❗️Russian forces have liberated the village of Memrik in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Riyadh

The Saudi foreign minister joked and said that journalists "are waiting for us to fall or make a mistake."

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

◻️ Ukrainian losses reached a total of 620 servicemen in Battlegroup Zapad’s area of responsibility.

◻️ Enemy losses in Russia’s Battlegroup Sever’s combat zone came to 150 troops.

◻️ Russia’s Battlegroup Yug repelled one counterattack, with Ukrainian forces losing as many as 490 militants.

◻️ Russia’s Battlegroup Vostok formations have strengthened their positions along the front line. The enemy lost as many as 125 soldiers.

◻️ Russian air defenses shot down 4 HIMARS missiles and 45 Ukrainian drones over the past 24-hour period.

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Israel's strikes on Syria: what's known so far

Tehran “strongly condemns the criminal attack by the Zionist regime on Syrian soil,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani told reporters, urging Israel’s backers to “stop supporting and arming it.”

▪️Kanani spoke after at least 14 people were killed and 43 more injured in Israeli air strikes on central Syria on September 8, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.

▪️Israeli warplanes flying over north-western Lebanon launched missiles at “a number of military sites in the central region” of Syria at about 23:20 local time (20:20 GMT) on Sunday, a Syrian military source told SANA.

▪️“Our air defense systems confronted the missiles and shot down some of them,” the source said, calling the strikes “an air aggression by the Israeli enemy.”

▪️The attack sparked a fire and caused material damage near the city of Masyaf in the Hama province, SANA reported.

▪️The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group, has meanwhile claimed that “13 violent explosions rang out in the zone housing scientific research centers in Masyaf where pro-Iranian groups and weapons development experts are present”. The SOHR is run by a single person and has repeatedly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting.

▪️There was no immediate comment on the strike from Israel, which typically refrains from commenting on its attacks on Syria that have been intermittent for years.

Damascus repeatedly accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of carrying out multiple strikes on the Syrian territory. The IDF has taken responsibility only for a small part of those attacks. According to the Jewish state, the IDF has been targeting Iranian and pro-Iranian troops allegedly deployed on Syria's soil – an allegation that Tehran dismisses.

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Why are gas prices in the EU several times higher than in the US?

▫️ EU gas prices are 4-5 times higher than those in the US, the report on the future of European competitiveness says. "Even though energy prices have fallen considerably from their peaks, EU companies still face electricity prices that are 2-3 times those in the US. Natural gas prices paid are 4-5 times higher. This price gap is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, but also by fundamental issues with our common energy market," according to the report.

▫️ The EU market is facing fundamental problems, because there are not enough resources, the document noted. "This price gap is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, but also by fundamental issues with our common energy market. Market rules prevent industries and households from capturing the full benefits of clean energy in their bills. High taxes and rents captured by financial traders raise energy costs for our economy," the report said.

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🇷🇺🇧🇷Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Brazilian counterpart in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Brazil's FM presented Lavrov with a T-shirt of the Brazilian national football team with the signature of Vinicius, player of Real Madrid football club.

Lavrov thanked him and said that this is one of his favorite football players.

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"The operation continues" — a member of the Palestinian Fatah movement on Israel's withdrawal from the city of Jenin

In an interview with Sputnik, Kefah Harb, a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah movement, commented on the results of the Israeli 10-day raid:

"Israel's statement on the withdrawal of troops from Jenin and Tulkarm is a loud statement to the media, in fact, the operation in the West Bank continues. The right-wing government led by Netanyahu has repeatedly announced plans to displace the Palestinian people, exterminate them and destroy any possibility of creating an independent Palestinian state."

Taysir Nasrallah, a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah movement, added to Sputnik:

"In this operation, Israel used aircraft, bulldozers and assault groups to inflict as much destruction on infrastructure as possible and kill as many Palestinians as possible. They tried to isolate the resistance members and make the cities uninhabitable so that people would leave there. Even after the official announcement that troops have withdrawn from Jenin, the extremist government of B. Netanyahu continues a series of attacks, house demolitions and murders."

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❗️Russian forces have struck a Ukrainian army command post near Grushevka in the Kharkov region.

As a result, as many as 80 Ukrainian nationalists and eight armored vehicles were eliminated, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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Pepe Escobar: the West seeks to destroy Russia to get its hands on the ‘infinite wealth’ of the Far East

Having attended the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last week, veteran journalist Pepe Escobar had this to say:

“All that soft power is integrated into the geopolitical and geoeconomic drive towards non-stop, sustainable economic growth - from Russia’s East to the entire Asia-Pacific; and addressed, for instance, at the evolving Russian-ASEAN business dialogue.”

💬“Indonesian military/security analyst Connie Bakrie, also a professor with the Faculty of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University, summed it all up: ‘The most important thing for Asia-Pacific is technology and science (…) President Putin underlined that Russia will play a very big part in building science and technology together [across Asia], especially in the nuclear aspect of energy security’.”

“A group of Russian scientists, with input from the Chinese, has developed a National Strength Index, which takes into account variables such as population size, natural resource reserves, military power, the strength of the economy, the solidity of government, business, and society when it comes to achieving national development goals. It’s all, of course, about sovereignty.”

💬“The Arctic, an immense natural resource treasure, linked to the NSR potential, occupies 28% - accounting for 17% of Russian oil production, 83% of gas production and holding immense deposits of gold, coal, nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum group metals and diamonds.”

“So it’s no wonder the recurrent Western colonialist dream of attacking, dismembering and plundering Russia – whose latest iteration is the obsession on inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ of Russia in Ukraine - is directly linked to grabbing and exploiting the infinite wealth of the Far East/Arctic.”

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🚨LIVE: Lavrov holds a press conference on the results of the strategic dialogue between Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council

👉Watch the livestream here or on Sputnik's website

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❗️Russia believes that the West does not want to negotiate a fair settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said

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❗️Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called on the international community to condemn the use of Nazi symbols by the Ukrainian military, media reports.

According to Fico, information about Ukrainian neo-Nazi units is not noticed in the world because of the geopolitical situation.

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💬No conflict resolution initiative on the Ukraine crisis addresses rights of the Russian-speaking population, this is a key issue - Lavrov

It is not serious to talk about the solution of the Ukrainian conflict as a matter of "exchange of territories", we are talking about the rights of people, the minister added.

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Russia has invited the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to the BRICS summit in Kazan - Lavrov

The Russian foreign minister said that he discussed the issue of Saudi Arabia's participation in the BRICS summit in Russia's city of Kazan with the crown prince.

Russia believes that many of the countries' applications to join BRICS deserve consideration, this topic will be discussed at the summit, the minister added.

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