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.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

♟ Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the Order of Friendship to the President of the Asian Chess Federation Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan for his great contribution to the popularization of chess in Russia and abroad

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The IDF officially confirms the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🛰🛰🛰🛰 LIVESTREAM ANNOUNCEMENT

Dear readers, Sputnik is excited to bring you live coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with the heads of leading media outlets from BRICS countries on October 18, ahead of the BRICS Summit in Kazan on October 22–24.

Dmitry Kiselev, the director general of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya, will represent Russia at the gathering.

Stay tuned so you won't miss it!

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The United States saw the activities of slain Hamas leader Sinwar as a "serious obstacle" to peace in the Middle East and welcomed his assassination, the White House said.

US President Joe Biden said that he had US intelligence help Israel track Sinwar's location.

Biden compared the assassination to the 2011 assassination of Osama bin Laden.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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

▪️Radicals repeatedly attacked the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine

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

▪️Look at Lebanon's Nabatiyeh city after Israeli air raids

▪️Does UK government feed Big Pharma?

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Zelensky 'feels the noose tightening around his neck’ and tries to 'foment a NATO war’ with his plan - expert

Volodymyr Zelensky’s so-called “victory plan” that was recently unveiled to the public and met with a rather lukewarm reaction from the NATO countries may represent the Ukrainian ex-comedian taking a page from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s playbook, suggests international relations analyst Gilbert Doctorow.

“Zelensky feels the noose tightening around his neck and is doing everything imaginable to foment a NATO war and hope to save his life if not his political power,” Doctorow states.

Just like Netanyahu, having realized that Israel bit off more than it can chew with its “three front war” and seeing the only chance of victory in dragging the US “into the fight on his side,” so Zelensky seems to be trying to do the same, Doctorow explains to Sputnik.

“He knows his armies are suffering a disastrous defeat and that in a matter of a few months all of Ukraine east of the Dnepr will be in Russian hands,” he elaborates. “His only way to stay in power and to salvage something of Ukraine is to bring NATO into the battle at his side right now. Immediate admittance of Ukraine into NATO, one of his 5-point plan, would immediately make NATO a co-belligerent and widen the war to a NATO-Russia war.”

Another point of Zelensky’s scheme is involving strikes using Western weapons deep into Russian territory. If implemented, this would “immediately make NATO a co-belligerent and start a NATO-Russia war which NATO and the US in particular absolutely refuses to do,” the analyst concludes.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Fickle West – false promises and changing rhetoric on Ukraine conflict

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, the Kiev regime's bankrollers have come a long way in their rhetoric on the conflict. Once reserved and cool-headed, the mask eventually slipped off, revealing the hawkish nature of those most invested in prolonging hostilities.

Sputnik presents you with some examples of how the West has changed its tune.

Emmanuel Macron:

▪️“We don’t want a world war” (October 2022)

▪️“The policy pursued by France excludes the possibility of direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict” (March 2023)

▪️Russian victory in Ukraine “would reduce Europe's credibility to zero” (March 2024)

Olaf Scholz:

▪️“The greatest possible support for Ukraine, but no NATO participation in the war” (April 2022)

▪️“A German chancellor who takes his oath of office seriously must do everything to ensure that Russia’s war against Ukraine does not turn into a war between Russia and NATO” (January 2023)

▪️“It is time for us to do everything we can to explore how we can get to a situation where this war doesn’t carry on indefinitely” (October 2024)

Joe Biden:

▪️“We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III. And something we must strive to prevent” (March 2022)

▪️“We want to see Ukraine win the war. And, as I’ve said before, winning means Ukraine is a sovereign, independent nation and — that can afford to defend itself today and deter further aggression. That’s our objective” (December 2023)

▪️“The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war” (September 2024)

Plans of both Ukraine and its “masters” have nothing to do with peace, and the so-called “Zelensky Peace Formula” is a path to nowhere, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during his address to the UN Security Council, stressing that there are only interests of "criminal, rotten Kiev elite, which is tied to the West by mutual responsibility and which is afraid of being swept away the day after the end of the war.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹'WE'RE BASICALY F***ED' - Obama and Biden on Democrat's election campaign

The Internet has been blown up by a video of explicit dialog between Joe Biden and Barack Obama, discussing the Kamala's election race performance.

She's [Kamala Harris] down, Joe. I think they found out that she's retarded. Now we're basically f***ed. Trump is killing us at the polls, so yes, we're gonna lose, Joe.

