👋 Farewell, Boeing and Airbus: Russian aircraft industry goes fully domestic

Russia is taking the final step toward creating its own aircraft industry, completely independent of the US’ Boeing and France’s Airbus industry giants. All thanks to Russia’s completely domestically produced Yakovlev MC-21 and Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SJ-100) planes.

Russian airliners:

🔸 Debut flights of MC-21 and SJ-100 aircraft with domestic engines are planned for 2025;

🔸 This landmark event will demonstrate Russia's ability to not only to design and build modern airliners, but also to eliminate dependence on Western suppliers for components, the country’s Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov said;

🔸 MC-21 is a new generation medium-haul single-aisle airliner, developed by the Yakovlev Corporation, and its production is scheduled for 2025;

🔸 Serial production of the MC-21 is underway, with the planes awaiting completion of certification tests. Airlines can expect to receive at least 10 such craft in 2025;

🔸 Production facilities may be ready to produce 36 aircraft of that type annually in about three years’ time, according to Russian experts.

Russian engines:

🔹 The PD-14 turboprop engine for the MC-21 aircraft is ready, with certification flights set for late March-early April 2025;

🔹 Certification flights of the SJ100 short-haul regional passenger jet with the domestic PD-8 engine are to begin next year as well. Ground tests of this engine are coming to an end;

🔹 Currently in development is the PD-35 prospective ultra-high thrust turbofan engine for long-range airliners and military transport aircraft.

Back in the mid-2010s, the bulk of the avionics was supplied from abroad. In 2022, amid Western sanctions over Ukraine, the European Union banned the supply of civilian aircraft and spare parts to Russia and obligated lessors to terminate contracts with Russian airlines.

Aircraft maintenance and insurance services were also been banned, with full import substitution becoming a determining factor in the viability of Russian aircraft.

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💬 US and UK are waging war against EU with anti-Russian sanctions – Italian journalist

The sanctions that Washington is pressuring European countries to impose against Russia are actually hurting the European Union (EU) more, Italian journalist Giorgio Bianchi told Sputnik.

“I have the impression that this is a US war not only against Russia, but also against Italy, Germany, and France. Because the sanctions that the US has forced our countries to apply, I call them auto-sanctions, these sanctions are directed more against us than against Russia,” he pointed out.

Bianchi believes that the US and UK have actually benefited far more from these sanctions than from the bombing of Europe’s industrial districts during World War II.

“Large companies will simply move out of [EU] countries. Some of them have already moved to Asia, and now they will move to America because of more favorable business conditions,” the journalist added.

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💬 Italy's ban on strikes against Russia ‘means nothing,’ as it depends on NATO – Italian journalist

The ban on using Italian-supplied weapons by Kiev to strike Russia is mere noise, since Rome can still provide all the support NATO may request, Italian journalist Giorgio Bianchi told Sputnik.

“In any case, these long-range weapons are supplied by the US and the UK. They are the American ATACMS and the British Storm Shadow. Therefore, the statement of the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, is nothing. It means nothing. If there is a need in planes or bases to calculate the distance [for strikes on Russia], Italy cannot fail to provide it. Italy is fully integrated in NATO,” he said.

Statements by the Italian authorities that Ukraine cannot use Italian-supplied weapons against Russia are “a farce that continues to play only for the electorate.”

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian forces launched ATACMS missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region during the night of November 19. Five missiles were intercepted by Pantsir and S-400 systems, while one was damaged.

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🇷🇺 Russia tests new Oreshnik ballistic missile in combat

Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces grabbed the attention of military observers the world over on Thursday after firing the Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile at a major defense-related enterprise in Dnepropetrovsk, days after the US and the UK okayed the launch of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles at targets deep inside Russia.

The Oreshnik’s unveiling also comes five years after Washington’s moved unilaterally to scrap the Russia-US Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibited the development and deployment of ground-based missiles in the 500-5,500 km range. The US, for its part, has yet to field a new missile in this range.

What do we know about the new Russian missile’s range characteristics? How fast does it fly? What’s its payload?

👉 Check out Sputnik’s infographic for more info.

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🪧 What always goes hand in hand? Coffee and morning, Biden and dementia… eco-activists and manure

In Italy, climate activists dumped a truckload of manure in front of the Interior Ministry building as a protest and set up a campsite.

According to media reports, the protest began unexpectedly, with participants shouting slogans in defense of the environment.

Law enforcement removed the activists from their tents, despite resistance, and took them to the police station for identification.

