🇲🇱🇷🇺 Mali appreciates Russian support in the fight against terrorists – Foreign Minister

Mali appreciates the prompt deliveries of military equipment purchased from Russia as they help to protect the country, Malian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Abdoulaye Diop told Sputnik.

"We do appreciate the swiftness of the provision of all the military equipment that Mali is purchasing and all the support that we are receiving from Russia to be able to capacitate [our armed forces] because our main objective is to make sure that Malians have the capacity to protect and defend their country," Diop said in an interview on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Mali is "very much interested" in defense industry cooperation with Russia, the minister emphasized.

The Malian government also appreciates the importance the Russian government is attaching to the country’s requests for prompt arms deliveries to enable its ongoing fight against terrorist groups, Diop added.

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US continues to hand-hold Israel despite its wrongdoings

Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday as the region has entered a growing escalation that is threatening to push the Middle East into a wider war. According to reports, Israelis “scrambled for bomb shelters as air raid sirens sounded and the orange glow of missiles streaked across the sky," following Iran's retaliatory missile launch.

💬 “I think that the strategy on the part of the Israelis for the past many months has been to try to draw the US more directly into the conflict on Israel's side. [President Masoud] Pezeshkian and the Iranian government have shown great restraint. Great restraint in the face of direct attacks from the Israelis,” John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer and co-host of Sputnik’s Political Misfits, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

The former CIA officer added that the Iranian government is under “great pressure” from its public to act in the face of Israel's violence, where one has to start thinking about whether or not it’s “safe for the Iranian government" not to respond.

💬 “Let's be clear, [the US] speak out of both ends of their mouth. The US says it wants a ceasefire, but, on the other hand, it continues providing the assistance and backing, and with other claims made by US officials that they will back Israel should it go into Lebanon,” added Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, who also spoke to Fault Lines.

💬 “The Israelis are ignoring all cautionaries from the US, and they know that the United States will do nothing,” Maloof added.

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🇹🇷 Erdogan to attend BRICS summit as Turkiye continues steady march away from West

Turkiye’s future lies with the group of nations seeking to create an alternative to Western hegemony via the BRICS economic bloc, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan knows it, according to filmmaker and analyst Regis Tremblay.

💬 “Erdogan is doing what Erdogan has always done: he's straddling both sides of the proverbial picket fence,” said Tremblay on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program, responding to the announcement that Erdogan would attend the outreach/BRICS+ session during the upcoming annual BRICS summit in Russia. “Erdogan has been trying to be a peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine… I'm really glad that Erdogan is going to attend this meeting. I'm not sure that he's going to be invited to be a member right yet, but I think it'll be a feeling out session.”

Turkiye has often maintained a fraught relationship with its Western allies, Tremblay noted. The United States could opt to eventually punish Turkiye’s independence with sanctions, claimed host Garland Nixon, providing Ankara with even more incentive to build links beyond the US and its European allies.

💬 “I'm sure that Turkiye has upset Washington and those people who are controlling what's happening in Washington because Erdogan really has broken from NATO,” said Tremblay, pointing out the country’s independent position on the Ukraine proxy war. “If Erdogan is concerned that he's going to be sanctioned, it would make sense for him to cozy up to the BRICS countries and to try to get himself involved in that international monetary system that they're creating.”

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Dozens killed in fresh IDF strikes on Lebanon: check out latest on conflict

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have pledged to continue striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley and Beirut after launching fresh airstrikes on the Lebanese capital.

In other latest developments:

▪️The Israeli military reportedly conducted a targeted strike in Beirut against the head of Hezbollah's executive committee Hashim Safi al-Din, a possible successor to late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. It remains unclear if Safi al-Din was killed in the attack.

▪️The IDF claimed they had killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, a commander of the Palestinian movement Hamas in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

▪️At least 18 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm Camp, the Palestinian health ministry said.

▪️According to the IDF, they also have eliminated Mahmoud Yusef Anisi, one of the leaders of Hezbollah’s precision missile manufacturing project.

▪️The Israeli air force carried out about 20 strikes on the Laylaki neighborhood adjacent to Beirut International Airport, eyewitnesses told Sputnik.

▪️Across Lebanon, at least 37 people were killed and 151 more wounded by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, per the Lebanese health ministry.

