🤵💥✉️TRUMP WAGED WAR ON WSJ TO HIDE ALLEGED EPSTEIN LETTER

The Trump administration conducted a days-long campaign to stop The Wall Street Journal from publishing a report about a risqué congratulatory letter that Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein 20 years ago, The Rolling Stone cites sources as saying.

What the sources are claiming:

💬One administration official says the White House was “on a […] warpath” to pressure The Wall Street Journal into dropping the Epstein letter story.

💬Trump’s team reportedly worked every contact and angle they could find — full-on media pressure blitz.

💬The effort was labeled a “top priority” by Trump himself.

💬The scandal dominated conversations inside the West Wing and among top aides throughout the week.

Trump has already threatened legal action against the Wall Street Journal, its parent company News Corp., and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over the newspaper’s alleged letter-related report.

The purported letter was reportedly part of a leather-bound album compiled by Epstein’s cohort Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 and included a crude drawing of a nude woman.

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🔥🇷🇺🇮🇷 RUSSIA & IRAN SEAL THE DEAL: Historic strategic partnership now officially in force

"It is already binding," Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali told Sputnik when asked about the date of entry into force of the agreement and whether Iran had notified Russia of the completion of internal procedures.

He recalled that the treaty was ratified by both chambers of the Russian parliament, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed it. At the same time, the document was ratified by the Iranian parliament, approved by the Guardian Council, and issued by the president as a law.

On January 17, Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, met in Moscow to sign the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty. On April 21, the Russian leader signed a law to ratify the agreement with Iran.

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🚨US could run out of missiles IN EIGHT DAYS - Douglas Macgregor

Ex-Pentagon adviser Douglas Macgregor urged the US to “stop sending weapons abroad” as he warned of America’s exhausting stockpile of offensive and defensive missiles.

“Translation, we can fight an 8-day war, and then we would have to go nuclear,” the former Pentagon adviser argued in an X post.

He added Trump should be briefed on how low the US missile stockpile “really is.”

The remarks come just days after Trump announced new massive shipments of US weapons to Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly stressed that the long-range weapons supplied by the West are being used by Ukrainian forces to target civilians on Russian territory and disrupt peace efforts.

Allowing Ukraine to use these weapons would fundamentally change the nature of the conflict, as Russia's President Putin has previously stated. "We will make the necessary decisions based on the threats we face," he said. "The key question is whether to consider NATO countries as directly involved in the military conflict," the president added.

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▫️US could run out of missiles IN EIGHT DAYS

▫️Russia & Iran seal the deal: Historic strategic partnership now officially in force

▫️Trump wages war on WSJ to hide alleged Epstein letter

▫️Ukraine’s deadly math: No weapons can fix the manpower crisis

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🚨 BRAZIL'S RARE EARTH EXPORTS TO CHINA SURGE

Brazil's rare earth exports to China tripled in the first half of 2025, as Chinese imports reached a record high.

This surge raises fresh concerns that trade tensions are subtly re-routing the world’s critical supply chains through emerging economies, reports SMCP citing a report by the China-Brazil Business Council (CBBC).

While rare earth exports saw a huge boost, Brazil’s total exports to China dropped by 7.5% compared to last year, amounting to US$47.7 billion.

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🔥🇷🇺🇮🇳 CEO of Indo-Russian AK-203 venture confirms full local production of rifles

'We plan to have the first 100% Indian-made AK-203, which we shall call 'Sher' (Lion), by 31st December 2025.'

The first AK-203 rifle made in India rolled out of the factory in August 2023.

Kalashnikov rifles have long been a trusted weapon among Indian soldiers, and India has been using such rifles for decades. Now, the Indian Army is officially incorporating the AK-203 as its main infantry weapon.

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🚨🤑LINDSEY* GRAHAM’S SANCTIONS GAME: Who really profits from anti-Russia policies?

Senator Graham’s top donors stand to gain billions from escalated sanctions on Russia—while everyday Americans pay the price.

🛢ENERGY SECTOR: In 2020, Graham raked in $510K from oil, gas & nuclear interests — putting him in the Senate’s top 10 for donors, per OpenSecrets. GE, Fluor, Southern Co., & other oil/gas giants fund Graham.

