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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🇷🇺 80 years ago Red Army liberated the Baltics, where today Neo-Nazism has again reared its ugly head Part 1 👉🏻 Part 2

🔸 Between September 14 and November 24, 1944, the Red Army carried out a massive counteroffensive in the Baltic region, with the operation involving some 1.5 mln troops, 17,500 guns and heavy mortars, 3,000+ tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces, and over 2,600 aircraft.

🔸 Arrayed against them was Nazi Germany’s battle-hardened Army Group North, including over 571,500 troops, 7,000 guns and mortars, 1,200+ tanks and assault guns and 400 aircraft, plus 43,000 Hiwi SS auxiliary volunteers recruited among the local population.

🔸 In battles stretching across a front up to 1,000 km in length and 400 km in depth, forces from the Leningrad Front, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts, the 3rd Belorussian Front and the Baltic Fleet smashed through heavily echeloned and fortified defenses, with the main thrust of the operation initially directed toward Riga, Latvia before being redirected toward the strategic Lithuanian Baltic Sea port of Klaipeda – a move which surprised Wehrmacht commanders and ultimately led to the pocketing of as many as 200,000 German troops from the 16th and 18th Armies in the so-called Courland Pocket, western Latvia, where they would remain trapped until the end of the war in May 1945.

🔸 The Estonian capital of Tallinn was liberated on September 26, with Riga taken on October 22. Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, had been freed earlier in mid-July 1944 as part of the third phase of the Operation Bagration summer counteroffensive. From September 29-November 24, Soviet forces engaged the Nazis in fierce fighting for the west Estonian archipelago of Moonsund.

🔸 Overall, German losses included over 200,000 troops, 33,500 of whom became POWs. 61,648 Soviet troops were killed, with left 218,622 injured or sick. 112 Red Army servicemen and officers were awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union noscript. 332,000 received other medals and orders.

👉🏻 Part 2

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🇷🇺 What made Baltic Offensive important, and how is the operation remembered today? Part 2 👉🏻 Part 1

🔸 The German defeat in the Baltics opened the door to East Prussia, cut off key transport arteries and deprived Berlin of farmland, and oil shale processing plants in Estonia which provided the Nazis some 500,000 tons of petroleum products per year.

🔸 The defeat also had important ideological implications, not least of which being Adolf Hitler’s plans to resettle the Baltics with ethnic Germans, and deport or exterminate the local population. These ambitions were based in Nazi lore of the ancient German knights’ conquest of the region in the 13th century, which reduced local populations to serfdom status. The Baltics were also key to Hitler’s “Final Solution” for Jews, Roma, Russians, and local antifascist fighters, with Latvia alone home to 23 concentration camps and 18 ghettos.

🔸 While more than 200,000 ethnic Balts served in the Red Army during WWII (including over 108,000 Lithuanians, 85,000 Latvians, and up to 30,000 Estonians), their heroism, and that of the other Soviet troops who liberated the Baltics from the Nazis, has largely been forgotten by the three countries’ modern governments, whose nationalism and lionization of local SS volunteers, rewriting of history books and demolition of monuments to the Red Army have echoed processes taking place in Ukraine following the 2005 color revolution and the 2014 coup.

🔸 The modern-day Baltic states’ political class has been characterized by unparalleled disdain for Russia within the EU and NATO, and cheerleading for Kiev in the NATO-sponsored proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

🔸 Their efforts have taken a heavy toll on the three nations’ welfare and even basic demographic viability, with the Baltics suffering among the highest rates of deindustrialization and depopulation among any post-Soviet republic. Between 1991 and 2023, the populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania dropped from 1.5 to 1.3 mln (14%), 2.6 to 1.8 mln (31%) and 3.7 to 2.8 mln (25%), respectively.

👉🏻 Part 1

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