🗣Russia is ready to begin the prisoner exchange with Ukraine on June 7-9 – head of Russian delegation Medinsky

Other statements by Medinsky during a meeting with Putin:

🟠The working language during the negotiations in Istanbul was Russian

🟠The Ukrainian side promised to study the Russian memorandum and provide comments later

🟠Negotiations one-on-one in Istanbul lasted for more than three hours

🟠Russia at the Istanbul talks urged to focus on working out the terms of peace, not a ceasefire

🟠Final figures on the exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine are being agreed upon, and it could be 1,200 people

🟠Medinsky shows Putin a list of allegedly abducted children handed over by the Ukrainian delegation and confirms that this matter is being considered now

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🚨All three terrorist attacks in Russia's Kursk and Bryansk regions were organized by the Ukrainian intelligence services - Investigative Committee

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🗣Zelensky’s rejection of Russia’s proposal for brief 2-3 day pause to collect the dead and injured is a mistake - Lavrov

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🗣Zelensky calls the results of the talks "insubstantial" because they were about people, not money or arms supplies - Russian FM spokeswoman Zakahrova to Sputnik.

He was never interested in his citizens, she added.

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🚨‘The decisions to commit such crimes were, of course, made in Ukraine at the political level’ – Putin on terrorist attacks in Bryansk and Kursk regions

🟠Putin calls tragedy in Bryansk region targeted attack on civilians, adds that this is called terrorism

🟠All crimes against civilians on the eve of the second round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were aimed at sabotaging them, said Putin

🟠The sponsors of Kiev are accomplices of terrorists

🟠Ukraine is experiencing huge losses and retreating along the entire line of combat

🟠Putin on Kiev's requests to hold a meeting at the highest level: What is there to talk about in these conditions, who negotiates with terrorists?

🟠For the Kiev regime, power is more important than peace and people's lives

🟠The Kiev regime is completely rotten, corrupt

🟠The Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region suffered absolutely senseless and huge losses

🟠Ukrainian troops these days are suffering one defeat after another

🟠The Kiev authorities lack basic political culture, allowing themselves direct insults against those with whom they are trying to negotiate

🟠If there is respite in hostilities, it will be used to pump Kiev with weapons, continue forced mobilization, prepare terrorist attacks

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🤡German Defense Minister pledges long-range weapon systems to Ukraine ‘in just a few weeks’

💬 "…last week, we agreed that Germany would finance the production of long-range weapons in Ukraine. (...) The advantage is that a significant number of long-range weapons can be produced this year. The first systems could be delivered to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in just a few weeks," Boris Pistorius said as he arrived at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels.

💬 "Germany has provided a quarter of its own Patriot systems. We are not in a position to supply more systems. But we are urging the US, as well as other allies, to supply Patriot or similar systems," the minister added.

➡️Russia has repeatedly emphasized that long-range weapons provided by the West are being used by Ukrainian armed forces to carry out attacks against civilians on Russian territory and promised that such attacks won’t go unanswered.

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🇷🇺🤝🇰🇵 Why the West is TERRIFIED of full-fledged Russia-North Korea alliance

Russian Security Council secretary Shoigu has met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

Western warmongers have good reason to be sweating bullets.

🔥Allies forged in fire

Russian & DPRK troops fought side by side in the Kursk campaign.

💬 “I will gladly, without hesitation and in accordance with the spirit of the Korea-Russia Treaty, give the order to use DPRK forces to repel an armed attack,” Kim Jong Un said in May.

🛡 Defense cooperation

The nations have immense potential for a synergetic relationship in defense, thanks to

🔸 compatible standards in defense production

🔸 DPRK’s large defense industrial base

🔸 Russia’s advanced tech, especially in aerospace

🪙Economic synergy

Russia & North Korea have vast untapped economic potential:

◻️ DPRK needs: oil, electricity, staple foods, tech

◻️ DPRK can provide: heavy & light industry goods, from steel & textiles to medicine & seafood, plus minerals & rare earths

With Russia’s help, North Korea can restore its 20th century development trends (when it rivaled South Korea). Russia’s Far East could see a boom unseen in 30+ years from opportunities in trade, agriculture and construction.

That’s not to mention cooperation potential in space, nuclear energy, AI, IT, health care, education, sports, culture & tourism.

🌐 Allies on the world stage

As the #1 & #3 most-sanctioned nations, Russia & North Korea stand united:

🔹 DPRK was among the first to recognize Crimea & Donbass as Russia

🔹 Russia blocked a US-led UN sanctions monitoring regime on DPRK in 2024

⛈ Weathering the storm

Lee Jae-myung’s victory in South Korea’s presidential election marks the final nail in the coffin of the Biden-Yoon attempt to pressure the DPRK into submission.

