❗️Russia overtakes US to become world's second-largest army

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree to increase the number of Armed Forces service members to 2,389,130 today, including 1.5 million active personnel (previously, it was 2,209,130 service members of which 1,320,000 were active).

This move will effectively result in Russia surpassing the US and becoming the country with the second-largest standing army in the world.

According to public data, the ranking of countries by active military personnel will look as follows:

1st – China, 2.035 million
2nd – Russia, 1.5 m
3rd – India, 1.455 m
4th – US, 1.328 m
5th – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 1.32 m

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Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the assassination attempt on Trump, was listed as a contact person on a website which instructed people on how to join the Foreign Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a Sputnik correspondent has found out.

At the same time, the authors of the site urge people not to contact the embassy to get permission to participate in the battle: they are invited to simply come to Ukraine.

"Contact me. We can call and visit countless units that need help," reads the text of the link that leads to Routh's name and contact details.

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Trump taking a page out of Putin’s playbook? Educational proposals echo Russian reforms

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has vowed to reshuffle the US school system to stamp out "wokeness" – neo-liberal ideas including those concerning race and gender, advocated by "radical left maniacs."

🔸Trump proposes cutting federal funding for schools and programs promoting "critical race theory" (CRT). CRT regards the US state system and society as inherently "racist". According to the GOP, modern CRT studies are biased against white and Asian people, statehood and law.

🔸Trump vows to crackdown on "transgender insanity" at schools which were pressured to adopt new Title IX regulations on students’ gender identity under the risk of losing federal funding under Joe Biden. The rules include providing access to female lockers and bathrooms for biological males self-identifying as "girls" and allowing transgender athletes to participate in school sports "matching their identity".

🔸Trump also plans to subject "accreditation agencies" to scrutiny over "wokeism", and provide alternatives for educational institutions.

🔸He also looks to shut the federal Department of Education, slammed by conservatives as a hotbed of liberal ideas and "progressivism".

Russia is at the forefront of supporting traditional values

🔹In November 2022, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to strengthen the traditional values in Russia's social life, whereas in December 2023 he inked a law reinforcing traditional values in the Russian "sovereign education system."

🔹The laws denounce neoliberal ideas, including gender issues and the LGBT+* agenda peddled by the Western elites, as being destructive for an individual, the family and society.

🔹Since September 1, the new school curriculum includes courses on family studies and the defense of the Homeland.

*an extremist organization banned in Russia

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Leaving the dollar-based system for good: What are the digital ruble and BRICS Bridge?

By July 1, 2025, the largest Russian banks will have to provide their clients with the ability to conduct transactions in digital rubles, according to the Russian Central Bank. Pilot testing of the digital currency is underway with 12 banks participating in it.

The digital ruble

◾️ The digital ruble is an electronic form of national currency. It is a unique digital code – a token – that is stored in digital wallets on a special platform of the Central Bank. The bank intends to issue it as an addition to the existing means of payment.

◾️ The digital ruble could become a fast, convenient and reliable means of cross-border payments, which is important for Russia in the context of sanctions pressure and exclusion from SWIFT, as well as its de-dollarization policy.

◾️ To seamlessly conduct financial operations with its partners, Russia needs a system based on the interaction of national digital currencies. According to the Central Bank, there are two options: an integration of two platforms, i.e. the digital ruble and other digital currencies; or operations on national currency platforms through a third common system.

BRICS bridge

🔸 Together with the central banks of the BRICS countries, Russia is working on creating a new settlement and payment infrastructure that will allow payments to be made in national currencies, including digital ones.

🔸 A multilateral digital settlement and payment platform "BRICS Bridge" that could connect the financial markets of BRICS members is currently under consideration by the organization. The development of a system immune to political pressure, abuse and external sanctions interference has been going on since the 2023 BRICS summit in South Africa.

🔸 The issue of an independent multilateral digital platform is likely to be a focus point of the October BRICS Summit in Kazan, according to Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko.

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📹The moment Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, was arrested in Florida.

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🔸Trump’s would-be assassin called for killing Putin and nuclear war with Russia

🔸Russia becomes world's second-largest army, surpassing US

🔸US embassy launched intimidation campaign against Sputnik

🔸Does Trump take a page out of Putin’s playbook?

🔸Compare the wealth of world countries in Sputnik's infographic

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Video footage has emerged on the net of the suspect in the assassination attempt on Trump, Ryan Wesley Routh, trying to recruit US students to sign up to fight for Ukraine.

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СIA veteran: Ukrainian connection in Trump’s assassination attempt cannot be ignored

The fact that Ryan Routh, the suspect in the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump, was “an ardent supporter of the Ukraine and wants to see Russia attacked, and clearly saw Trump as a threat to Ukraine's future receipt of US military support,” cannot be hidden, says former US State Department official and retired CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson.

“I'm sure that the Kiev regime is going to distance itself from this. The Kiev regime, along with the apparent support of the CIA, has put together a death list of Americans. A list of Americans who ought to be killed. It's not a list to send them nasty letters. Scott Ritter's on it, I think Douglas McGregor's on it. It is not out of line for them to have done this,” Johnson tells Sputnik.