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💸Bitcoin nears $100k: Exploring its market value and growing dominance

As the Bitcoin price topped $99,000 on November 22, setting a new all-time high, we look at how many bitcoins exist, their share in the global currency supply and what drives up their value.

🪙At $99k per coin, Bitcoin's market cap is approaching $2 trillion – a significant figure but still a small portion of the estimated global currency supply of over $150 trillion. This total includes fiat currencies – like dollars, euros and yen – central bank reserves, and near-money assets like savings deposits and money market funds.

🪙Bitcoin’s share remains small but growing, driven by its use as a store of value and a hedge against inflation.

🪙Its price is influenced by factors like supply and demand, market trends, adoption rates, macroeconomic conditions and regulatory changes. Limited supply and rising demand drive it higher.

🪙Bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency has a 56% market share among the top ten cryptocurrencies.

Where is Bitcoin heading?

🪙Prices on Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, are outstripping the Tether (USDT) stablecoin pair on exchanges Binance and Bybit.

🪙Bitcoin has more than doubled in value from this year’s low of $38,505. It soared by about 45% after Donald Trump's election victory on Nov. 5.

🪙Investors foresee favorable crypto regulation under Trump, as he pledged to make the US the "crypto capital of the planet" and build a “national bitcoin stockpile.”

🪙The crypto got a boost after the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first 11 Bitcoin spot ETFs in January, allowing trading on traditional market exchanges rather than cryptocurrency exchanges.

🪙Over $4 billion has flooded into US-listed bitcoin exchange-traded funds since the election.

🪙Reports that Trump Media is in talks to buy crypto trading firm Bakkt also fueled the surge.

🪙The US government is one of the world’s biggest holders of bitcoin, with reportedly over 210,000 units worth around $14 billion seized by fraud officers.

What is Bitcoin, and how much of it exists?

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency created in 2009 by the shadowy figure known as ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. It is traded peer-to-peer, enabling payments without banks. ‘Miners’ use powerful computers earn bitcoins by processing the crypto’s ‘blockchain’ accounting.

🪙There are now around 19.8 million bitcoins in circulation.

🪙The US holds the most bitcoins, driven by institutional adoption and mining. Other key holders include China and Germany.

🪙The total supply of bitcoin was permanently capped at 21 million BTC by its creator.

🪙Once Bitcoin reaches its supply limit, no new coins will be issued. Miners will earn transaction fees instead.

🪙Bitcoin is expected to reach that limit around the year 2140.

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How many more troops can Ukraine connoscript?

Ukraine could connoscript almost four million more men to fight the West's proxy conflict with Russia.

According to data from the Ukrainian parliamentary Committee on Economic Development published by the Financial Times, the total number of male Ukrainian citizens aged 25 to 60 is 11.1 million, of whom 1.2 million are already serving in the armed forces.

Another 2.9 million men live in regions liberated by Russia since the start of its military operation in February 2022.

1.3 million men have left Ukraine, 1.5 million are disabled and unfit for military service and 600,000 are exempt from military connoscription as critical workers.

That leaves 3.7 million men who can be mobilized. Of those, 2.8 million are self-employed and registered taxpayers, while 900,000 are not registered in the system, the article says.

The report quoted military officers, analysts and soldiers who said the conflict will reach a critical juncture in the next few months, as the armed forces try to stabilize the situation and halt Russian advances on several fronts.

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Ballistic vs. cruise missiles: what’s the difference?

Russia’s Oreshnik missile test drew attention and confusion as observers compared it to other ballistic and cruise missiles in Russian and NATO arsenals. What’s the key differences between the two missile types?

Ballistic missiles:

🔸 Powered by single or multi-stage rockets, ballistic missiles ascend tens of kilometers into the atmosphere, shedding components along the way before their payload separates and arcs back to Earth.

🔸 Ballistic missiles have three phases: the boost phase (rocket firing), the midcourse phase (payload coasting and ascending), and the terminal phase (descent toward the target).

🔸 Some missiles include a fourth, post-boost phase, during which MIRV buses adjust trajectory and release decoys to confuse enemy missile defenses.

🔸 Certain missiles can alter their trajectory while they have the fuel to do so, but maneuverability usually comes from their payloads. For example, Russia’s Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle separates from its ICBM carrier and becomes maneuverable, while MIRV buses use small motors and inertial guidance for adjustments.

Cruise missiles:

🔸 Powered by jet engines, cruise missiles remain within the atmosphere through their flight, often flying at extremely low altitudes to evade detection.

🔸 Designed for precision strikes, they can target ground and sea-based assets, from individual buildings or bunkers to larger areas or carrier groups if equipped with nuclear warheads.

