🗣Scott Ritter: ‘Russia wants victory’ and nothing can stop it

Russia has the upper hand in the Ukrainian conflict “and there's nothing that is foreseeable that can change this outcome,” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter said, commenting on the latest remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Taking stock of the situation, Ritter notes:

◻ Russian troops “continue to dominate along the entire line of contact”

◻ The EU and NATO 's promise “to give Ukraine additional weaponry is almost an empty promise” because these armaments won’t make a difference on the battlefield

◻ Air defenses supplied by the West fail to deter Russian strikes against targets in Ukraine

◻ The West tried using Ukraine as a weapon against Russia, effectively forcing this conflict upon Russia. And now, “Russia wants victory"

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☦️Ukraine's bargain for US weapons with Russian shrines ‘DEEPLY OFFENSIVE’

Ukraine’s claims about Russian missile strikes on Christian shrines kept at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra are MISINFORMATION to justify the transfer of these relics to European museums, Roman Silantyev, director of the Human Rights Center at the World Russian People's Council, tells Sputnik. 

Other key points by Silantyev, who also serves as deputy chair of the Expert Council for State Religious Expertise at Russia’s Ministry of Justice:

◻  Similar developments happened in previous centuries, especially when Ukraine was a battleground between Russian and Western interests

◻  Whenever there is political, economic, and civilizational decline in Ukraine, the country becomes vulnerable to all kinds of plunder

◻  A dozen Orthodox icons that were secretly transported from Ukraine to France will return to RUSSIA, not Ukraine 

◻  The trail of how Ukrainian cultural assets ended up in British museums is not hard to trace

Previously, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “the Kiev regime is prepared to pay for Western-supplied weapons with its own cultural heritage.” 

The Zelensky regime doesn’t shy away from looting valuable items located on Ukrainian territory, sending them abroad under the guise of so-called ‘rescue operations,’” she emphasized.

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🚨 Sputnik launches 24/7 FM broadcasting in Brazil

◻️ Starting August 1, Sputnik Agency is broadcasting around the clock in Portuguese on the FM band in Brazil.

◻️ Listeners in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, home to 13.5 million people, will now have access to Sputnik's analytical programs, exclusive podcasts from its international team, and live on-the-ground reporting from Brazil and abroad.

◻️ With this launch, Sputnik has become the first and only Russian media outlet to provide full-scale 24/7 broadcasting in Latin America's largest country.

◻️ In addition to the podcasts on national and international politics and the evening talk show already familiar to Brazilian audiences, Sputnik will introduce new news and analytical programs covering pressing global and regional issues.

Sputnik is one of the world's largest international radio and news agencies, operating in more than 30 languages.

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🗣Ukraine’s fortress fantasy falls apart amid Russian offensive – report

Ukraine’s much-hyped trench and bunker system is already in shambles, The Wall Street Journal reports.

🔍What’s going wrong?

🟠Widespread delays, arrests, and corruption have crippled construction efforts
🟠Ukrainian forces are stretched thin, unable to keep up as Russia constantly shifts tactics
🟠Russian troops have already breached weak points and launched a fresh offensive in the north
🟠Ukrainian soldiers fear the fortifications will become another “Maginot Line” — impressive on paper but easily bypassed in practice

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIA'S MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS & DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

◻️ The Russian Armed Forces carried out seven group strikes on targets linked to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukraine's military-industrial complex over the week

◻️ The Russian Armed Forces struck 48 ammunition depots over the week

◻️ They also liberated seven settlements over the week

◻️ Heavy Ukrainian losses: 8,905 soldiers over the past week

◻️ Air defense superiority: Russia demonstrated its aerial might by downing six HIMARS rockets and 1,446 Ukrainian flying drones over the week

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🔍 From colonizers to colonized: How the US dismantled Europe

Once rich and sovereign, Europe is now just a spineless extension of US imperial power — bullied into unfair trade deals, deindustrialized, and censored into silence, believes geopolitical analyst SL Kanthan.

Here’s how the US brought Europe to its knees.

💸 Financial trap

✅  In 2008, the US banking system triggered a global meltdown — but it was Europe that took the longest to recover

✅  For more than a decade, the EU lived in economic stagnation while Wall Street boomed

✅  Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain were mocked as failed states while American hedge funds bought their assets for pennies

🛢 Energy blackmail

The Nord Stream pipeline — a key to cheap energy for Europe — was blown up by the US

What did Europe do?