Lee wants to negotiate with Kim, and is weary of antagonizing Russia with Ukraine arms sales.

🌍 Toward a multipolar world order

The Russia-DPRK treaty outlines their “desire to protect international justice from hegemonic aspirations and attempts to impose a unipolar world order.”

Translation? Western hegemony is cooked.

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🚨Ukraine’s rail & bridge attacks were the textbook definition of terrorism: analyst

💬 For starters, defensive operations are “carried out on one’s own territory,” says retired Russian military intelligence colonel Rustem Klupov, commenting on President Putin’s statements on the terror attacks targeting Russian infrastructure in Bryansk and Kursk.

If the targeted objects, including bridges and rail lines, were clearly delineated as targeting Russian military forces or supply lines, perhaps Ukraine would be able to get away with justifying them.

But the fact is, in both Bryansk and Kursk, it was civilian infrastructure that was targeted, Klupov said.

Even the “dual use” excuse doesn’t fly, the observer emphasized.

💬 “When a civilian train is traveling along a route, when civilians are killed, when an explosion occurs with the aim of causing maximum harm to the ordinary civilian population, it cannot be interpreted as anything other than a terrorist act aimed at intimidating the civilian population and changing the policy of the leadership,” Klupov said.

In short, these were terrorist acts, pure and simple, the analyst stressed.

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🚨Chance of Zelensky getting his trilateral summit ‘zero’ after triple terror targeting Russia: analyst

Ukraine’s rail and bridge attacks, the targeting of Russia’s nuclear triad, and the latest attempt to hit the Crimean Bridge could derail not just meetings between leaders, but the peace negotiations altogether, says veteran military analyst Sergey Poletaev.

There’s now “approximately a zero percent chance” of Putin agreeing to meet with Zelensky and Trump in a three-way summit, the observer said, pointing to the Russian president’s remarks Wednesday asking how Russia can be expected to negotiate with a regime engaged in terrorism.

The fate of the third round of negotiations in Istanbul, set for late June, is also “unenviable,” Poletaev says.

💬 “It’s unenviable because we are prepared to negotiate based on the memorandum that we have presented. This memorandum, if it is accepted and implemented by the Ukrainian side, will essentially mean the liquidation of the current regime in Kiev, and along with it the liquidation of the terrorist threat emanating from it.”

Poletaev pointed out that Russia’s negotiating position was first laid out publicly by Putin a year ago, and mirrors almost word for word the position today. Its terms go back further, to the first Istanbul talks in the spring of 2022, with amendments accounting for new realities on the ground.

Ukraine rejected the terms then, and can be expected to reject them now, the observer says.

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🗣Scott Ritter: Trump needs to decide whether he supports Russia or terrorism

Zelensky is totally out of control, and a menace to both the United States and the Ukrainian people, Ritter told Sputnik.

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🇷🇺🤝🇰🇵Shoigu and Kim Jong-un discuss restoration of Russia’s Kursk region

🔸 The sides also considered specific steps to immortalize the memory of the Korean soldiers who participated in the liberation of the Kursk region from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the press service of the Russian Security Council

🔸 Additionally, during the meeting, there was a detailed dialogue on a wide range of international agenda issues, including the situation around Ukraine, and the prospects for developing bilateral relations between Russia and the DPRK in the spirit of the signed Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the Security Council added.

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🚨 Trump says he just had a phone talk with Putin that lasted 1 hour 15 minutes.

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🇺🇸🇪🇺 The US won’t provide air cover to Europe once Ukraine conflict is over - report

This conclusion was made by several European countries following consultations with representatives of the current US administration, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

London and Paris still hope that the US will provide intelligence on the situation at the Russia-Ukraine border and "hope that Trump will intervene if British and French forces become targets for Russian armed forces in Ukraine," the report added.

Bloomberg claims that the authorities of France and the UK have "finished planning where their forces could be deployed and how they would operate." At the same time, European officials consider a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis "increasingly unlikely."

Russia, for its part, has repeatedly stressed that the presence of NATO troops under any flag and in any capacity on Ukrainian soil poses a threat to Russia, and Moscow won’t accept this under any circumstances.