P.S. The video was created by social media users using AI voice-overs and such a conversation didn't happen in reality

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Could Biden start trouble for the US and the world in the time he has left in the Oval Office?

Though Joe Biden’s presidential term is nearing its end, he can still “make major decisions that can never be overturned," says Professor Joe Siracusa, a political scientist and dean of Global Futures at Curtin University.

“In the next four months - and here we're talking about January 20th, 2025 - he could in this short period of time encourage President Zelensky to negotiate with the Russian Federation about a diplomatic solution of the war in Ukraine,” he suggests. “He could encourage the Israelis to attack Iran and drag the US into a conflict that might ultimately involve the Russian Federation.”

Aside from affecting global affairs, Biden’s decisions may also affect the outcome of the upcoming presidential election in the US, seeing how Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is Biden’s vice-president and thus “will pretty much have to wear what he does,” Prof. Siracusa points out.

For instance, Biden could “give the Ukrainians the green light to use American offensive weapons on their border to hit inside Russia itself” or “encourage the Israelis to attack the oil and gas installations in Iran, threatening world prices.”

“In terms of the US leverage with its allies, and here we're looking at Israel and Ukraine, allies such as they are, could get the US in a lot of trouble down the road that would affect the system for a long time,” the scholar remarks.

That said, while Biden still has “plenty of time to get in trouble,” there is “probably not enough time for a major diplomatic breakthrough,” Prof. Siracusa observes.

“I think in the next four months, Joe Biden has to decide whether he's really going to help Kamala Harris become the next president,” Prof. Siracusa adds. “He's very angry that he was pushed aside, particularly since he seems to have reclaimed his cognitive abilities. We're not sure whether he is cooperating or not or whether he's going to watch the Democratic Party go into the wilderness.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Which world leaders will attend BRICS summit in Russia?

Russia's vibrant city of Kazan will host this year's BRICS Summit on October 22-24.

Russia assumed the annual presidency of the association on January 1. Key priorities within the Russian chairmanship cover cooperation in security efforts, economy and finance, as well as humanitarian and cultural spheres.

The anticipated event will focus on strengthening multilateralism in order to achieve equitable global development and security.

Check out Sputnik's infographic to find out more!

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

UN or war? How Israel was actually founded

French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently found themselves trading barbs over a historic event – the creation of the state of Israel in the late 1940s.

Macron this week declared that Netanyahu should not forget how Israel was “created by a UN decision.”

Netanyahu, in response, issued a statement claiming that Israel was not created by the UN but rather was forged in a war of 1948 against the neighboring Arab states, often referred to as the First Arab-Israeli War.

Israel was indeed established in 1948 through the force of arms when Jewish settlers managed to prevail in a conflict with the Palestinian Arabs and Arab states that aided the latter, seizing the land that would become Israel and displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, thus also laying the foundation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The United Nations also played a prominent role in the creation of Israel. In 1947, the General Assembly voted to end the British Mandate of Palestine and partition the territory in question into two states – one Jewish, the other Arab – with the city of Jerusalem to be put under international governance.

The partition plan, however, was never implemented as the founding fathers of Israel opted to establish and expand their state.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has announced the transition to a new stage of escalation of its confrontation with Israel. According to the movement's estimates, Israeli military losses since the beginning of the ground operation in Lebanon amount to 55 people killed and more than 500 wounded.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇳👋Chinese President Xi Jinping is currently inspecting China’s regions.

He drove through the city of Tongcheng in Anhui province, warmly waving to passersby.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸Zelensky 'feels the noose tightening around his neck’ and tries to 'foment a NATO war’ with his plan

🔸Fickle West – false promises and changing rhetoric on Ukraine conflict

🔸Which world leaders will attend BRICS summit in Russia? Sputnik infographics

🔸Could Biden start trouble for the US and the world in the time he has left in the Oval Office?

🔸UN or war? How Israel was actually founded

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

France ramps up arms race by increasing military budget

The French Defense Ministry’s 2025 budget will increase by more than three billion euros ($3.3 billion), despite the significant overall reduction in budgetary expenditure, and will amount to 50.5 billion euros ($55 billion).

In an interview with the TV channel LCI, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot cited the alleged "Russia threat" to justify the trend, saying that "the law on the military budget has allowed [French] army to recreate its deployment, intervention and defense capabilities."

European leaders with a hardline anti-Russia position have taken flak for cheerleading an arms race, even as social spending is cut and regional economies sink into recession. Western statements about Russia's intentions to attack Europe serve as a justification for the arms race, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt