🇷🇺🪖 Key statements from the Russian Ministry of Defense's daily briefing on the situation in the Kursk region:

🔸 Units of Russia’s Battlegroup Sever hammered 10 Ukrainian formations in the direction of the settlements of Lyubimovka, Novy Put, Plekhovo and Novoivanovka.

🔸 Russia’s Battlegroup Sever repelled six counterattacks. The enemy lost as many as 40 soldiers, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

🔸 Russian aviation and artillery strikes hit concentrations of personnel and equipment from nine Ukrainian brigades in the Sumy region.

🔸 In total, Ukrainian losses over the day amounted to more than 250 militants, with 15 armored vehicles destroyed, including five tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, eight armored vehicles, four mortars, and four cars. Six Ukrainian militants also surrendered.

🔸 Since the beginning of combat operations in the Kursk region, Ukraine has lost more than 23,850 troops.

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⚡️Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting with the heads of leading BRICS media on Friday.

Russia will be represented at the event by Dmitry Kiselev, Director General of the Rossiya Segodnya media group.

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Why Ukraine may not operate a full F-16 squadron for months to come

The United States has changed its program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, adding “younger cadets” with no prior flight experience, the Wall Street Journal has cited unnamed officials as saying.

“It is a mix. Some have been experienced pilots, and we still are receiving more experienced pilots. But there’s also those that do not have that kind of pilot training and experience,” one of the officials said.

The decision to refocus the training on the cadets rather than experienced air force members may extend the timeline in when the Kiev regime could start to operate a full squadron of F-16s on the battlefield "by many months”, according to the sources.

They argued that even before the decision was taken, Ukraine would hardly have 20 F-16s and 40 pilots to operate them until spring or summer next year at the earliest.

The insiders also said that the move to change the training program is the result of a lack of experienced Ukrainian pilots “with requisite English-language abilities who can be spared from the battlefield.”

The first batch of F-16s, which was delivered to the Ukrainian military in late July, failed to change the situation on the battlefield in favor of the Kiev regime, with the Ukrainian Air Force confirming that one such jet crashed just weeks after the first batch supply.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier warned the US and its NATO allies that Moscow considers the presence of nuclear-capable F-16s in Ukraine as a nuclear threat.

President Vladimir Putin emphasized that if Western F-16 jets supplied to Ukraine are deployed from third countries' territory, they would become legitimate targets for Russian forces and would be destroyed just like other Western military equipment delivered to Ukraine.

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❗️IDF checking possibility that Hamas leader was eliminated

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it eliminated three terrorists and is checking the possibility that one of them was Palestinian movement Hamas new leader Yahya Sinwar.

"During IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, three terrorists were eliminated. The IDF and ISA are checking the possibility that one of the terrorists was Yahya Sinwar. At this stage, the identity of the terrorists cannot be confirmed," the IDF said on Telegram.

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UK government feeding Big Pharma? Starmer to give Ozempic to jobless Britons

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet has unveiled a collaborative scheme with American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to the tune of £279 million ($477.5 million) to distribute weight loss medicines, like Ozempik, to all unemployed people. The proclaimed goal is to deal with excess weight, reduce the burden on healthcare and get people back to the job market.

Ozempic has become a popular weight loss drug, which has reportedly been used by Western celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Kylie Jenner. Earlier, the Daily Mail wrote that Ozempic and similar drugs for rapid weight loss have caused 162 deaths in the US since 2018. CNN, citing a recent study, reported that people who take Ozempic are 45% more likely to have suicidal thoughts.

Eli Lilly boasted a net worth of $822.38 billion as of October 16, 2024, and is set to rake in profits. What’s wrong with this company?

🔸In 2009, Lilly agreed to plead guilty and pay $1.415 billion for promoting its drug Zyprexa for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This resolution included a criminal fine of $515 million - the largest ever in a healthcare case at the time.

🔸Problems in tracking the manufacturing process and quality control were discovered at an Eli Lilly plant in New Jersey by the US Food and Drug Administration in July 2024.

Starmer is betting that the new generation of Ozempic-like weight-loss drugs might help to solve the problems his government is facing.

◾️There is an acute obesity crisis in the UK, with 64% of adults overweight or obese in 2022, according to a release by Health Survey for England.

