🇷🇺🪖Key statements from the Russian Defense Ministry's daily briefing on the special military operation's progress:

🔸 Ukraine lost up to 500 servicemen and two ammunition depots in the Russia's Battlegroup Yug area of responsibility.

🔸 Ukraine lost over 440 soldiers in the Russia's Battlegroup Zapad area of responsibility.

🔸 Ukraine lost over 145 troops in the Russia's Battlegroup Vostok area of responsibility.

🔸 Russian aviation shot down 44 Ukrainian drones.

🔸 Ukraine lost up to 30 soldiers in the Russia's Battlegroup Dnepr area of responsibility.

🔸 Ukraine lost up to 50 troops in the Russia's Battlegroup Sever area of responsibility.

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💬 'Putin sent the West a clear and unequivocal signal with the hope that it would be heeded. However, Washington has ignored the warnings, making decisive retaliatory steps necessary,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.

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💬 ”The Oreshnik strike was timely and effective in the current situation, where the West is demonstrating its readiness to go to any lengths. It serves as a warning bell to the West,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.

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🤚 Biden administration decides against inviting Ukraine to NATO after Trump's victory

The administration of US President Joe Biden considered making a public call for an official invitation to Ukraine to join NATO following Donald Trump's election victory, but decided not to do so, Bloomberg reports, citing sources.

According to the article, Biden's administration did not do it, considering the probability of the call’s success too small.

This comes as part of the outgoing US president's plan to do "everything possible" to strengthen Ukraine's position before Trump takes office, Bloomberg notes.

Recent steps by the Biden administration on this matter include authorizing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to strike deep into Russia with ATACMS missiles, supplying Ukraine with anti-personnel mines, writing off nearly $5 billion in debt, and sanctioning Gazprombank, the article says.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine had struck targets in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on November 19 using US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles. He said Thursday that Russia had successfully test-fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, on November 21 in response to Ukraine's use of the US and UK weapons. The missile hit a defense and industrial complex in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk.

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Hezbollah attacks Israeli naval base

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement announced on Sunday that it had carried out its first drone attack on an Israeli naval base, located 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the border with Lebanon.

"Fighters of the Islamic resistance movement [Hezbollah] attacked [the Israeli] naval base in Ashdod, located 150 kilometers away from the Lebanese-Palestinian border, using unmanned aerial vehicles," the statement read. It added that all targets were destroyed.

However, the IDF has not confirmed the attack. "No sirens warning of a drone sounded at that time, neither near the Lebanon border nor near Ashdod, and the military says it is unaware of the claims," The Times of Israel said.

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🪖 Paranoid Finland is training women for alleged war with Russia

The Finnish Women’s National Emergency Preparedness Association is holding a Nasta course on survival and wilderness skills, snowmobile driving, and cybersecurity.

Nasta has been running since 1997. Although its training is non-military, it is partially funded by the Finnish Ministry of Defense and National Defense Training Association. It has a membership of approximately 100,000, which reportedly surged after 2022.

“The shooting [course requirement] bit kind of surprised me,” Nasta’s communications and organization manager said. “Because we have our military personnel – the soldiers, the professionals – then we have a huge amount of reservists. If I am the one that has to pick up the gun, then we’re in deep trouble.”

The poor women in Finland might not have heard that Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied claims that Russia intends to attack NATO members.

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🤝 Putin had a phone call with Erdogan

The two leaders have discussed bilateral relations with an emphasis on boosting trade and economic cooperation, as well as several matters of international agenda.

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Hard to imagine US okaying American investment in Nord Stream 2 infrastructure US itself blew up - economist

Trump campaign contributor and distressed asset buyer Stephen P. Lynch might theoretically get a shot at buying the damaged Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline if the assets were to ever “come up for sale,” but the US government, which played an instrumental role in Nord Stream’s sabotage, would be unlikely to allow it, renowned British economist Dr. Rodney Shakespeare told Sputnik.

“America destroyed the pipelines because secret American policy is to keep Germany and Europe dependent on (expensive) American gas supplies. So the businessman is unlikely to get permission,” Shakespeare explained.

With that said, if the Ukrainian crisis were to ever end, there would “likely…be huge pressure to get the pipelines repaired” from a Europe starved of energy. “Any new owner would become immensely rich,” the economist said.

Even then, Shakespeare warned that given the US policy, there’s no guarantee that the repaired pipelines wouldn’t “be blown up again.”