▪️Sanctions disrupt global markets → higher prices = bigger profits
▪️The 2026 election looms — he’ll need cash

⚔️DEFENSE INDUSTRY: Boeing, Lockheed, and Raytheon back Graham's campaigns

▪️His Security is Strength PAC pulled in $4.6M during his 2016 run.
▪️More sanctions = more global tension → bigger military budgets

📑LAW & INSURANCE FIRMS: Firms like Nelson Mullins and Blue Cross Blue Shield gave Graham nearly $3M for his 2020 Senate run. Sanctions-triggered legal chaos and rerouted shipping could mean big profits for both sectors.

👉GRAHAM’S SANCTIONS AGENDA:

✔️ 2018: Co-authored "sanctions bill from hell"
✔️ 2022: Pushed Biden to escalate before the Ukraine conflict
✔️ 2024: Demanded seizure of $300B in Russian assets
✔️ 2025: Led the Sanctioning Russia Act

📈WHO BENEFITS?

Critics say Graham’s sanctions serve his wealthy donors more than US interests. Targeting Russia’s BRICS partners — nearly 40% of the global economy — could backfire to spike inflation and gas prices at home.

*Lindsey Graham's listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIA'S MoD WEEKLY UPDATE: CRUSHING GAINS & MASSIVE UKRAINIAN LOSSES

▫️ Russian troops liberated 10 settlements

▫️ Heavy Ukrainian losses: Over 8,075 troops eliminated in the special military operation zone

▫️ Air defense superiority: 28 guided bombs and 1,387 drones intercepted

▫️ The Russian Armed Forces conducted 5 strikes using high-precision weapons and UAVs, targeting territorial recruitment centers and facilities belonging to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex

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🇷🇺🗣LATEST STATEMENTS BY KREMLIN SPOX DMITRY PESKOV

Ukraine & US relations:

💬The issues of Ukrainian settlement and the normalization of Russia-US relations are separate topics, says Peskov.

NATO's plan to suppress Russia's defense in the Kaliningrad region:

💬Commenting on Donahue's remarks, Peskov calls it another hostile statement from Europe.

New EU sanctions:

💬Russia will analyze the new EU sanctions to minimize their impact.

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🤡 Lindsey Graham* is a 'classic colonial imperialist' who profits from US war machine

“Graham embodies the classic colonial imperialist figure, profiting from political decisions made in favor of the military-industrial complex,” Lebanese expert Tariq Abboud told Sputnik Arabic.

His personal interests and profits from arms supplies dictate policies that focus on power, not law. He’s aligned with those who benefit from prolonging the conflict for Western elites, Abboud explains.

“Graham believes Ukrainians will fight to the last man, but not for their own cause—only for foreign interests.“

Already, timid voices are growing in Ukraine, as people begin to realize this conflict with Russia is pointless, especially with massive losses, including territory — all for the benefit of Western elites.

*Lindsey Graham's listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia

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🇪🇺🇷🇺 EU ANTI-RUSSIA SANCTIONS - A 'PONY RUNNING IN CIRCLES'

🗣 Alexey Martynov, director of the Institute of Modern States, compares the EU’s new sanctions on Russia to a pony endlessly riding in circles. Despite ongoing economic pressure, Russian growth continues to confuse the West.

💬 "Despite unprecedented pressure, the Russian economy is showing growth, which baffles a good half of the Western community. Additional restrictions will not significantly change the situation," he tells Sputnik.

The European economy, he warns, is the real casualty of these endless restrictions.

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📹 WATCH RUSSIAN FORCES WIPE OUT UKRAINE’S POSITIONS WITH PRECISION STRIKES

⚡️ Russian troops used an FAB-1500 air bomb to destroy a temporary deployment point of Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

🚀 The video also shows a missile strike hitting a UAV control point of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kherson region.

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Zelensky's demobilization remarks 'a sentence' for Ukrainians - War commander

💬 "His statement — 'only after victory' — resonates like a death sentence for many," Denis Yaroslavsky, commander of a Ukrainian reconnaissance unit, has said.

