🗣Vladimir Putin on the aggressive policy of the United States, which is provoking an arms race without any regard to its European and Asian partners

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Aussie Cossack: The Russian economy is extremely strong

Russia’s economy grew stronger thanks to NATO and the sanctions imposed by the US, independent Australian journalist Aussie Cossack @AussieCossack tells Sputnik.

“These hundreds of billions of dollars that used to be leaving Russia every day, every year, it’s now staying in the country,” he explains.

If Russia had not be exploited in the 1990s and the 2000s, Russia would have been the richest country in the world, as it should be, he also notes.

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Holding a gun to Armenia's head: EU's visa-free regime is nothing but tool of manipulation - expert

"The [EU's] geopolitical game with the Armenians is a struggle to deprive Russia of its influence [in the Caucasus]," political scientist Stanislav Tarasov tells Sputnik.

At the same time, the new visa-free regime is a kind of weapon for the EU to influence a certain part of Armenian society, as per Tarasov. "It's like holding a gun to their head," he said.

Armenia and the EU have announced negotiations on visa liberalization. Brussels clarified that Yerevan would have to implement "substantial reforms", adding that the visa liberalization dialogue would be "a multi-year process" under the EU's close watch.

The EU-Armenian visa liberalization program is similar to Brussels' efforts to bring Ukraine and Georgia into its fold, according to Tarasov.

"Georgians were also granted a liberalized visa regime," he says. "But when the Georgian government adopted the law on foreign agents… [the EU] immediately threatened them with the cancelation of the visa-free regime. You see, this is a leverage of influence."

Ukraine

▪️Visa liberalization dialogue between Ukraine and the EU was launched on October 29, 2008.

▪️Ukrainians were granted visa-free travel to the EU for a period of stay of 90 days in any 180-day period in 2017, almost 10 years after the start of the dialogue and following a 2014 coup d'etat in Kiev.

Georgia

▪️EU-Georgia visa liberalization dialogue was launched on June 4, 2012, under then-President Mikheil Saakashvili who came to power in the wake of the EU-backed "color revolution" of 2003.

▪️Georgia was granted a visa-free access to the EU in 2017. In 2024, the EU meddled in Georgia's domestic policies by criticizing the nation's sovereign laws, threatening to halt bilateral programs, and endorsing the public unrest.

The EU's attempt to 'Westernize' Armenia is doomed, as the bloc is not ready to seriously invest in the nation's economy, Tarasov emphasizes.

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US ‘election interference’ order: What is it all about?

President Joe Biden has extended the executive order that allows the White House to impose sanctions on foreign companies and individuals for purportedly meddling in the US elections for another year.

What’s behind the effort?

🔸Executive Order 13848 noscriptd “Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election” was signed by former US President Donald Trump on September 12, 2018;

🔸The document opens by pointing out that foreign persons’ ability “to interfere in [any US] elections […] constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy” of the country;

🔸The term “foreign interference” pertaining to an election includes “any covert, fraudulent, deceptive, or unlawful actions or attempted actions of a foreign government, undertaken with the purpose or effect of influencing, undermining confidence in, or altering the result or reported result of, the election, or undermining public confidence in election processes or institutions.”

Trump actually starts the document underscoring that “there has been no evidence of a foreign power altering the outcome or vote tabulation in any United States election.”

Despite this, the disputed idea of mysterious Russian interference in the US election process has driven Biden to follow through with the document, accusing the Russian state and media in meddling with Washington’s domestic politics.

Earlier this month, the US introduced sanctions against Russia’s Rossiya Segodnya international media group (Sputnik’s parent company) and the RT broadcaster over their alleged attempts to influence the 2024 US election, something that was dismissed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as complete nonsense.

The sanctions, however, were followed by representatives of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) stating that US authorities have not detected any attempts by foreign actors to directly interfere in the country’s upcoming presidential election.

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Ocean 2024: All you need to know about Russia’s biggest naval exercises in 30 years

On September 10, multiple elements of the Russian Navy engaged in a strategic military exercise dubbed “Ocean 2024” that takes place in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

Over 400 warships, submarines and support vessels of the Russian Navy, along with more than 120 aircraft and helicopters of the Russian Naval Aviation and over 90,000 personnel took part in this exercise.