◾️Britain’s healthcare system is overwhelmed, with one in 20 patients forced to wait at least four weeks to see a GP, NHS figures show. 7.62 million patients were on the waiting list to see a doctor as of July 2024.

◾️Starmer wants Britons to be brought into the labor market, as around 83% of the 3.2 million working-age people are on health benefits.

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❗️DNA tests have confirmed the death of the Palestinian Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip, claims the Israeli state broadcaster Kan.

"A security source reported today that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been liquidated," the broadcaster said in a statement.

Kan recalled that Israel has a DNA sample of Sinwar, as he was previously held in an Israeli prison. This will allow it to verify with 100% certainty whether Israel's most wanted Hamas leader has been liquidated.

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What is known about Ukraine’s critical metals that the West is eager to obtain?

Volodymyr Zelensky has presented Ukrainian MPs with a so-called "victory plan", which specifically stipulates the US and the EU’s joint use of Ukraine's critical natural resources and its economic potential. “There are critical metals in Ukraine worth trillions of US dollars,” Zelensky said, referencing uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite and other “strategically valuable resources.”

Sputnik studies open data to explore which rare metals Ukraine has and what is the West's interest in them:

▪️Uranium: Ukraine was the world’s tenth-largest producer of uranium in 2023, with annual output standing at about 1,000 tons.

▪️Titanium: The country has about 7% of the recorded world reserves of titanium ores; annual output stood at 5,400 tons.

▪️Lithium: Ukraine holds close to 500,000 tons of lithium oxide, a source of lithium; it makes the country’s lithium reserves one of the largest in the world.

▪️Graphite: Ukraine produced 5,200 tons of graphite in previous years, accounting for 0.5% of global production.

“They’re sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham stated earlier, adding that he doesn’t want “to give that money and those assets to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to share with China.”

Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations and Russian affairs analyst, told Sputnik that as “Ukraine has no sovereignty to lose” and “has a failing economy”, its “single most visible resource”, namely, black earth lands “have already been substantially (40%) sold off to international consortiums of agribusiness.”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declined to welcome Zelensky’s “victory plan,” saying only that he and the allies “take note” of it.

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Houthis prove to have serious military muscle, forcing US to deploy B-2 stealth bombers

The United States has recently deployed B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to target Houthi assets in Yemen. This deployment of advanced stealth aircraft may serve as an attempt to divert attention from the US military’s inability to halt Houthi attacks on shipping lanes in the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea.

The B-2 bomber, one of Washington’s most expensive weapons, is capable of carrying the 14,000 kg GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a powerful bunker-buster bomb. As Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked cargo vessels continue unabated, it appears that the US has lost faith in the prospect of a "small victorious war," which they may have counted on in January 2024.

The recent US strike targeted five alleged underground weapons storage sites and may also be intended to send a message to key players in the Middle East. The Pentagon's statement on the attack references the Houthis’ alleged ties to Iran, suggesting that the operation serves as a not-so-subtly veiled threat to Tehran in light of its recent attack on Israel.

The US-led effort to bring the Houthis to heel using a motley naval coalition has proven inadequate in less than a year, raising questions about the credibility of the US’s military superiority claims.

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Look at Lebanon's Nabatiyeh city after Israeli air raids

On October 16, the Israeli Defense Forces carried out a massive air strike on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, hitting both shopping malls and municipal authority building and causing the deaths of several civilians, including Mayor Ahmad Kahil.

Sputnik's correspondent was able to visit the city after attack to record the aftermath and interview local citizens:

"All of us are steadfast. Despite the destruction, despite all the ruins around us, we will not give in to grief, we will be resilient until death. US and Israel bear great responsibility for all these atrocities, for all the horror we're living in," revealed Ali Al-Hussein, one of Nabatiyeh's residents.

Mohammed Jaber, Nabatiyeh Municipal Council member, emphasized that despite the danger and chaos, people still help each other.

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Global sports are being politicized, even against Russian Paralympians who are not allowed to compete normally, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the international forum "Russia - a Sports Power" in the city of Ufa

The president called for sports to be cleansed of vulgar politicization and humiliating discrimination based on nationality.

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