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◻️Benny Johnson declares no one influenced his content policies amid allegations against Russia

◻️Macron’s PM pick makes sense for a president ‘no longer in control’

◻️‘Zombie’ Volkswagen result of years of wrong-headed German government policy

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Pentagon invested $5.3 billion in ammunition as Ukraine burns through stockpiles

The Pentagon has allocated $5.3 billion of congressionally approved funds to ramp up US munitions production for Ukraine, and to replenish American stockpiles since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, according to new data released on Friday.

As Ukraine exhausted its stockpiles trying fruitlessly to change the situation on the battlefield, the US has increased production of 155mm shells, Patriot missiles, GMLRS rockets, HIMARS launch vehicles, and Javelin anti-armor weapons.

The Pentagon released the data as Zelensky took part in a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Earlier, Foreign Policy reported that the US was running short of ammunition, citing Gen. Joe Hilbert, the Army’s director of force development, who said “bottom line is that short of the supplement, [the US] will end up hitting a ceiling.”

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❗️Russia's Tsentr Battlegroup liberated the settlement of Kalinovo in the Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian Defense Ministry announced.

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❗️Russian forces struck Ukrainian missile and artillery armament depots and a satellite communications node, as well as military airfield infrastructure

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

▪️Russia's Yug Battlegroup defeated formations of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Ukrainian losses amounted to up to 810 militants;

▪️Ukraine lost up to 110 soldiers as a result of actions of the Vostok Battlegroup;

▪️Russia's Zapad Battlegroup eliminated 450 Ukrainian militants and a tank;

▪️The Dnepr Battlegroup defeated troops and equipment of four brigades. Ukrainian losses amounted to up to 60 soldiers;

▪️Ukrainian forces lost up to 470 militants in the area of responsibility of the Tsentr Battlegroup;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down four HIMARS MLRS shells, three Hammer bombs and 30 Ukrainian drones during the day.

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📹💥A Russian drone crew destroyed Ukraine's camouflaged mortars on the right bank of the Dnepr river

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The US' 'Russia election interference' mantra: How Western media tried to blame Moscow in 2020

Washington has again accused Moscow of meddling in the US presidential election after Russian President Vladimir Putin jokingly said that the Kremlin would support Democratic hopeful Kamala Harris in the 2024 race.

The same accusations were made four years ago even though Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said that there was no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 US election.

Let’s delve into what Western media wrote in 2020 about the alleged role of Russia, which repeatedly rejected the US’ election interference claims as unsubstantiated.

💬 The New York Times: Russian hackers “infiltrated dozens of state and local computer networks” across the US to allegedly help President Donald Trump win the race.

💬The Washington Post: “The US government is mounting a major effort to address Russia’s attempts to manipulate the presidential election” despite Trump questioning intelligence that “the Kremlin is intent on undermining American democracy.”

💬ABC News: The White House insists POTUS “was not personally briefed on the intelligence community’s reported findings that Russia is again delivering a misinformation campaign aimed at helping Trump win reelection.”

💬CNN: “Over the past week there have been fresh warnings over Russian hackers targeting the 2020 election, suggesting Moscow is still looking to duplicate its wildly successful 2016 meddling campaign.”

💬BBC: Foreign states, including Russia, could use "covert and overt influence measures" to sway the vote.

💬The Medium: A classified CIA report cites Russia’s “influence operations aimed at denigrating the former US vice president [Joe Biden], supporting the US president [Trump] and fueling public discord” ahead of the November 3, 2020 election.

Four years on, allegations of Russia’s US election interference remain part and parcel of the White House’s political agenda.

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❗️Ukrainian forces lost more than 280 militants and 13 armored vehicles in Russia's Kursk region during the day, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Russian troops repelled two attacks in the region.
Tactical aviation also hit the reserves of ten Ukrainian brigades in the Sumy region, the ministry added.

During the entire period of Ukraine's incursion in the Kursk region, Ukrainian losses have amounted to more than 10,700 soldiers, the Defense Ministry noted.

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🇷🇺🥳Putin marks Moscow Сity Day

On the occasion of the 877th anniversary of the Russian capital of Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the Zaryadye Park near the Kremlin.

Putin stressed that the capital of Russia is "one of the best megacities in the world both in terms of quality of life and opportunities for self-realization."

"Moscow has become the most important center for the development of unmanned technologies," Putin also said.

The president praised Moscow residents' love for the Motherland. He noted that thousands of them participate in the special military operation, while Moscow-based enterprises have increased production for the front and strengthened the technological sovereignty of the country.

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No US-style witch hunt in Russia – American journo

If Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer who cooperated with Russian media, and the assets of Dimitri K. Simes, a Russian political scientist with US citizenship, were in Russia and not within the reach of the presumably free US, they would not be threatened by a “witch hunt,” US journalist Jackson Hinkle said in a conversation with Sputnik on the sidelines of the 2024 Eastern Economic Forum.

Ritter earlier said that he was forced to stop cooperation with RT and Sputnik because of the new US sanctions against Russian media companies, while expressing gratitude to his Russian colleagues for their professionalism.

For his part, Hinkle said that sanctions and the 'witch hunt' waged against the Russian media cannot stop him, because he is in Russia and he is safe. Hinkle also noted that if Ritter were in Russia, his passport wouldn't have been confiscated. Likewise, if the paintings and all of Simes' belongings were in Russia, they wouldn't have been seized.

In June, Ritter told Sputnik that US Customs and Border Protection officers seized his passport on State Department orders, preventing him from attending the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. In a seperate move, in August, the FBI confirmed to Sputnik a search at Simes' estate in the US. As the political scientist himself told the agency, he was not notified of the search in advance and has not been to the US since October 2022.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that American restrictions on the performance of Russian media indicate the degradation of the US itself and its transformation into a totalitarian neoliberal dictatorship.

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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on Argentina's appeal to the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro:

"Doesn't Argentina have its own problems, and has President Milei already implemented all his election promises?" Zakharova wrote on her Telegram account.

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What’s known about the JASSM long-range missile the US may soon provide to Ukraine

Always eager to facilitate Ukraine’s bombing of civilian targets, the US may soon supply the Ukrainian military with the AGM-158 joint air-to-surface standoff missile (or JASSM for short).

Sputnik has looked into the technical details of this missile:

🔸 JASSM is a long-range air-to-ground cruise missile that can be deployed against both stationary and moving targets.

🔸 The original JASSM missile has a range of about 370 kilometers while the more advanced version of the missile, JASSM-ER (ER stands for “extended range”) can hit targets at a distance of up to 925 kilometers.

🔸 JASSM can be mounted on several types of US-made military aircraft, including the F-16 jet, a number of which was recently supplied to the regime in Kiev.

Though these facts and figures may seem intimidating at first, it remains to be seen how JASSM may fare against Russia's air defense systems, assuming of course that these missiles will be provided by the US to Ukraine.

Since the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, NATO countries have supplied Kiev with an assortment of long-range missiles such as Storm Shadow, SCALP and ATACMS.

But all those technologies were studied by the Russian military and forces were able to adapt to it, with the interception of the missiles becoming a trivial task for air defense specialists.

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