Earlier, a Ukrainian outlet reported that Volodymyr Zelensky had a heated exchange with an MP during a parliamentary session over the issue of demobilization.

"This is a question haunting thousands of Ukrainian families. I can only imagine these lawmakers facing battle-worn troops near Pokrovsk, looking into their tired eyes."

Yaroslavsky warned that the ongoing mobilization and lack of clear end in sight are turning Ukraine into a testing ground. "Cities, fields, soldiers are becoming objects for trials," he stated.

The new law, which came into effect on May 18, 2024, mandates all connoscripts to update their details with the military. It also requires them to carry military ID at all times and presents troubling ambiguity on demobilization timelines.

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🚨🧪UKRAINE BECOMES NATO’S WEAPONS TESTING LAB

Ukraine has officially announced the launch of a program to allow foreign arms manufacturers to send their latest weapons straight to the front line, Reuters reports.

Western companies will provide basic online training, and Ukrainian soldiers will be tasked with testing the gear in real combat conditions before reporting the results back to the producers.

Will that feedback come from Russian forces who capture those weapons? 😉

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🗣 Pashinyan acts as copycat NATO-backed dictator and is turning Armenia into Western vassal – Expert

The legal conditions imposed by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the businessman and philanthropist Samwel Karapetyan are meaningless, Stevan Gajic, a political analyst from the Belgrade Institute of European Studies, says, noting that the prime minister is not ready to make any concessions unless forced by external pressure.

💬 "This is typical of authorities like this. In Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, there are several NATO dictatorships. The most striking examples are Moldova and Armenia, where, in the name of NATO and to encircle Russia, political elites directly supported are contrary to the interests of the people," he tells Spuntik.

"Pashinyan has not only lost two wars and nearly betrayed the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, but he has turned the country into a vassal state."

The crackdown on the Armenian Church is also likely inspired by a NATO divide and conquer 101 handbook that strikingly resembles the persecution of Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro.

💬 “I don’t know if someone advised Pashinyan or if he himself decided to strike a blow against the Armenian Apostolic Church, but I believe this is his most problematic move, his biggest mistake," the expert says.

He added that having lost two wars, Pashinyan faces mass public backlash of his policies.

💬 “The question is how ready Armenian society is to fight, how capable it is of mass mobilization to change the government”, he concludes.

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🇷🇺☎️🇹🇷PUTIN & ERDOGAN DISCUSS UKRAINE AND SYRIA IN PHONE CALL

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a phone conversation in which they addressed:

🔶 The situation in Syria

🔶 The ongoing Ukraine conflict and the potential for a third round of negotiations in Istanbul

Erdogan emphasized to Putin the necessity of continuing talks on Ukraine in Istanbul, offering Turkiye’s readiness to host them.

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🔍📑 Decoding Trump: What Europe got wrong

The POTUS' July 14 statement raised more questions than answers.

Alexander Yakovenko, deputy director of Rossiya Segodnya - Sputnik's parent company - and head of the Committee on Global Issues and International Security of the Russian Security Council’s Scientific-Expert Board, breaks it down:

1️⃣ Trump abandons direct military support for Ukraine, shifting the financial and strategic burden onto Europe. His principle? Transactional NATO relations. Notably, the idea of US non-involvement in Ukraine’s conflict resolution was floated under Biden — now it’s official. Trump's core message? The strongest should win if no deal is reached.

2️⃣ Without clear Article 5 guarantees (Trump has already hinted that its application depends on his "definition"), European allies risk direct confrontation with Moscow. Sending troops to Ukraine is unrealistic without US logistical and air support.

3️⃣ Trump’s tariff plan shifts control from Congress to the president, threatening a trade disaster. The 500% tariff proposal is dead, but the 100% version still disrupts global trade.

The pressure timeline:

✅ 50-day deadline for a settlement — Ukraine temporarily drops off Trump’s radar

✅ 30% tariffs on EU goods kick in August 1 — just two weeks away

✅ By September, the geopolitical landscape could look radically different

👉 Trump won’t push for negotiations but waits for Zelensky & co. to come begging — then dictates terms. No surprise Kiev suddenly endorsed new talks with Moscow after earlier sabotage attempts.