▪️Hezbollah published footage allegedly showing the targeting of Israel's Glilot military base and the Mossad headquarters north of Tel Aviv as part of its “Operation Khaybar” against the Israeli army.

▪️The IDF earlier reported that Hezbollah had fired approximately 230 projectiles into Israeli territory over the past 24 hours, targeting infrastructure sites, weapons storage facilities and observation posts.

▪️Israeli airstrikes at checkpoints near the Syria-Lebanon border stopped traffic on the Damascus-Beirut international highway, a source in the Lebanese security forces told Sputnik.

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🔸Fresh Israeli strikes on Lebanon: check out the aftermath

🔸Could Israel be threatening the West’s dominance?

🔸Kim Jong Un says North Korea would use all weapons, including nuclear, to defend its territory as he visits army base

🔸Mali appreciates ‘prompt deliveries’ of military equipment from Russia – FM to Sputnik

🔸Erdogan to attend BRICS summit as Turkiye continues steady march away from West

🔸‘No match for Russo-Chinese cooperation’: analyst on NATO states' new Arctic group

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❗️The first panoramic video footage of Ugledar after its liberation by the Russian army

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'Otherwise, they said they would send me video with my husband's severed head' — wife of Russian soldier in Ukrainian captivity

Yulia Poliy, the wife of a Russian soldier who is being held captive by Ukrainian militants, has made a video address to the United Nations, calling on the world community to hold Ukraine accountable for the violation of the laws of war and to help rescue her husband, Sergei Poliy, from captivity.

"I am asking the United Nations and international human rights organizations to pay attention to the violation of the laws of war and help me to rescue my husband from the captivity of the Ukrainian armed forces," Yulia said in the video obtained by Sputnik.

Earlier this week, a source told Sputnik that Yulia Poliy received a video of her husband's torture in Ukrainian captivity and demanded that she carry out a terrorist attack in the Russian city of Pyatigorsk to stop it.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a fresh periodic report, which said that no one has been held accountable for crimes against Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine.

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❗️The number of the "International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine" formed by the West has reached 18,000 militants from more than 85 countries, said head of the Russian Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov.

More statements by the head of the Russian Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov:

💬Ukraine wants to involve the Baltic States and Poland in the conflict, with its provocations near the Belarusian border, said FSB Director Bortnikov. 

💬The West is clearly not interested in establishing stability in Transcaucasia and is trying to achieve the deployment of its own "peacekeeping" contingent in the region under the auspices of NATO.

💬The West is putting increasing pressure on Moldova in order to force Chisinau into open confrontation with Russia. This is a serious threat. Moscow hopes that Chisinau will show common sense and not trade the sovereignty and security of the country for short-term political benefits.

💬The bombing of pagers in Lebanon and Syria demonstrates that there is a risk of attempts on government officials by special services. "This is a direct threat to the security of the CIS countries."

💬In Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, foreigners are being trained to participate in battles on the side of Kiev.

💬Uzbekistan helped the FSB to identify a cell of a dozen militants of the "Wilayat Khorasan"* operating in Russia.

💬The West is seeking to make Armenian authorities withdraw from the Collective Security Treaty Organization in exchange for preferential arms supplies.

*ISIS, or ISIS-K (also known as Wilayat Khorasan) is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia.

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Musk promised to attend Trump's campaign rally in Butler

It was in this city that an assassination attempt was made on the Republican presidential candidate in July.

"I will be there to support!" Musk wrote on his X page.

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🇮🇷🇱🇧Iranian Foreign Minister pays a visit to Lebanon

A delegation headed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Beirut, where it will hold talks with the Lebanese authorities, Iranian diplomat Esmail Baghaei wrote on his X account.

Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Ministry promised to give a strong response to any manifestation of aggression on the part of Israel.

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Lavrov called on Western countries to lift sanctions against Afghanistan and return frozen assets to it. 

It is necessary to hold a pragmatic dialogue between Moscow and Kabul, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"We are convinced that it is necessary to maintain a pragmatic dialogue with the current Afghan government. Constructive engagement with Afghan partners meets the interests of security and economic development, as well as the goals of inter-Afghan national harmony," Lavrov said at the opening of the sixth meeting of the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan.

He also added that Russia is against the deployment of military infrastructure of third countries in Afghanistan.

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