According to a statement issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the goal of the Ocean 2024 exercises is to “test the readiness of the command staff of the Russian Navy formations and units to manage heterogeneous force groups in their areas of responsibility, solve non-standard operational tasks, comprehensively use high-precision weapons, advanced and modern weapons and military equipment during the practical part of the exercise, as well as expand interaction with the naval forces of partner countries in solving joint tasks at sea.”

Here is an example of the tasks to be accomplished by the exercise’s participants (in this case, by an Arctic expeditionary group of the Russian Northern Fleet):

🔺Ensuring the safety of Russia’s coastal infrastructure in the Arctic region

🔺Investigating potential areas for military operations within the Arctic Sea zone

🔺Conducting joint training counterterrorist operations

Warships and aircraft of the China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy also took part in the Ocean 2024. Representatives from 15 other foreign states were invited to act as observers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself presided over the launch of the exercises via a video link, stating that Ocean 2024 became the first naval exercise of such magnitude to be held by Russia in the last 30 years.

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How to replace Taliban with Taliban: Brief recap of the US invasion of Afghanistan

The US House Foreign Affairs Committee released its report on the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan last week, calling out the White House over this disastrous conclusion of the country's campaign that ended in a humiliating defeat.

The report reveals that the Biden administration had all the means to “take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government” and to safely evacuate the US personnel and local collaborators, but instead “picked optics over security," as Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul put it.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the so-called Global War on Terrorism under the pretext of punishing notorious terrorist leader Osama bin Laden (the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks) who was supposedly being harbored by the Taliban at the time.

Having quickly subdued major Afghan population centers, the US then initiated a de facto military occupation of the country under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom, which was succeeded by Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in 2015.

In the years that followed, the US military and a motley collection of military contingents sent by the United States’ allies (also known as the International Security Assistance Force or ISAF for short) tried in vain to eradicate the Taliban guerrillas.

Meanwhile, Washington poured vast quantities of money and military equipment into the puppet government in Kabul and its armed forces.

This house of cards came crumbling down twenty years later in August 2021 when, even before the US finished pulling out its troops, the Taliban quickly re-seized control of Afghanistan, prompting the pro-US troops to flee the country.

In a nutshell, the results of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan can be summed up with this joke: “If you ever feel useless, just remember that it took the US four presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.”

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❗️A strike was carried out on a group of almost 100 Ukrainian soldiers who arrived for reinforcements under their control in Zaporozhye, the pro-Russian underground told Sputnik.

They also reported a strike on equipment and a group of 30 Ukrainian military personnel in a Kiev-controlled part of the Zaporozhye region.

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NATO starts drills near Russian borders

The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance has launched a series of drills near Russian borders that will last until late fall.

The Steadfast Foxtrot ’24 exercises in Germany are overseen by NATO’s SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) command structure which is controlled by US four-star General Christopher Cavoli. The Ramstein Flag 24 drills in Greece are overseen by NATO’s AIRCOM (Allied Air Command). The Cyber Coalition exercises will be conducted in Estonia on November.

Apart from alliance-level exercises, there will be a series of national drills backed by NATO – like Poseidon 24 in Bulgaria and Hammer 24 in Finland.

Check out Sputnik’s infographic to learn more about NATO’s drills.

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Russia’s and Iraq’s mutual history of partnership

Eighty years ago, on September 9, 1944, USSR and Iraq formally established diplomatic relations with one another.

The economic cooperation between the two countries grew over the years, with Iraq eventually emerging as one of Russia’s most prominent partners in the Middle East.

This harmonious development was disrupted in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq on false pretenses, but Moscow and Baghdad have been working tirelessly since to mitigate this setback and to further deepen the ties between the two nations.

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📹 Zelensky's begging for money results in new military equipment food shortages in the army and Zelensky's pocket fattening

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The UK has started terminating "all direct air services between the UK and Iran" as part of new sanctions on Tehran for allegedly supplying Russia with missiles to use in Ukraine.

London reportedly said it was acting alongside international partners to "cancel its bilateral air services arrangements with Iran," which would "restrict Iran Air's ability to fly in to the UK".

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia has seen the reports of the alleged arms supply, however, he added, "not every time such information corresponds to reality."

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Typhon missile deployment is part of US plans to maintain ‘primacy over the planet’

Having previously deployed the medium-range Typhon missile systems – a weapon banned under the now-obsolete INF Treaty – in the Philippines, the United States now moves to station them in Japan in relatively close proximity to China and North Korea.

