“They are up to their ears in a losing war, they are losing the war right now. These countries have not lost since World War II — most of them, of course, because Germany lost — most of them won, they were on the winning side in World War II. And now they are faced with a completely new feeling — they are losing the war right now,” Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said.

“We were asleep when the strikes on neighboring houses began. There was shelling. We didn't know what to do.  We were inside the house during the bombing,” Ahmed Salim, a Palestinian boy, told Sputnik.

“They took us to the Kamal Adwan Hospital, made us sit on the ground, and held us there. They had weapons and tanks. Many of my brothers, sisters, and cousins were injured in this hospital. They were shooting at us with guns and tanks; we were under siege. We were beaten a lot. I walked here on foot,” the boy said.

“There was fear and death everywhere… There were tanks all along the way. They kicked up so much dust that we couldn't see each other. We were so tired that we nearly died. Many were arrested — husbands, sons, sons-in-law, neighbors, relatives. All the boys”, Awis added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia had "always operated on the principle that any agreement must respect Russian interest," and "time is needed to carefully look" into the Turkish proposals.

“The fact that even UN Secretary General [Antonio] Guterres is here, signifies the importance and significance that the BRICS is holding,” he noted.

"After Kazan, [Guterres] wanted to come to Ukraine, but [Zelensky] has not confirmed his visit," because of the "humiliation" inflicted on international law in Kazan, an official told the media.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) should be expanded to reflect “the vastly different world of today,” otherwise “it risks losing credibility and relevance… in the next ten to twenty years,” Robinder Sachdev, geopolitical and economic diplomacy analyst and founder president of the Imagindia Institute, told Sputnik as he commented on BRICS’ Kazan Declaration, in which member states reaffirmed their support for comprehensive reform of the UN, including the Security Council.

“BRICS can push for reforms on specific issues like expanding the UNSC with co-equal rights for new members, or enhancing the role of the Global South in development programs, or a solution to a civil war and humanitarian crisis in some region in the world, building momentum for broader changes,” he concluded.

"Why don't we talk about the genocide in Gaza? Why don't we talk about the illegal bombardment of Lebanon? Why don't we talk about mass starvation? Why don't we talk about the ethnic cleansing on a scale not seen since the Second World War? Why do you have to talk about it in relation to Ukraine? I'll tell you why. You came here with a cheap agenda to attack Russia," Galloway concluded.

A working person is someone who '"goes out and earns their living, usually paid in a sort of monthly cheque" but they can't "write a cheque to get out of difficulties", Starmer told Sky News, adding that people who get all or part of their income from assets do not come within his definition.

“The fact that the West is so critical of it, I think, demonstrates that they feel, what they probably would perceive as a threat to their position in the world,” he said. Meanwhile, we seem to be witnessing a “fragmentation” in the EU and in the NATO, sparked by Europe’s decision to cripple its own standard of living and to cut off their energy supply from Russia by supporting the Ukrainian conflict.

“Their industries are faltering. And we're probably going to have another cold winter coming here very shortly. And that's going to have an impact on Europe and its perspective on how to go forward and whether they really still want to follow the United States’ lead either, particularly in the NATO structure,” he remarked.

“Our escape was difficult. We were walking and walking. At first, it was very hard; people couldn’t get used to such distances. Then we got used to walking a lot,” Palestinian boy Yazan Ibrahim shared his experience of being exiled from home by war with Sputnik.

“The hardest moment was when the army took one of our relatives from the Abu Oweis family captive. They took him, and we screamed and cried,” he added.

“God willing, the war will end, and we will return to our homes and rebuild everything from scratch," Yazan Ibrahim said.

“If you look at the [BRICS] membership, it's mostly countries that offer tremendous resources for tangibles to back up their currencies. The dollar, on the other hand, is backed by fiat. It's really not backed by anything,” he observed.

“Now, these countries are increasingly exchanging and buying oil and gas using their own currencies. And that's going to pick up over time. And this may or may not lead to an eventual BRICS currency, like the euro or the dollar itself,” he explained.

The modernization plan that would involve installing new Rolls-Royce F130 engines, enhanced Raytheon navigation systems and several other improvements was heavily criticized by the Government Accountability Office, which stated that the program failed to develop “formal cost or schedule estimates”, the National Security Journal reported earlier.