“My guess is that the businessman will not get permission and that the risk of deliberate destruction in future is such that the pipes will not get repaired,” Shakespeare summed up.

Lynch reportedly applied for a license with the US Treasury which would allow him to negotiate initiating repair work on the damaged $11 bln Nord Stream 2 pipeline with entities under US sanctions, and has reportedly lobbied US officials to allow him to invest in the damaged pipeline network to secure “American and European control over European energy supply for the rest of the fossil-fuel era.”

Nord Stream 2 AG is owned by a subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom, with a consortium of five European energy companies financing to the project. A Swiss court has repeatedly extended the moratorium on Nord Stream 2 AG’s bankruptcy, most recently until January 2025.

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🧪Sputnik investigates: Why doesn’t the US ban the use of Atrazine? Part 1 👉🏻 Part 2

Atrazine, a herbicide widely used on agricultural crops in the US, Canada, and Australia, was banned in the European Union in 2004 after it was found to surpass the regulatory limits of pesticide (0.1µg/L) in groundwater, according to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

It has also been banned in over 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. Why is the US in no hurry to follow suit? Let's try and get to the bottom of this.

What is Atrazine?

🔸 Registered initially in 1958 by CIBA-GEIGY, atrazine has been a major agricultural herbicide in the US for more than 30 years.

🔸 Manufactured by Swiss-based agrochemical giant Syngenta, it is a chlorinated triazine systemic herbicide.

🔸 Pesticide products containing atrazine are registered for use on “field corn, sweet corn, sorghum, and sugarcane, wheat, macadamia nuts, and guava, as well as non-agricultural uses such as nursery/ornamental and turf.”

🔸 Around 80 million pounds (over 36 million kilograms) of atrazine are applied annually in the US.

What’s wrong with atrazine?

🔸 The compound’s “chemical properties make it susceptible to leaching and runoff, especially during heavy rains,” according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Atrazine lingers in soil for months, or years in some types of soil, and can reach groundwater through runoff, research carried out by German scientists and published in Springer Nature in 2010 showed.

🔸 A study published in 2014 in the journal Water Research found that in Germany, “even 20 years after the ban of atrazine, the groundwater concentrations of sampled [observation wells] remain on a level close to the threshold value of 0.1 μg l−1 without any considerable decrease.”

🔸 Around 30 million Americans in 28 states have some level of atrazine in their drinking water, a report by the Environmental Working Group revealed in 2018.

Is it dangerous for humans?

Short answer: Yes.

🔸 Atrazine (ATR) can cause tumors, breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers, as well as leukemia and lymphoma, a study of Kentucky counties in 1997 published in EHP Publishing and Chinese research featured in ScienceDirect in 2023 revealed.

🔸 There was a “statistically significant increase in breast cancer risk with medium and high levels of triazine exposure,” researchers at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine concluded in 1997.

🔸 Atrazine exposure causes birth defects, including choanal atresia, stenosis, gastroschisis, and more. US researchers found that “higher county levels of atrazine were associated with infant diagnoses of gastroschisis,” a rare birth defect where an opening in the newborn’s abdomen wall causes the intestines to spill outside the body, according to US research published in JAMA Network in 2024.

🔸 Children of mothers with high levels of exposure to atrazine “had nearly a two-fold increase in risk for choanal atresia or stenosis,” which lead to life-threatening respiratory symptoms, said a Texas study published by the National Library of Medicine in 2014.

🔸 Atrazine may cause renal failure, US research noscriptd “Pesticide use and risk of end-stage renal disease among licensed pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study” published by the National Library of Medicine in 2016 revealed.

🔸 Neurotoxic effects of atrazine “align with pathological characteristics in Parkinson’s disease,” and studies support “a strong evidence base that low-concentration ATZ exposure during development can elicit increased risk of neurodegeneration,” a January 2024 study published in ScienceDirect showed.

👉🏻 Part 2

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🧪 Sputnik investigates: Why doesn’t the US ban the use of Atrazine? Part 2 👉🏻 Part 1

Despite the overwhelming science linking atrazine use to severe illness, the US EPA reapproved atrazine in 2020 for another 15 years.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that atrazine is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans, allowing its continued use with new requirements.

Why was it reapproved and who lobbied for it?

🔸 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) openly acknowledges in its September 1994 economic research report that banning atrazine would impose “costs on farmers and consumers” ranging between “$517 million and $665 million.”

