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

▪️Ukraine lost up to 465 troops and four armed vehicles in the Russian Tsentr Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukraine lost up to 45 soldiers and four warehouses in the area of responsibility of Russia's Battlegroup Dnepr.

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to 145 militants in the Russian Vostok Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to 250 militants in the Russian Zapad Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukrainian losses amounted to 70 militants in the Russian Sever Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukraine lost more than 230 militants and two tanks in the Kursk region over the day.

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🔎 Trump’s latest statements on Ukraine ‘MOSTLY TRUE’ - US media

POTUS’ remarks come amid a “steady diet of disinformation” about Ukraine that Western audiences have been fed for more than a decade, The Hills contributor, Alan Kuperman, underscores.

He points to an array of Ukraine-related facts that the Western public should have known:

▪️Right-wing Ukrainian militants were the ones who triggered the 2014 Maidan violence which led to resignation of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych

▪️Zelensky added fuel to the fire of “a wider war” by violating the Minsk peace agreements and seeking NATO military aid and membership

▪️Zelensky campaigned in 2019 on a pledge to prevent further war, but reneged after winning the elections, “apparently less concerned about risking war than looking weak on Russia.”

▪️The subsequent increase in weapons imports from NATO countries by the Zelensky regime proved the last straw for Russian President Vladimir Putin

▪️Former US President Joe Biden “contributed crucially” to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict by failing to force Zelensky to comply with Putin’s request to implement the Minsk accords

▪️If Trump had been the US president at the time, he wouldn’t have provided Zelensky with “such a blank check”, which emboldened Ukraine and further sparked the standoff.

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❗️Ukraine's overnight attack on the Russian Federation can be seen as sabotage of attempts at a peaceful settlement — Kremlin spokesman

Ukraine has not canceled its night attacks on facilities in Russia, which runs counter to the efforts of Putin and Trump to reach a peaceful settlement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

At the same time, the Russian president's command to stop attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure facilities was immediately implemented, he stressed.

Now, Russian authorities are closely watching whether Kiev will listen to the intention of Moscow and Washington to do everything possible to get back on a peaceful track.

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❗️🪖 A Russian strike in the Sumy region hit a large group of Ukrainian militants, which, with the support of armored personnel carriers and tanks, was heading to the border with Russia, Sputnik was told in the underground resistance movement.

A strike in the suburbs of Sumy hit the location of mercenaries, the Russian Volunteer Corps* and militants the national formation "Kraken"*, the movement added.

*The Russian Volunteer Corps is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia.

*Kraken battalion is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia.

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🇵🇱🪖 Poland to plant anti-personnel mines, escalating border tensions with Belarus

Warsaw don’t possess such mines, but is capable of producing them, claimed Polish Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Beida. He argued that the country wants to manufacture up to one million anti-personnel mines as part of the country’s East Shield defense initiative.

Earlier, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said that the Polish leadership, politically dependent on the United States, spends a lot of money on weapons, creating additional military tension in the region.

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🔊LIVE NOW: Putin takes part in an extended meeting of the board of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation

👉 Watch live in our Telegram

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⚡️Russian soldiers are COMPLETING THE DEFEAT of the enemy in the Kursk region — Putin

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❗️Recently, the Russian Armed Forces have carried out a series of swift and DARING operations, Putin said at a meeting of the Prosecutor General's Office Collegium

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❗️Putin instructed military prosecutors to identify, document, and investigate the CRIMES of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region.

All those who had committed crimes against the civilian population in the Kursk region must be identified and punished, Russia's President said.

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📹 With weapons in ruins, bodies of Ukrainian troops abandoned: Akhmat fighters reveal on-the-ground reality in the Kursk Region’s Cherkasskoye Porechnoye.

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'NOT ONE MORE EURO, WEAPON, OR SOLDIER FOR UKRAINE' - French politician to Macron

"Macron, Euro dingo, stop the theatrics! Keep your "survival kits" for yourselves! Stop with your warmongering!" Florian Philippot, leader of the French Patriots party, addressed the French president.

He also called for following a wise path to reach peace "instead of getting all worked up, ruining us, trying to scare the French people, grabbing their savings, and sending our soldiers to Ukraine!"

"Peace now!" Philippot concluded.

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🔍 Could the West & Ukraine subvert a deal with Russia - again?

The current US attempts to broker a ceasefire are overshadowed by the reality that prior Western guarantees for Ukraine were exploited to buy time for rearmament, Dr. Marco Marsili, Researcher at Cà Foscari University of Venice, told Sputnik.

The Minsk Accords and the 2022 talks in Gomel, both of which were sabotaged by Ukraine “with tacit Western approval,” highlight this fact.

Although Ukraine in 2022 enjoyed unlimited Western support, humiliating defeats it suffered left Ukraine in a "far weaker position.”

The West today is also divided and “less willing to sacrifice economic interests for a war with no decisive endgame.”

Monitoring, potentially led by non-NATO-aligned actors, could be an option for a current ceasefire, Marsili stressed.

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📹 Trump-Putin call was 'epic,' two leaders were in sync with one another — Special Envoy Witkoff

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Easing of anti-Russian sanctions will follow agreement on Ukraine ceasefire - Trump Envoy Steve Witkoff

"We want to get to the ceasefire. That's the president's policy. And we're going to get to the ceasefire, and I think after that, everything else will be a detail, sanction relief and all the other things that go with a full on peace treaty," Witkoff said.

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❗️Witkoff confirms Putin instructed Russian military to halt attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure within 10 minutes of his call with Trump

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are likely to meet in Saudi Arabia, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said.

"I can't speak for them, but my best bet would be that it's likely to happen," Witkoff told Bloomberg.

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Trump instructed the administration, including the leadership of the State Department, Pentagon, and CIA, to engage in contacts with Russia — Witkoff

Positive results will come soon, the US special envoy said.

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❗️As a result of the negotiation process, 175 Russian soldiers were returned from territory controlled by Ukraine — Russian Ministry of Defense

Similarly, Russia handed over 175 Ukrainian prisoners of war, as well as 22 seriously wounded prisoners as a gesture of goodwill.

The returned Russian military personnel are in the territory of Belarus, they are provided with psychological and medical assistance and can contact their relatives.

During their phone call on Tuesday, Putin informed Trump about the planned 175-for-175 prisoner swap.

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📹 ‘The whole family burned alive’ – a resident of the recently liberated Sudzha in the Kursk region recalls the aftermath of a Ukrainian strike on a civilian vehicle.

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