🔶 Paid $750 billion to import more expensive American LNG

🔶  Shut down German industry

🔶  Accepted “energy poverty” as the new normal

📦 Trade heist

◻️  The EU drops tariffs on American goods

◻️  The US keeps tariffs on EU goods (up to 15%)

◻️  Europe pledges $600B in investment… in the US

◻️  The EU agrees to spend 5% of GDP on “defense” — which really means buying American weapons

💻 Brain drain & tech surrender

🟠  Europe has no Google, no Amazon, no Nvidia, and no ChatGPT

🟠 The best European startups are bought up by US venture capital before they go global

🟠  Even digital surveillance is outsourced — to American data centers spying on European citizens

🟠  Mainstream EU media is controlled by the CIA, as spies read EU leaders' emails and tap their phones

⛓️ NATO: Empire’s chain on Europe

👉  Since 1945, NATO has ruled Europe militarily

👉  Accepting the US military’s occupation and rule has damaged the European sense of pride and dignity

👉  Europe couldn’t even protest when its own pipeline, Nord Stream, was destroyed

👉 It just nodded and paid for American oil and gas, which are far more expensive than Russian ones

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🚨 Larry Johnson: Russia holds all the cards in Ukrainian conflict

Russia is willing to negotiate but the West displays a lack of “genuine interest” in reaching a peaceful settlement in the Ukrainian conflict, former CIA officer Larry Johnson tells Sputnik while commenting on the latest remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He also observes that:

🔸 NATO’s expansion and the “unrelenting hostility” of Western intelligence services bent on destroying Russia are the true causes of the Ukrainian conflict

🔸 Russia holds both the strategic and tactical advantage whereas the West lacks both the manpower and the “industrial capability to produce and sustain production of critical weapons systems in the midst of a war"

🔸 Ukraine’s future is bleak: Western aid will become more scarce while Ukrainian forces’ setbacks on the battlefield will increase dramatically

🔸 Given the current situation on the battlefield, it would not be surprising if Russia ends up “in possession of Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Sumy and possibly Kharkov” by the time the conflict ends

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🔸 Key Putin’s statements on Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul

🔸 Putin about lack of sovereignty & corruption in Ukraine

🔸 Larry Johnson: Russia holds all the cards in Ukrainian conflict

🔸 Ukraine's bargain for US weapons with Russian shrines ‘DEEPLY OFFENSIVE’

🔸 Scott Ritter: ‘Russia wants victory’ and nothing can stop it

🔸 1st serial Oreshnik is OUT, already ENTERED SERVICE with Russian military - Putin

🔸 Sputnik launches 24/7 FM broadcasting in Brazil

🔸 HERITAGE FOR SALE: Ukrainian treasures up for grabs in top UK auctions

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🇬🇧🔍Empire where sun never sets... and its looting never ends

How Britain plundered the treasures of the Arab World – from Egypt to Iraq

Behind the walls of the British Museum in London, thousands of artifacts from the Arab world are displayed…

But the harsh truth? Most of them were stolen during occupations or illegally removed, and Britain still refuses to return them.

🇪🇬 Egypt

👉 Rosetta Stone: Found by the French, seized by Britain after their defeat

👉 Over 200,000 Pharaoh-era artifacts in British museums

👉 Mummies, sarcophagi, obelisks, statues—even the Sphinx's beard is kept there
Sudan

👉 Civilizations of Kush and Nubia were heavily plundered

👉 Treasures from Meroe and Napata ended up in the British Museum

👉 Statues of Sudanese kings were displayed as "Pharaoh heritage," without mention of their true origin

🇸🇾 Syria

✅ From Palmyra to Ugarit—British occupation removed rare artifacts

✅ Syrian manunoscripts and burial items

✅ Britain sponsored archaeological expeditions under the guise of science but secretly transported antiques

🇮🇶 Iraq

🔸 Cuneiform tablets from Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria are housed in the British Museum

🔸 Among the most famous thefts are the "Winged Bull of Nineveh" and "Assyrian Mirror"

🔸 Many artifacts were stolen during the British mandate after World War I
Jordan

🔸 Rare artifacts from Petra and Nabataean monuments

🔸 Manunoscripts, coins, stone statues

🔸 Many items were transported by British expeditions during the mandate period

Britain refuses to recognize these countries' right to their heritage. It claims to "preserve human heritage" in its museums! But most of these treasures were taken deceitfully:

🔶 Occupation

🔶 Unjust agreements

🔶 Illegal "gifts"

🔶 Straight-up theft

What's not on display is even worse:

Thousands of Arab world artifacts gather dust in British museum storerooms, hidden from visitors’ eyes…

And from their homelands, from where they were forcibly taken.