He describes the fact that Routh was apparently privy to Trump’s whereabouts as “puzzling”, given the latter does not make his schedule public.

“Who leaked that to him? How did he know? Was there somebody inside the Trump team that told him? Was there somebody inside the Secret Service who told him? Was it a foreign intelligence service? Was the Ukrainian intelligence that alerted? That has to be investigated,” Johnson remarks.

According to him, the assassination attempt is going to have a detrimental effect on the support for Ukraine in the US, at least among Trump’s supporters.

Johnson also suggests that many people in the current US government do not want Trump to become president again and would rather see him dead.

“It would not shock me at all that there would be some elements inside the government that would get involved in that kind of plot. The Secret Service, I think it's on notice and the focus is on it in such a way that they can't afford to allow sloppiness and poor planning and poor security to go unanswered,” he says.

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'This is a Czech Vampire missile delivered to Ukraine to intimidate the civilian population of Russia'

An independent journalist from Australia witnessed the Ukrainian shelling of Belgorod and told Sputnik that the city was attacked by Western weapons.

He called it a NATO terrorist campaign.

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Playing Santa? Sweden to oversee NATO base in Lapland as Nordic militarization gears up

In a significant move reflecting NATO's enhanced Nordic military presence, a new base is set to be established in Finland's northernmost region of Lapland, which will operate under Swedish command. This arrangement will allow Finnish forces to concentrate on "defending" the nation's southern regions, as reported by local media.

Apart from the mostly Swedish rank and file service members, reports indicate that 20-50 posts may be designated for Swedish officers as well.

Earlier in July, Swedish media announced that additional NATO forces are going to be deployed in Lapland, apparently referring to the bloc’s Forward Land Forces, which is a a unit operating under NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence Program.

What are other signs signaling the militarization of Scandinavian nations?

🔶 A NATO-armored brigade of 4,000-5,000 soldiers will be formed in the Finnish city of Mikkeli near the border with Russia, the Iltalehti newspaper reported last month. A NATO ground forces headquarters is also expected to be set up in Finland.

🔶 Sweden in turn plans to establish a NATO base on the island of Gotland, a “provocative” move which means that “previously peaceful waters of the Baltic Sea are turning into an arena of geopolitical confrontation,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik in April. Sweden entered NATO in March 2024.

🔶 The same goes for Norway, where a similar deal stipulates US troops’ unimpeded access to a whole array of military bases in northern Norway.

"We have repeatedly pointed out the gradual transformation of the northern regions of Norway adjacent to the Russian-Norwegian border into a well-armed and fortified outpost of the North Atlantic Alliance," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier.

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🤔 Ring a bell?

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Following talks between US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the United States has said it is not ready to announce the lifting of restrictions for Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike deep into Russia, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

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⚡️Meta* bans Sputnik, RT and other related entities over ‘foreign interference activity’.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” a Meta spokesperson said.

* Banned in Russia for extremism.

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Emergency services of the city of La Porte in the US state of Texas are trying to extinguish a fire that broke out on a pipeline in the city limits.

As stated in the local emergency management department, the fire department recommends evacuation.

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Ukrainian instructors arrived in Idlib to train terrorists to make drones - Syrian source

A group of 250 instructors of the Ukrainian army arrived in the Idlib province in northern Syria to train militants from the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)* in new drone production technologies with the goal of opening a new front in Syria in the near future against the Russian forces stationed there, an informed Syrian source told Sputnik.

💬 "There is confirmed information that the number of Ukrainian instructors who have already arrived in Idlib has reached 250 people. They have been distributed among production facilities in the city of Idlib and in the Jisir al-Shughur region," the source said, specifying that the instructors are training in the production and modernization of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Ukrainians and Americans are transferring battles from Ukraine to Syria in order to open a new front against Russian forces in Syria," the source said.

*Terrorist group outlawed in Russia

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EU increases Russian LNG purchases to the highest level since February

The European Union imported Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in July to the value of 565.7 million euros, the highest since the end of winter, according to Eurostat data analyzed by Sputnik.

◻️ Imports in July rose by about 13.5 percent both on a monthly and annual basis. The main customer was Spain, which increased its purchases by 2.3 times to 240.8 million euros. The Netherlands also increased imports by a quarter to 57.2 million euros.

◻️ In contrast, France, the second-largest importer of Russian LNG, reduced its purchases in July by 11 percent to 210.4 million euros. Belgium halved its imports to 47.7 million.

◻️ Overall, the EU bought 4 billion euros worth of LNG from Russia in the seven months, compared with 5.5 billion a year earlier. However, despite the lower cost of supplies, the share of Russian LNG rose from 13.3% to 18.6%. This was due to a halving of EU imports from other sources.

💬 Earlier, Dmitry Birichevsky, director of the foreign ministry's department for economic cooperation, told Sputnik that EU countries have been increasing their purchases of Russian gas. According to the diplomat, Russian gas now accounts for 15 percent of the EU's total imports.

Russia has repeatedly stated that the West has made a serious mistake by refusing to buy hydrocarbons from Russia, and will fall into a new, stronger dependence due to higher prices. Those who have refused supplies are still buying more expensive oil and gas through intermediaries and will continue to buy Russian oil and gas.

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