⚡️The Russian Federal Security Service reported on the detention of Ukrainian military intelligence officers who tried to enter Russia from the territory of Lithuania.

At first, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry tasked its employees with collecting information about the security of the border for dropping agents and committing crimes in Russia.

Having collected the necessary data, the Ukrainian spies tried to cross the border but were caught.

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Georgian parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili said that he had signed the bill on family values that bans LGBT* propaganda.

"According to the constitution of Georgia, I am signing the bill 'On the Protection of Family Values ​​and Minors,' which Salome Zurabishvili refused to sign," Papuashvili wrote on social media.

Earlier, the Parliament of Georgia has adopted a bill on the prohibition of LGBT propaganda.

*the LGBT movement is banned in Russia as extremist

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Iran has resumed flights previously canceled due to escalation in the Middle East, Iranian authorities announced.

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LIVE: Lavrov delivers speech on occasion of 75th anniversary of Russia-China diplomatic ties

Watch the livestream here or on Sputnik's website

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France’s policy ‘completely aligned with the US’ - analyst

Commenting on Paris helping Israel against Iran and supporting Lebanon at the same time, retired French army colonel, Alain Corvez, told Sputnik that it’s a “terrible” situation as there is “no normal diplomacy” in France.

“We [France] have lost our sovereignty. We don't decide. The decisions are not taken in Paris. They are decisions which have been elaborated in Brussels and Brussels is the bridge to Washington. We have adopted all the strategic thinking of the US,” Corvez, international strategy and international relations consultant of the French defense and interior ministries, said.

France doesn’t pursue a sovereign policy, focusing instead on supporting the policy of the US and Israel, he added. According to Corvez, the policy of France is “now completely aligned with American policy.”

“We have to recover our sovereignty of decisions. […] It's a shame. Each time [French President Emmanuel] Macron is going to Beirut, to Lebanon, he is the envoy of Washington. He's not officially the envoy, but the Lebanese political parties know that he's coming to support Israel’s and Washington's policy,” the expert concluded.

The French foreign ministry earlier said that Paris condemns Iran's missile attack on Israel, and that France used “its military means in the Middle East to counter the Iranian threat.” This came as Macron expressed desire for Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity to be restored in strict compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

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❗️The Israeli army announced the elimination of the head of the Hamas government, Rawhi Mushtaha, in the Gaza Strip.

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No replacement for Ukraine-squandered best Western tanks — report

During the attack on the Russian Kursk region, Ukrainian troops used the best tanks supplied by the West, which are unlikely to be replaced in case of loss, Forbes reports.

As the newspaper notes, the 21st mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian forces has been involved in the attack, comprising a CV90 IFV, as well as German Leopard 2A6 and Swedish Strv 122 tanks.

The article says that the Ukrainian brigade has already lost "at least one tank in Kursk," while "the Swedish and German armies are struggling to sustain their own tank brigades; neither has signaled a willingness to part with any more of their better tanks."

The Kursk region, which borders Ukraine in western Russia, was attacked by about 1,000 Ukrainian troops and scores of armored vehicles on August 6. Russian forces stopped Ukraine’s Army from advancing deep into Russian territory and continue to repel Ukrainian incursion attempts.

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❗️Ukrainian losses amounted to 2,085 militants during the day — Russian Defense Ministry 

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

▪️Units of the Russian Vostok combat group repelled two counterattacks by the Ukrainian assault groups. The enemy lost up to 130 militants;

▪️The Russian Tsentr Battlegroup repelled eight Ukrainian counterattacks and destroyed two armored vehicles. Ukrainian losses amounted to 615 servicemen; 

▪️The Russian Yug combat group repelled three counterattacks and destroyed a Ukrainian drone assembly workshop, an electronic warfare station and three warehouses. Ukrainian losses amounted to 720 soldiers;

▪️Russian air defense systems shot down 144 Ukrainian drones, four ATACMS missiles, and five HIMARS shells.

