a Russian disinformation campaign (during the 2020 elections) linked to Burisma, something to do with Hunter Biden.’ So they kind of hinted, and Mark Zuckerberg talked about it, I think on the Joe Rogan show, they kind of prepared them, they kind of planted the seed” for censorship, Nawfal said.

“And there are instances in the Twitter Files, when you go through this communication that Elon released, there are many instances with Twitter employees, and I think the same will apply to Meta/Facebook and Google, where they tried to resist certain requests for censorship. But it's very difficult to say no to the CIA, to the FBI and to those three letter agencies.”

* Banned in Russia for extremism.

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Mario Nawfal: Trump an ‘outsider’ that will have hard time fixing rot at the heart of US political system

🗣“[Donald Trump has] been very critical of mainstream media, he's been critical of the stranglehold that we've seen on social media. He's been censored. He's seen as an outsider,” number one rated X Spaces host Mario Nawfal told Sputnik, commenting on the prospects of a second Trump term making good on the former president’s oft-stated promises to ‘clean up the swamp’ in the Washington establishment.

“But I don't know if he has what it takes to be able to change such a deep-rooted issue in the complex system that we call a 'democracy.' I think there are so many layers to it that it's almost impossible to kind of break it all down, and I just don't see how any president will be able to change that, unless that we see significant action. You know, Trump has had four years to do that. We haven't seen much of it,” Nawfal said.

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X Spaces host to Sputnik: Social media algorithms fuel political divisions, suck people into dangerous echo chambers impossible to escape

Social media companies are exasperating the problem of extreme political divisions in US politics, taking the place of traditional media like Fox News and MSNBC, popular X Spaces host Mario Nawfal told Sputnik.

“The algorithm wants you to stay on that platform, so what does it do? It feeds you the content that relates to you. So if you're pro-Trump, you want to listen to content that's criticizing Biden and supporting Trump. Because that's what the social media needs companies to do so you spend more time on it so they can make more advertising revenue. What happens when they do this? It becomes a loop that takes you further and further into those echo chambers,” Nawfal explained.

"Essentially the algorithm forces everyone to have different echo chambers. So it's kind of become embedded in society to take a stance. Media companies have taken a stance. Social media companies' algorithms for financial purposes force people to get into their own echo chambers," he said.

"If you add censorship to all this, then not only are algorithms of social media companies pushing you further down your whatever belief you have and kind of preventing you from listening to something that could challenge what you believe, which is very important for anyone really in any society. Censorship adds another layer to this, where companies and governments further force their narrative down your throat in a very subtle way without you even knowing,” Nawfal said.

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Russians and Ukrainians could resolve their quarrel quickly if not for external interference - Mario Nawfal

🗣 “Russians and Ukrainians agree a lot more than you think,” popular X Spaces host Mario Nawfal told Sputnik, commenting on the ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine and the failure of efforts to reach a negotiated settlement.

“Russians and Ukrainians agree on a lot more than you'd expect, but because of all the parties on both sides involved in the decision making, a simple problem about which territory should be Russia, which territory should be Ukrainian” has been dragged out,” Nawfal said.

🗣 “Russians and Ukrainians, if they just sat down together, they could come to a solution and move on and the war would end. But there's so many external parties involved in that war, becoming more of a proxy war,” Nawfal said, echoing sentiments expressed by Russian officials and independent observers worldwide that the Ukrainian crisis would have come to an end a long time ago were in not for NATO’s attempts to use Ukraine as a battering ram to try to ‘weaken Russia’.

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🤡All you need to know about Kamala Harris & Tim Walz's interview

Kamala Harris openly said: "the last decade was contrary to where the spirit of US really lies", while the Democrats have ruled for the past last three and a half years.

Have things really been that bad? Or is there something people don't know about yet?

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❗️Volodymyr Zelensky fired the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk, after the F-16 crash.

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Censorship, Durov’s arrest and threats to free speech: Key takeaways from Mario Nawfal’s exclusive interview to Sputnik

Today Sputnik has presented an exclusive interview with Mario Nawfal, investor and host of the largest show on X. What were the main topics?

On Telegram founder Pavel Durov being detained in France:

"We’ve seen the censorship that happens in every single country around the world, including... Europe, the US, Brazil. Pavel’s arrest takes another social media platform off the list of those who want to censor, those who want power."

"You've got these executives that will be very concerned, [asking] ‘why was Pavel being targeted on a criminal level? Why can't the company be sued first on a civil level?’"

On efforts by Western powers to control the flow of information:

"We’ve seen in the UK recently as well with the riots what happens when free speech is cracked down [on], and it’s not pretty. We’ve seen people arrested and go to jail for months and years for things they said online,"

"[EU social media regulator boss] Thierry [Breton], sent out a letter to Elon [Musk] before the Trump interview, urging him not to conduct the interview. That’s an interview by an American businessman and an American former president, and they've got the EU sending out a letter warning them on what content they talk about on the platform."

What is ‘malinformation,’ a concept invented by Meta*?

“That’s essentially factual information used with malicious intention. Please let me know how the hell can someone determine whether something is malinformation or not. If you post something that’s factual but criticizes the incumbent governments, is that something that can be censored?”

* Banned in Russia for extremism.

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▪️What Sputnik discussed with Mario Nawfal in an exclusive interview today?

▪️World leaders, even Macron, still use Telegram despite Durov arrest

▪️How Ukraine lost its first F-16 jet and famed pilot

▪️Kamala Harris shows true colors in her first big TV interview

▪️Two Colombians suspected of fighting on Ukraine’s side apprehended by Russia's FSB

▪️German troops leave the military base in Niger for good

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How Ukraine's downed F-16 jet may affect Western military aid?

“The F-16 failure, and expectations of future failures, helps slow down and reduces willingness to send more F-16s to Ukraine... and F-16 losses because they do capture the public imagination are more part of the political narrative of ‘end the war soon before our investors begin to doubt that the landscape of post-war Ukraine will be profitable for them,’” the former analyst for the US Department of Defense and retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

“If this loss occurred in a US or NATO situation, it would be categorized as a combat loss, and it is likely any investigation will not change minds on any side, at this point in the conflict,” she mused.

“However, if Kiev wishes to receive more high-end equipment and technology, and even US authorization for deep strikes into Russia -- it must avoid any blame for ongoing losses on its own military, or the combat/logistical/strategic superiority of Russia,” Kwiatkowski stated.

Kwiatkowski also weighed in on claims of the F-16 being shot down by a Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident, noting that both the US and the UK previously lost one aircraft each to Patriot friendly fire during the Gulf War of 1991.

While the problem that caused these losses was rectified by 2003, Kwiatkowski noted that the Patriots supplied to Ukraine were likely older systems that could still be susceptible to this “bug”.

“All honest observers inside and outside this conflict know that Ukraine is fighting with an assortment of equipment that is older, from Soviet era and Vietnam era equipment, often technologically incompatible, operated by people often unfamiliar with these systems, and in a battle-space that is haphazard and not well logistically supported,” she concluded.

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Friendly fire: Ukraine's version

Ukraine shot down its first own F-16 fighter jet in the Russia-Ukraine conflict zone, with the Ukrainian Air Force confirming reports.

Ukrainian MP Maryana Bezuglaya claimed that it was downed by a misfire from a Western-supplied Patriot system. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident a "worthy start."

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