🔸 Cruise missiles are maneuverable throughout flight, using GPS, inertial guidance, terrain mapping, or manual control in the terminal phase.

Pros and cons of ballistic and cruise missiles:

🔸 Cruise missiles are cheaper (about 15% the cost of a typical tactical ballistic missile), harder to detect during launch, and more accurate. However, unless nuclear-armed, their firepower is lower, with payloads averaging around 500 kg (the largest, the US AGM-86 ALCM, can carry up to 1,362 kg).

🔸 Ballistic missiles are less accurate (CEP in the tens or hundreds of meters vs. meters for cruise missiles) but offer larger payloads, such as Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat, which has a 10,000 kg capacity.

🔸 Ballistic missiles' arcing trajectory allows hypersonic speeds, making them harder to intercept and increasing their kinetic impact. Cruise missiles, by contrast, are typically subsonic or supersonic, making interception easier and reducing kinetic power.

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📹 Ballistic vs. cruise: how do these missile types differ?

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Oreshnik’s cousins: what will they look like?

While it can only be speculated at this stage how the new Oreshnik-type missile systems mentioned by President Putin at Friday’s meeting with defense officials, in all likelihood “they will have different ranges, payload characteristics, guidance systems, systems for combating enemy anti-missile defenses, systems for jamming enemy radar,” retired Russian Air Defense Forces colonel and missile expert Mikhail Khodarenok told Sputnik.

The observer can imagine a smaller, cheaper Oreshnik variant with a 1,500-2,000 km firing range, for example, or missiles equipped with maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles.

“We will find out about it only after the missile has been used in combat, because at the development and testing stage, all possible measures are taken to prevent leaks about weapons’ characteristics. And in general, the greatest effect from a new weapon is achieved with its sudden, unexpected and massive use,” Khodarenok stressed.

How could Russia build Oreshnik so fast?

“We have a very large scientific and technical reserve for the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, with the Yars ICBM for example. In principle, achieving a similar result with the Oreshnik with such a reserve is possible in fairly short order. The Oreshnik, I think, is a creative evolution of ideas embedded in the Yars,” Khodarenok explained.

“That is, it’s not a smaller version of the Yars, or a Yars missing one stage, but the development of the scientific and technical reserve, those technologies which our design bureaus and industry have today,” Khodarenok added.

Intermediate-range ballistic missiles like the Oreshnik “are in great demand” today, Khodarenok emphasized, particularly for a transcontinental power like Russia, and amid US plans to deploy new ground-based missiles in Europe and Asia.

“For the US, possessing this class of weapons is not a matter of life and death, since they’re separated [from their main adversaries] by oceans.”

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Fiji on the frontline: How America’s Pacific strategy seeks to squeeze China

Lloyd Austin became the first-ever secretary of defense to visit the South Pacific Ocean Island nation of Fiji this week.

The US and Fiji are working on a new “status of forces” agreement which would allow American troops to dramatically ramp up their presence in the island nation, Austin said, adding that the treaty will facilitate “military-to-military engagements,” including joint drills, training of Fijian troops and the deployment and redeployment of American forces. He assured, however, that the US would not be setting up a permanent base.

Fiji is the latest square in a strategic chessboard Washington is working to set up against China in America’s century-plus-year-old quest to dominate the Pacific, and its post-WWII “Island chain strategy,” which envisions the militarization of a network of islands in the region to stop China’s navy from freely maneuvering through the Pacific, and prevent commercial traffic from reaching the Asian nation in a crisis.

Besides Fiji, the Biden administration has ramped up US ‘containment’-related activities in a host of regional nations, including:

🔸 Approving a $400 million project to rebuild an airfield on Tinian Island in the Northern Mariana Islands, used in the final days of WWII to launch the bombers which dropped atomic bombs on Japan,

🔸 facilitating and overseeing a major military buildup by Taiwan, which China considers its inalienable territory, as well as Japan, Australia, Singapore and the Philippines (including through joint drills and missile deployments)

🔸 launching a new military command with Japan and South Korea, citing the “danger” emanating from China, Russia and the DPRK,

🔸 moving to upgrade a key air base in Guam that often hosts strategic nuclear bombers capable of targeting China,

🔸 mulling the permanent deployment of US nuclear weapons in allied Pacific nations,

🔸 planning to more than triple the budget of US Indo-Pacific Command from $3.5 bln this year to $11 bln in 2025 for infrastructure spending, naval ops, classified space programs and $1 bln for the Pentagon’s Maritime Strike program,

🔸 passing $4.83 bln in new spending to “deter China” in the Indo-Pacific in the spring,

🔸 inviting fellow NATO countries’ warships into Pacific waters for power projection and joint training,

🔸 inking a controversial defense pact with Papua New Guinea, which sparked protests last year over its secrecy,

🔸 and moving politically and diplomatically to try to sow chaos and undermine China’s political, economic and security outreach in the region, up to and including attempts to institute regime change in China-friendly nations, most recently in the Solomon Islands.