🔸 US agrochemicals giant Monsanto (acquired by Germany’s Bayer in 2018) also had a finger in the pie. While not a primary manufacturer of atrazine, its flagship product, Roundup, contains the toxic weed killer ingredient glyphosate. Monsanto invested $4.6 million to influence agricultural policy and pesticide regulations in 2016, per the nonprofit OpenSecrets.

🔸 Monsanto coordinated its lobbying strategies at the national, EU, and international levels with atrazine-maker Syngenta, according to Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO). Ex-Monsanto staff got powerful positions in government, while scientists were paid to act as mouthpieces, CEO claimed.

🔸 During the US EPA review of atrazine in 2003, industry lobbyists reportedly participated in numerous closed-door meetings with EPA regulators.

🔸 The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) is entwined financially with large agribusiness corporations. Its insurance affiliates have bought stock in companies like the US multinational food corporation Cargill, The Nation wrote in 2012. Cargill Inc. has spent $1,060,000 lobbying in 2024.

🔸 Farm groups including the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Corn Growers Association, and Agricultural Retailers Association, along with state farm bureaus and grower groups and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, filed comments with the EPA in 2022 urging to refrain from restricting the use of atrazine. They argued that this would "prove devastating for hundreds of thousands of American agricultural producers."

🔸 From 2005 to 2010, ten leading agribusiness interests spent $127 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies, fielding 159 lobbyists in 2010, with Monsanto and the American Farm Bureau leading the pack, a report by Environment Maryland in 2012 showed.

🔸 Syngenta spent $260,000 lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency and other government officials, an Associated Press review of disclosure forms showed in 2004.

👉🏻 Part 1

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Ukraine’s own energy corruption left it facing deadly winter freeze – report

Ukraine has its own corruption to blame for the fact that it is facing a “punishing and deadly winter freeze,” according to The Times.

About 80% of its energy infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by Russian retaliatory strikes because a project to build shelters was mired in nefarious schemes, the report claimed.

Teams of engineers from the US, UK, Germany, and Japan advised and clandestinely helped Ukraine build prototypes of bunkers, termed “third-level protection structures,” to safeguard the country’s energy grid. However, the project basically never got off the ground.

It was deliberately stalled due to Kiev’s refusal to release the funds needed to carry it out, former head of Ukraine’s State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development, Mustafa Nayyem, was cited as saying. His agency had requested around $1.458 billion for the substations, but he claims the project was delayed because bribes were not paid to officials holding the purse strings. All government building projects reportedly need to secure informal approval from Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a “lieutenant” of Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

Tymoshenko demanded a 10% fee from companies to select their projects, the outlet cited the ex-official as claiming.

The supervisory board of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-owned electricity transmission system operator, sacked its chief Volodymyr Kudrytsky this summer for failing to safeguard energy facilities. However, Ukrainian media cited sources as alleging that construction kickbacks amid a pervasive corruption pyramid led to the sacking.

Rampant corruption only assists Russia’s military in decimating the energy facilities powering the Kiev regime’s defense industry, Alexander Dudchak, a leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries, told Sputnik in June.

He speculated that defense construction funds were siphoned off, while Russia’s successful strikes were taking a devastating toll on Ukraine’s military-industrial complex amid NATO’s ongoing proxy war.

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Russian forces have captured a British mercenary, James Anderson, in the Kursk region. He is currently being questioned, a source in the security services told Sputnik.

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Death toll from Israeli strike on Beirut rises to 29

The death toll from an Israeli strike on the Basta neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon, has increased to 29 people, while 67 civilians have been injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry's emergency operations center said.

On Saturday, Israel carried out an attack on a residential building in a densely populated area in the center of Beirut. Media reported that at least 10 people were killed and over 50 others were injured.

The data is not final and the search operation with debris removal continues, the emergency center noted.

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🇮🇷Iran activated new centrifuges to enrich uranium in response to the 'politicized' IAEA resolution

The Speaker of Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, announced that Iran has initiated the operation of new and sophisticated centrifuges in response to the recent decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to adopt a resolution with a political bias against Iran's civilian nuclear program.

Qalibaf said that the “unrealistic, politicized, and destructive approach” adopted by Britain, France, Germany, and the United States led to the issuance of the “unjustified and non-consensus” resolution on Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.