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🇷🇺📞🇻🇦 Putin had a phone conversation with Pope Leo XIV - the Kremlin

🔸 In his conversation with the Pope, at the request of Patriarch Kirill, Putin conveyed his wishes for success in pastoral service

🔸 The Pontiff expressed support for continuing the important dialogue between the two sister churches

🔸 Putin, in his conversation with the Pope, confirmed his interest in achieving peace in Ukraine through political and diplomatic means

🔸 The Russian president also expressed gratitude to the Pontiff for his willingness to assist in resolving the crisis

🔸 In his conversation with the Pope, Putin expressed hope that the Holy See would take a more active stance in supporting religious freedom in Ukraine

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🚨 Pakistan has lost 90,000 lives to terrorism over the past 10-15 years — H.E. Syed Tariq Fatemi, Special Assistant to Prime Minister of Pakistan, told Sputnik.

Pakistan is willing to work together with India against terrorism, he added.

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🚨 Pakistan RAPIDLY EXPANDING cooperation with Russia — H.E. Syed Tariq Fatemi, Special Assistant to Prime Minister of Pakistan, told Sputnik.

There’s a good chance 🇷🇺President Putin and 🇵🇰 PM Sharif will meet on the sidelines of the SCO summit in September.

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🇷🇺📞🇺🇸 Putin informed Trump that Ukraine attempted to disrupt the negotiations, but Moscow did not succumb to the provocations

Other statements by Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov:

🔸 Putin emphasized in the conversation that the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul were useful

🔸 The Kiev regime has essentially turned into a terrorist organization

🔸 The leaders did not discuss memoranda on resolving the Ukrainian conflict

🔸 The issue of a meeting between Putin and Zelensky "never stood on a practical level"

🔸 Trump informed Putin that the US had not been informed about plans to strike Russian airfields

🔸 Regarding "Russia's negotiations with terrorists": contacts through appropriate channels for resolution can be made

🔸 The leaders agreed to continue contacts on Ukraine, at the highest level and through other channels.

🔸 Trump stated that he would appreciate it if Russia worked with Iran as a party to the nuclear deal

🔸 Putin and Trump exchanged views on the prospects for restoring cooperation between the two countries, which has great potential

🔸 The presidents characterized their exchange of views as positive and productive

This was the fourth phone conversation between Putin and Trump in recent months, and it lasted 1 hour 10 minutes.

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🇾🇪 Houthis may have just deployed missile with MIRV capabilities against Israel 🇮🇱

Houthi-friendly social media channels suspect footage of projectiles flying in formation over Israel Tuesday night may have been attack featuring a new missile separating into multiple fragments before touchdown.

The claims come after statements to media by officials in Sanaa last week warning that the militia had developed missiles which, if intercepted, would separate and scatter into multiple blocs, overwhelming Israeli air defenses.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree confirmed late on Tuesday that the militia had launched a Palestine-2 hypersonic missile at Ben Gurion Airport, saying the attack forced a US military transport aircraft to abort a planned landing.

The IDF claimed the missile was safely intercepted mid-air.

Neither side has commented on whether the attack featured a MIRV-capable missile. 🤐🤐

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🇮🇱 Bye-bye Bibi? Netanyahu’s coalition on the brink of collapse as key partner plans to walk away

Haredi religious party Shas plans to support a motion to dissolve parliament over the lack of progress on a stalled draft exemption bill.

Holding 11 seats in Netanyahu’s Likud-led 67 seat coalition, a Shas exit from the government would deprive the PM of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, triggering elections.

Netanyahu is set to meet Shas MK Ariel Atias Thursday to try to resolve the crisis.

If elections are called, they could result in a political crisis. From 2019-2022, Israel held five consecutive elections, leading to deadlock or fragile government four out of five times. Recent opinion polling suggests elections now would cause Likud to lose up to 1/3 of its 32 seats, with the combined opposition polling at 62-67, enough to form a majority.

JP reports that Haredi rabbis are instructing religious parties to quit the government over the stalled draft law, which would exempt most Haredi men from IDF service. The IDF has faced major problems enlisting Haredim. In April, just 205 joined up after 10k draft notices were sent out.

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🔸 Putin, Trump hold phone call

🔸 Scott Ritter: Trump needs to decide whether he supports Russia or terrorism

🔸 Ukraine’s rail & bridge attacks were the textbook definition of terrorism: analyst

🔸 Chance of Zelensky getting his trilateral summit ‘zero’ after triple terror targeting Russia: analyst

🔸 Why the West is TERRIFIED of full-fledged Russia-North Korea alliance

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💵 S&P Global declares Ukraine in DEFAULT on its GDP warrants

The company revised its issue rating on Ukraine's GDP-linked securities to "D" from "CC." Ukraine failed to make a $665 million payment to holders on June 2.

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