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🇮🇱🇸🇾🇱🇧Israel has attacked a border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, leading to temporary closure of the checkpoint, a Syrian military source told Sputnik on Saturday.

"Israel fired several guided missiles at the Jusiyah border crossing in the Al-Qusayr area of the Homs Governorate, as a result, it went out of order," the source said.

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The four factors making Russia’s missile ‘strong suit’ unstoppable

💬 “We are traditionally strong in this area. Because whereas the enemy at one time focused on the creation of strategic aviation and naval weaponry, one of the strong points of our design bureaus and the defense complex was strategic ballistic missiles,” Mikhail Khodarenok, a retired Air Defense Forces colonel who has written extensively on missiles, told Sputnik, commenting on the factors explaining Russia’s ability to make weapons like the Oreshnik.

“First and foremost, it’s necessary to mention the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology and its head Yuri Solomonov,” Khodarenok said, referring to the rocket scientist whose design team has been responsible for or involved in the creation of almost all of Russia’s modern strategic systems, including the Yars, Topol-M, Bulava and Sarmat, as well as hypersonics.

Russian ballistic missiles can be “equipped with gliding hypersonic units, which dramatically increases their capabilities,” Khodarenok said, noting that these weapons’ speed and maneuverability makes them virtually unstoppable.

“Because the speed of approach of warheads and anti-missile missiles is extremely high – seven km per second or more (accounting for both the warhead and interceptor), a human operator in principle cannot control the process of gunnery…Everything happens automatically and by and large, firing is controlled by a digital computing complex.”

“If a warhead is approaching at hypersonic speed, but also maneuvering along the trajectory,” intercepting it becomes extremely difficult, the observer noted, emphasizing that after the interceptor makes its trajectory calculations, “but the warhead starts completely unpredictable maneuvers…all guidance is disrupted and the possibility of hitting the warhead is reduced to zero.”

“Plus, there are electronic warfare systems operating in the terminal stage, as well as dummy warheads. In such conditions, shooting simply becomes unrealistic,” Khodarenok summed up.

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🔸 Oreshnik’s cousins: what will they look like?

🔸 The four factors making Russia’s missile ‘strong suit’ unstoppable

🔸 Ballistic vs. cruise missiles: what’s the difference?

🔸 How many more troops can Ukraine connoscript?

🔸 Fiji on the frontline: How America’s Pacific strategy seeks to squeeze China

🔸 Protests in Poland

🔸 Bitcoin nears $100k: Exploring its market value and growing dominance

🔸 Farewell, Boeing and Airbus: Russian aircraft industry goes fully domestic

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Europe is hurtling towards new energy crisis with depleted reserves, short-sighted Russia sanctions

Europe is facing a repeat of the 2022 energy crisis. Gas inventories are fast being depleted after cold late-autumn temperatures increased heating demand. Sources that helped fill reserves in 2024 will be likely unavailable for several reasons, news site Bloomberg warned.

Despite the European Union’s efforts to cut off cheap Russian energy supplies, its gas still reaches central European nations Hungary and Slovakia. Austria also received Russian gas until Russia’s Gazprom suspended supplies to national energy company OMV on November 16.

Europe is bracing for a potential end to Russian gas supplies via Ukraine at the end of the year. Kiev announced it would not extend a transit deal contract between Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

The US Treasury announced a new round of sanctions against Russia on November 21 that includes Gazprombank and six foreign subsidiaries.

Those factors already impact EU gas prices, which have soared by 45% this year to over $500 per thousand cubic meters. Prices for next summer’s gas futures are even higher than for the following winter, projections based on broker data show.

Rising gas prices are expected to deepen the consumer cost-of-living crisis and pile pressure on manufacturers.

“This is beginning to resemble a 2022 scenario in which the EU purchased gas at any price,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management.

Germany, which has suffered the most from US-led sanctions on Russia and now relies on imports of liquefied natural gas, is once again likely to “suffer the most,” Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank AS warned.

Despite the EU’s efforts to end imports of its gas, Russia became the bloc’s largest gas source in September for the first time since spring 2022. Its share reached 23.7%, Sputnik calculated based on data from the European Statistical Office.

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