Watch Robotic pet dancing to Buryat national music at the EEF exhibition of machinery from Ulan-Ude factory.

Buryatia is a national republic within Russia located in the east of the country.

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“People are persecuted for trying to defend the obvious truth” - Maria Zakharova slams US accusations against political scientist Dimitri K. Simes

The US government on Thursday charged political commentator Dimitri K. Simes and his wife, Anastasia, with violating sanctions laws, the US Justice Department said in a published document.

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Britain to send 650 multipurpose Martlet missiles to Ukraine

"Britain will send 650 LMM missiles under a contract worth 162 million pounds to support Ukraine's air defense," the UK Defense Ministry said.

The UK will send Ukraine 650 Martlet multipurpose missiles for air defense support. The first batch should be delivered by the end of this year, and the contract amount will be about $213 million, according to the UK Defense Ministry Statement.

The UK MoD noted that the assistance package in the form of Martlet missiles for Kiev will be officially announced by Defense Secretary John Healey during a meeting of the Contact Group on Defense of Ukraine (UDCG) at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday, September 6.

The statement also noted that the first shipments of artillery shells worth 300 million pounds (about $395 million) from the UK will arrive in Ukraine by the end of the year.

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▫️ Russia on Dimitri Simes Sr.'s persecution: US harassing dissidents

▫️ Durov blasts France’s Telegram crackdown as ‘misguided approach’

▫️ UK to send multi-purpose Martlet missiles to Ukraine

▫️ ‘Russia, Russia, Russia: The Sequel’: DoJ’s ‘September Surprise’ is election interference, pure and simple

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A French-made Ukrainian CAESAR self-propelled howitzer was struck by Battlegroup Sever near Nikolayevo-Daryino in the Kursk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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The firing position of a French-made 155 mm Ukrainian CAESAR howitzer was hit in the Donetsk People's Republic with a direct drone strike by Battlegroup Yug, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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Foreign mercenaries struck near Kharkov

Russian troops attacked a suburb of Kharkov where many foreign mercenaries and equipment had arrived, Sergei Lebedev, coordinator of the pro-Russian Nikolayev resistance, told Sputnik.

"It was reported yesterday that a large number of foreign mercenaries and military equipment arrived in Lyubotin," Lebedev added.

He noted that according to local residents, roads in the city have been blocked, with only military vehicles and ambulances being allowed to pass through.

In response to the Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets, Russian forces regularly carry out precision strikes on locations of Ukrainian personnel, equipment, and mercenaries, as well as on infrastructure such as energy, defense industry, military administration, and communications facilities.

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The main impact of typhoon Yagi will fall on resorts in Hainan and Guangdong, and the disaster is expected to reach there by the end of the day. Schools were closed and nearly 420,000 people were evacuated on the island of Hainan. Air travel has also been suspended.

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Rosatom and IAEA hold talks in Russia’s Kaliningrad

Talks between Russian nuclear power corporation Rosatom head Alexey Likhachev and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi have begun in Kaliningrad, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

The consultations are being held behind closed doors.

Likhachev said earlier that he wanted to discuss the situation at the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants (NPPs) with the IAEA chief.

The last face-to-face meeting between Grossi and Likhachev took place in Kaliningrad at the end of May.

On Wednesday, the IAEA delegation led by Grossi visited the Zaporozhye NPP, noting that the security situation at the plant is unstable and fragile due to military action. A Ukrainian drone attack in August set a cooling tower on fire.

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Ukraine’s Cabinet reshuffle is a ‘sham’ political reboot

Volodymyr Zelensky’s Cabinet reshuffle is just a “sham” reboot, political scientist Bogdan Bezpalko told Sputnik. “The previous politicians are no different from those who will replace them,” he said.

The shakeup has been tailored exclusively “for the consumption of the undemanding American public,” the member of the Council for Interethnic Relations under President of the Russian Federation speculated.

“Zelensky staged this massive reboot so that when he meets with US President Joe Biden in September to present his so-called ‘plan’ he can say, ‘look, there have been serious changes, a whole series of resignations, so many ministers have been dismissed… Everything will be fine there, your American tax-funded assistance won’t go to waste,” the expert said.

He suggested that by partially replacing the Cabinet, Zelensky is trying to pass off the Ukrainian political system as “democratic,” despite a lack of overdue presidential or parliamentary elections. As for the US “concerns” about Ukraine’s corruption and its assistance being squandered, this is largely “rhetoric,” Bogdan Bezpalko believes.

“Corruption is one of the structural elements of governing Ukraine – within the framework of which it is always possible to keep politicians on a short leash,” the political expert said.

In Bezpalko’s opinion, Zelensky’s steps have been greenlit by Ukraine’s Western partners, since a major part of the Ukrainian political establishment performs its function purely nominally.

“Ukrainian foreign policy is entirely conceived by its Western patrons, just like everything else,” the analyst explained.

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❗️Germany plans to transfer 77 more Leopard 1A5 tanks to Ukraine in cooperation with Denmark and the Netherlands, the German defense minister has announced

Earlier, in August, several Leopard tanks were destroyed by Russian forces

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Almost 85% of Germans are dissatisfied with the Scholz government, according to a poll by Infratest Dimap

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Durov faces charges under archaic cryptography law, hinting at French spying on private communications

Two of the six charges facing Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France are grounded an obscure, never-used twenty-year-old law obliging companies providing cryptography tools to inform the French Cybersecurity Agency (French acronym ANSSI) and grant it access to the software’s source code and “a denoscription of [its] technical characteristics.”

🔸 The 2004 law – uniquely blunt in its demand that companies divulge info about the tech tools used for private communications, is being used against Durov by accusing him of providing encrypted communications services “without certified declaration.”

🔸 The law further means, if it is applied evenly across the board, that the array of instant messengers available to French users, from WhatsApp and Signal to iMessage and the French-made Olvid ‘secure’ messenger used by the French government, do comply with the ANSSI regulations, meaning French intelligence can potentially spy on any or all French users at any time.

🔸 Adding credence to this idea is the fact that Pavel Durov is reportedly the first-ever tech mogul to be charged under the 2004 law, and the fact that many big-name tech companies have been silent on the Durov case, with the exception of Proton CEO Andy Yen, who characterized the charges against the Russian-born tech mogul as “economic suicide” that’s “rapidly and permanently changing the perception of founders and investors” toward France.

“If sustained, I don’t see how tech founders could possibly travel to France, much less hire in France,” Yen wrote on his X account.

🔸 The law is also reminiscent of the case against WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange, who was threatened with decades of jail time by the US under the obscure Espionage Act of 1917, even though that he was not an American citizen, and a publisher, not a spy.

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Messaging app Telegram commented on an update to its moderation questions page, assuring that private chats remain private.

The company said that anyone can check the app’s code and make sure that no changes have been made.

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