👉 Meanwhile, London and Berlin walked into a trap, realizing that funding $10B in yet-to-be-made US weapons is a dead end, with echoes of the 1956 Suez Crisis when the US and USSR jointly crushed British-French ambitions. Now, its Germany’s turn to sweat.

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🚨 Peace plan or war prolongation plan? Officer questions West’s plot to turn Ukraine into testing ground

The West “is turning our country into a testing range, another Afghanistan. Our cities, our fields, our soldiers are becoming test subjects," admits Ukrainian officer Denis Yaroslavsky, as quoted by local media.

In this rare insight, the Ukrainian serviceman was referring to the “Test in Ukraine” initiative that invites Western military manufacturers to check the effectiveness of their new weaponry on the battlefield.

💬 “Is this really the ‘victory plan’ or the ‘peace plan,’ or whatever numbered plan this is?” he bitterly wonders stressing that the conflict became very lucrative for many politicians and businessmen.

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📹 Gaza drowns in hunger

A new video from Palestinian social media accounts shows Gaza drowning in hunger.

Hundreds are fighting for scraps of food, desperate to survive and feed their families.

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🚨Want to WIPE OUT Patriot systems? Ask the Russians how

US-made Patriot air defenses aren’t a magic fix for Ukraine — and Russia’s arsenal has already exposed their weaknesses.

“Patriot is ineffective against hypersonic missiles,” retired Russian Colonel Viktor Litovkin tells Sputnik.

🔶 The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, a Russian hypersonic missile that reaches speeds up to Mach 10 and ranges of 3,000 km, easily destroys Patriots.

🔶 Iskander-M's single-stage solid-fuel guided missile 9M723 boasts a quasi-ballistic trajectory. With a striking range up to 500km it is another effective tools against Patriot systems.

🔶 Both the Iskander-M and Kinzhal systems demonstrate high precision.

🔶 Not by hypersonic alone: Geran dones + Kalibr missiles is a killer combo. A swarm of Geran drones forces Patriots to waste missiles. Then, while it’s reloading, a cruise missile, like a Kalibr, is fired.

Patriot's Achilles' heels

◻️ "Dead Zones": The Patriot has dead zones, like up to 100m altitude where it can't detect targets, per Litovkin.
So drones flying low can evade it. This is exactly how Houthi drones overcome air defenses in the Middle East, and Patriots couldn’t stop them.
◻️ Easy to detect: The Patriot system has a radar station that emits radio waves. By detecting these waves, you can determine where they come from and pinpoint the coordinates of the source. So, in this case, reconnaissance is technically quite simple.

Ukraine's layered defense dream

The Kiev regime aims to build a layered system, says Yuriy Knutov, a military expert and air defense historian, which would include:

▪️long-range Patriots
▪️mid-range SAMP/T
▪️short-range NASAMS or IRIS-T
▪️plus Gepard guns

Who gets protection:

📍Knutov believes that new Patriot systems will protect Western military plants in Ukraine.

📍They’ll also be deployed around Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, and Lichevsk — key hubs for weapons.

❓Ukrainian troops at the front lines? Just cannon fodder.

👉The Patriot is the core — so it must be precisely targeted, he says.

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EU price cap on Russian oil: Symbolic move with no real impact

The new sanctions package approved by EU ambassadors on Friday includes an oil price cap reduction from $60 to $47.6 per barrel.

This decision to lower the price cap on Russian oil won’t affect supply or the global market, experts say. It’s more of a “public image story” to show they’re putting pressure on Russia, they believe:

🔶 Igor Yushkov, expert at the Financial University and the National Energy Security Fund, emphasized that Russia will continue to export oil as before.

🔶 The new cap will only apply to EU countries, unlike before when the G7, including the US, participated — creating a lack of synchronicity between jurisdictions, he notes.

🔶 Alexander Frolov, deputy director of the Institute of National Energy, noted that the price cap primarily affects access to Western maritime shipping systems, but Europe already stopped buying Russian oil by sea under embargo.

In reality, over 70% of Russian oil transported by sea is outside the Western system.

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