Earlier International Atomic Energy Agency's adopted resolution condemning Tehran for "failing to cooperate" with the nuclear watchdog.

The resolution submitted by the US, UK, France and Germany got 19 out of 35 votes on the IAEA Board of Governors. Russia, China voted against.

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Australia scraps anti-misinformation bill over free speech concerns

Australia has decided to withdraw a bill that would have allowed media watchdogs to monitor and fine digital platforms for spreading misinformation online, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.

The government introduced the bill in mid-September in an effort to prevent and reduce the spread of harmful misinformation online, while also providing transparency through the publication of risk assessments, policies, and reports.

"Based on public statements and engagements with Senators, it is clear that there is no pathway to legislate this proposal through the Senate. The Government will not proceed with the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024," the statement read.

The bill was criticized by representatives from the ruling coalition, green parties, and senators from independent factions. They argued that it would violate freedom of speech and be considered a censorship law.

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Trump taps Sebastian Gorka as his senior director for counterterrorism: What’s his stance on Ukraine?

US President-elect Donald Trump has tapped radio host and political commentator Sebastian Gorka to serve as his White House senior director for counterterrorism. Gorka worked in Trump’s first administration as an advisor on counterterrorism. Trump touted Gorka, born in the UK to Hungarian parents, as “a legal immigrant to the United States, with more than 30 years of National Security experience.”

Gorka is known as a pro-war hawk. What has he said about the West’s proxy war in Ukraine?

🔸 “When the West is weak and there isn't robust leadership from the White House for example, then bad guys do this kind of thing. They make hay when the sun shines,” Gorka said when the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022. He added: “We need to bolster NATO nations, we need to arm Ukraine […] to give them as much lethal force that they need to fight for themselves, and make sure that Russia understands that there is a tripwire, and that tripwire is any NATO nation.”

🔸 “Sending unaccountable pallets of cash to any country is dumb. I don’t care whether it’s Afghanistan, the Ukraine, or whether it’s Iraq. A, it’s not good geopolitics, and B, it smacks of corruption,” Gorka said in a January 2023 podcast. He speculated that the US must bear part of the moral burden for developments in Ukraine, noting that “We, the Americans, convinced post-communist Ukraine to give up all its nuclear weapons. To give them to who? To Moscow.”

🔸 "If you think Ukraine doesn't matter, I've got a wake-up call for you, they're coming after the rest of the former Soviet Union, and we will not be able to say ‘Sorry, that doesn't matter to us,’" Gorka said in an interview in February 2023. He emphasized that sending blank unaccountable checks to Kiev is insanity. “[Ukraine needs] ammunition, artillery shells, the US intelligence target packet […] to make the Russians bleed.”

🔸 Donald Trump will bring Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to the negotiating table, Gorka said earlier in November. “He will tell Zelensky that certain things have to be sacrificed, getting Crimea back is probably off the table right now, and he is going to tell Putin ‘Look, if you think that the last few years were bad, the aid given to Kiev will look like a picnic if you don’t stop the fighting,’” Gorka said.

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What is Russia’s secret defense against ballistic missile threat?

💬 Russia has “an entire system” in place “that instantly reacts to any change in the air threat situation,” Lt. Gen. Aytech Bizhev, former Russian Air Force deputy commander of the CIS Joint Air Defense System, told Sputnik, commenting on the means Moscow has at its disposal to counter the NATO ballistic missile threat.

“This includes radio-electronic countermeasures, air cover by fighter jets, echeloned air defense in cooperation with the Ground Forces’ air defense units…which are all under the unified control of Russia’s Aerospace Forces command,” he said.

The successful 1987 anti-ballistic testing of an S-300 variant known as the S-300V laid the groundwork for further improvements, with S-series systems subsequently tested “on proving grounds and in all manner of exercises” and demonstrating a proven ability to handle all manner of ballistic threats, Bizhev said.

🔸 S-300V: Adopted in 1988. Upgrade to the S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system first fielded in 1978. Range against ballistic targets: 30-40 km.

🔸 S-400: Developed through the 80s and 90s, introduced in 2007. Detects ballistic targets up to 200 km away, destroys them 60 km away.

🔸 S-500: Russia’s latest mobile SAM/ABM system. Fielded in 2021. Able to detect targets up to 600 km away, destroy them up to 200 km away.