Washington’s plans to deploy these weapons in Asia are “part of a much wider long-running US strategy to encircle and contain China,” with this move itself being “part of a global post-Cold War strategy to eliminate any peer or near-peer competitor and maintain US primacy over the planet,” geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic tells Sputnik.

The US plans to deploy Typhon missile systems in Europe are also “part of a wider strategy to encircle and contain Russia,” Berletic adds.

According to him, the deployment of these weapons “reveals several important factors regarding US foreign, policy including continuity of agenda.”

For one, Berletic notes, the US pulled out from the INF Treaty during Donald Trump’s presidency, but the deployment of the Typhon missiles in various corners of the globe takes place with Joe Biden at the helm.

“The process of withdrawing from a treaty, developing, and then deploying such systems took place over the course of two presidential administrations, serving one single agenda, regardless of who sat in the White House,” he says.

“The Typhon’s deployment also reveals the true nature of US foreign policy and its disruptive nature for supposed US ‘allies’,” Berletic remarks.

Though both the Philippines and Japan “count China as their largest trade partner,” they both end up hosting US missiles aimed squarely at Beijing, which does little to improve their relations.

“This is just the latest in a long line of provocations complicating what would otherwise be increasingly constructive relations with China,” Berletic explains, arguing that the Philippines and Japan’s willingness to enable such US provocations “reveals the absence of agency in terms of either nations’ foreign policy.”

“It is very clear that this policy of hosting US forces seeking to encircle and contain China is a policy determined in Washington, not Manila or Tokyo, and is a policy serving US interests at the expense of the Philippines and Japan,” he states.

Berletic also deemed ironic the fact that the United States claims that its deployment of weapon systems around the world “is necessary to ensure global peace and stability,” even as the US “consistently demonstrates that it itself is the greatest threat to both.”

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How the Rothschilds cashed in on Ukraine since neo-Nazi coup in 2014

Multinational asset firm Rothschild & Co was instrumental in the restructuring of Ukraine's $20+ billion debt in July 2024, according to Western press.

It had reportedly been involved in arranging face-to-face meetings between Ukrainians and asset management firms, including Black Rock and Amundi, less than two months before the two-year payment moratorium expired on August 1.

The Rothschilds reportedly engaged IMF's experts in the talks while the plan of grabbing Russia's frozen sovereign assets was also on the table.

The famous Jewish banking family has been deeply involved in Ukraine's affairs since the 2014 coup d'etat, despite Ukraine embracing neo-Nazi collaborators as its national heroes.

The clan is believed to be cashing in on the Eastern European state through various schemes, including the future "restoration of Ukraine."

▪️Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tapped a Rothschild & Cie to sell his assets in 2014. It turned out later that the companies weren't sold but handed over to Rothschild Trust.

▪️Rothschild first offered to mediate Ukraine's talks with creditors on the restructuring of the country's debt in 2015.

▪️In 2017, Rothschild S.p.A. won the bidding for investment and banking services to Ukraine's oil and gas company Naftogaz.

▪️The same year, the supervisory board of Ukraine's state-owned lender PrivatBank asked a consortium of Rothschild, EY and FinPoint companies to restructure its funds. Ukrainian tycoon Igor Kolomoisky also reached out to the Rothschilds when seeking to regain a 25% stake in PrivatBank, his former asset, in 2019.

▪️In July 2017, then Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman reportedly held a private meeting with Nathaniel Jacob Rothschild in London. Former Ukrainian People's Deputy Oleg Tsarev suggested at the time that Groysman wanted Rothschild to make him the next president.

▪️In July 2023, Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexey Stolyarov (Lexus) tricked Alexandre de Rothschild, the executive chairman of Rothschild & Co, who told them that the banking clan has cooperated with the Kiev regime since 2017.

▪️"We had excellent relationships with people in your government. We were mainly involved in attracting of lending funds," de Rothschild told Vovan and Lexus thinking that he was talking to Volodymyr Zelensky.

▪️De Rothschild told the pranksters that the family company intends to take part in "the restoration of Ukraine", including in energy, housing construction, and logistics. "You expressed the need for reconstruction financing in the total amount of more than $750 billion, starting in 2023 for a period of about ten years, and this is quite adequate," the banker said.

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