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Majid Diwani, a military adviser of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who was in Syria, died from wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike on Damascus earlier this week, the SNN news agency reported.

Early on Tuesday, Syrian state television reported, citing a military source, that three people were killed and nine injured as a result of Israel's "air aggression" against Damascus.

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Even upgraded F-16s of Ukrainian army ‘vulnerable’ to Russian warplanes - US general

The F-16 fighter jets, which Ukraine has started receiving from its allies, yield to Russian military aircraft in terms of combat capabilities, retired US Army General Gordon Davis told Business Insider.

The F-16s have “some issues with range and vulnerability" and "even the best systems we can put on those aircraft will still not make them superior to some of the best Russian aircraft,” Davis said.

He recalled that Russia has "several hundred some pretty advanced” warplanes, including the Su-35S supermaneuverable air superiority fighter, the Su-30SM multirole jet and the MiG-31 supersonic interceptor plane.

"The bottom line is you can give the F-16s the maximum capability for munitions and electronic warfare capabilities, they're still going to be somewhat vulnerable to grounded defense, and some of the most advanced fighters from Russia. […] That's an issue, and that will remain an issue," the general pointed out.

In late August, the Ukrainian air force confirmed that a US-made F-16 jet, which was transferred to Ukraine by its Western partners, crashed just weeks after the first batch of such aircraft was delivered to Kiev.

💬 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that the F-16s “have long been the main means of delivery in the framework of the so-called NATO joint nuclear missions”, so Moscow considers the supply of these systems to the Kiev regime as a “deliberate signal action by NATO in the nuclear sphere.” He added that the presence of these jets in Ukraine would not change the situation on the battlefield, as they would be destroyed like other types of weapons.

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Hate speech - the new measure to help Democrats censor the truth?

💬 "The Democratic Party openly wants to take your freedom of speech under the guise of what THEY deem to be ’hate’", Elon Musk said on his X account, prolonging the buzz about the recent US VP debates.

This time around, netizens are in a frenzy over a comment made by the Democratic VP pick, Tim Walz, about the First Amendment (which protects the press from state interference) to the US Constitution.

“Or threatening. Or hate speech. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater… That’s the Supreme Court test.” Walz interjected to his debate opponent's statement that "there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation".

Walz has already promoted such position in a 2023 MSNBC interview, when he remarked that “there’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”

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Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Rashid Bou Habib confirmed that Hassan Nasrallah was killed by the Israelis after Hezbollah agreed to a cease-fire, and the Lebanese authorities informed the Americans about it.

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Croatia ‘can’t stop the war’ but can ‘prevent it from spreading to Croatian borders’ – President Milanovic

President Zoran Milanovic has spoken out against the participation of Croatian forces in NATO's Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) mission.

Сroatia "can't stop the war in Ukraine", but it can "prevent the conflict from spreading to Croatia's borders," according to Milanovic.

Milanovic then wrote on his social media accounts that he was and would continue to be responsible only to the citizens of Croatia, not to Washington and Brussels.

"This is a development of his position on what is happening between Russia and Ukraine. Milanovic also said at the beginning of this conflict that he did not know what the final outcome would be in terms of territorial gains and concessions, but Russia cannot lose this war, " Serbian publicist Ratko Dmitrovic told Sputnik.

According to the expert, Milanovic does not care what Brussels has to say about it, because he personally has no Euro-bureaucratic ambitions.

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THROWBACK: US Mainstream Media Criticized Israel During the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon.

Major news networks documented Israeli massacres against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and accused Tel Aviv of behaving like an “imperial power” and “neighborhood bully.”

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❗️Major Telegram outage: Users report widespread outages, trouble sending messages & loading media.

THROWBACK: Netanyahu in 2002 urges US to invade Iraq, arguing that bringing down Saddam Hussein will lead to regime change in Iran

"If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people and many others, will say the time of such regimes is gone. There is a new age, something new is happening," Netanyahu said.

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