🔸 A-135 Amur and A-235 Nudol: Silo-based dedicated missile defense interceptors designed to target ballistic, hypersonic and space-based threats. In service since 1995 and 2019, respectively. Detection range up to 6,000 km using Don-2N early warning radar. Estimated firing range: 350-900 km.

The secret to Russia’s air defense is effective echeloning, according to Bizhev, who recalled that going back to WWII, Moscow was forced to develop means to defend an area stretching across thousands of kilometers.

“The system that was created defended our central industrial regions. It is deeply echeloned,” the former commander said.

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Protests in Georgia

Supporters of the Georgian opposition, which has rejected election results, have begun a march toward the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi.

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US plan for Fiji buildup comes after ‘hijacking’ of island nation’s democracy to flip it against China

“Lloyd Austin’s trip” to Fiji signals “a clear shift of the Fiji Islands from being pretty much pro-China to being pro-US, pro-Australia and New Zealand,” Hong Kong-based international affairs observer Angelo Giuliano told Sputnik, commenting on the Pentagon chief’s visit to the island nation this week to discuss a new military “status of forces” agreement.

“Fiji used to have a security agreement with China,” Giuliano recalled, referring to the 2011 memorandum between China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Fijian Ministry of Defense, National Security and Policing, which allowed Fijian police to receive training in China, and for Chinese officers to be deployed on the islands.

In late 2022, elections forced Fiji’s China-friendly PM out, replacing him with Sitiveni Rabuka, a retired general involved in four previous coups.

Rabuka “was backed by the US and probably funded by the US. They helped him to get into power. And right after that what he announced was a clear shift of policy going from being pro-China to being pro-US,” Giuliano said, referencing the new PM’s push to rethink the policing deal, and claims the South Pacific could be “destabilized” by China’s “unwarranted influence.”

“China did not try to influence the politics within Fiji because it goes against China’s philosophy” of “noninterference in other countries’ affairs,” Giuliano said, recalling that the PRC’s approach is grounded in engaging nations through trade.

US efforts to force Fiji to pivot toward Washington are designed to further American control of the Pacific, but aren’t as concerning to China as tensions over the Philippines, Taiwan, etc., the observer believes.

“Fiji is quite far. I think it’s just about the US having their hands on a new potential military base in Fiji. It’s just the way they do it. The more bases they have around the world, the more they think that they can hold on to power,” Giuliano summed up.

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🔸 The ‘Oreshnik’ strike served as a warning bell to the West, Kremlin spokesman says

🔸 What is Russia’s secret defense against ballistic missile threat?

🔸 Iran activates new centrifuges to enrich uranium in response to IAEA resolution

🔸 Why is the US gov’t unlikely to allow a businessman to buy the damaged Nord Stream?

🔸 Analyst reveals what’s behind Pentagon chief’s visit to Fiji

🔸 Sputnik investigates: Why doesn’t the US ban the use of Atrazine?

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🇮🇷⚔️🇮🇱 Iran preparing response to Israel’s aggression, ambivalent about Trump - Khamenei advisor

Restoring deterrence to Israel by responding to the October 26 attacks “is a key issue” for the Islamic Republic, and “relevant authorities are pursuing the issue carefully to ensure that Iran’s response to Israel fulfills these specifications,” Ali Larijani, a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, has indicated.

“In general, this is an issue that we should leave to the relevant military officials...I know that they are thinking about different solutions. But this is not something that can be discussed much in the media right now, because it’s an issue related to national security and requires careful consideration and secrecy,” Larijani said in an interview with Tasnim.

Israel carried out a series of attacks against military targets in Iran on October 26, killing four Iranian servicemen and one civilian. The strikes followed Iran’s October 1 retaliation for a string of Israeli assassinations of senior Hamas and Hezbollah officials and an IRGC general, which involved the targeting of Israeli military and intelligence facilities with nearly 200 missiles.

Asked whether Iran expects US policy toward Israel and Iran to change under President-elect Trump, Larijani said it’s impossible “to provide a clear analysis of this issue because officials from the future US government have said different things,” and “Trump himself has sometimes changed his behavior.”

“The question is whether the America of the Trump era sees its interests in continuing the behavior of the Democrats – who pulled America down in the region and destroyed its reputation. If so, they will fall further into decline. Or, do they want to make a turn in accordance with America’s national interests,” Larijani said, pointing out that “both” scenarios are possible, and that Team Trump has “signaled that they want to end the warmongering in the region and move on to other priorities.”

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