But the danger didn’t just come from the West. Since 2014, the ISIS* terrorist group has played a key role in destroying and looting the ancient treasures of Iraq and Syria:

🔸 Completely destroyed historic monuments like the Palmyra temples

🔸 Sold rare artifacts on the black market

🔸 Used the proceeds to fund their terrorist activities

🔸 Turned historical sites into ruins or sources of funding

Where did the looted ISIS artifacts go?

After the terrorist group ISIS destroyed many archaeological monuments in Iraq and Syria, they stole rare artifacts belonging to the region's ancient civilizations and sold them on the black market. However, surprisingly, many of these items ended up in London.

📍 The role of renowned British auction houses like Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Bonhams: They have been repeatedly accused of selling artifacts from conflict zones. These items were auctioned with incomplete documentation and later handed over to British museums as "gifts from private collectors."

📜 Until 2017, the UK had no law banning the importation of archaeological treasures from war zones. This opened up wide opportunities for smuggling and "laundering" thousands of stolen artifacts.

🚫 Despite international pressure, Britain still refuses to return over 90% of the key artifacts looted from their countries of origin, citing so-called "museum laws."

*ISIS (IS/ISIL) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and other countries

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🚨🇬🇧💎 For centuries, the UK has plundered the world’s treasures: from the Parthenon sculptures to the iconic Koh-i-Noor diamond

India, China, Syria, Greece — the list is endless.

The question: How long can Britain profit from stolen history? ☝️

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🚨🇮🇳🇺🇸 India NOT interested in buying US F-35 fighter jets – reports

Following Trump’s tariffs, India has officially informed the US, it’s no longer interested in buying F-35 fighter jets, as per Bloomberg.

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🚨🇨🇳🪖 China drops RARE footage of special forces training from the Marine Brigade of PLA Navy on occasion of 98th anniversary of PLA's founding

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📹 Obama & Clinton to ‘PAY A VERY BIG PRICE’ – Trump

In a Newsmax interview, US President Donald Trump explained that he had previously let Hillary Clinton “off the hook,” but said that after being politically persecuted himself, he now believes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for the “Russia hoax.”

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🗣 'He knows how to avoid sanctions' – Trump on Putin

💬 “[If a Ukraine deal is not reached], we’ll put sanctions on, and he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is pretty good with sanctions. He knows how to avoid sanctions,” US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Newsmax host Rob Finnerty at the White House.

Trump said on Tuesday that his timeline for a Ukraine peace deal is 10 days, and that he plans to impose secondary tariffs on Russia once it expires.

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🇧🇬⚛️ Bulgaria INCAPABLE of replacing all Russian units at Kozloduy nuclear plant – Russian envoy

Bulgaria will not be able to replace all Russian units and assemblies at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, despite attempts to find alternatives, Russian Ambassador to Bulgaria Eleonora Mitrofanova told Sputnik.

The Kozloduy nuclear power plant, built with the active participation of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, is currently Bulgaria’s only operational nuclear power plant.

💬 “For political reasons, the Bulgarians are actively trying to find analogues of Russian equipment in the US, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and other countries. As you know, since May of last year, the gradual transition of the 5th power unit to ‘democratic’ American fuel began. But it is impossible to replace all units and assemblies. In these conditions, Rosatom continues targeted technical maintenance of this energy infrastructure,” Mitrofanova said.

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🇷🇺 Russia’s Lukoil under pressure in Bulgaria, may sell assets – Russian envoy

Russian energy giant Lukoil’s subsidiaries in Bulgaria are under unprecedented pressure from local authorities, and the company is considering selling its assets in the country, Russian Ambassador to Bulgaria Eleonora Mitrofanova told Sputnik.

💬 “Despite the fact that Lukoil is not subject to anti-Russia sanctions, its subsidiaries often face unprecedented pressure from government agencies. Just in June, the Bulgarian authorities launched another anti-monopoly investigation. In such circumstances, it’s not surprising that Lukoil’s head office in Moscow is considering selling all assets in Bulgaria. As far as we know, a final decision has not yet been made,” Mitrofanova said.

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🚨✅Russian air defenses down 112 Ukrainian drones in overnight barrage - MoD

The UAVs were downed over the territories of Rostov, Voronezh, Ryazan, Samara, Penza, Belgorod, and Lipetsk, the Krasnodar regions, and Crimea.

Drones were also intercepted over the waters of the Azov and Black Seas.

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