⚡️🇮🇳🇺🇸 JUST IN: India halts US arms deal plans in response to US tariffs - media

UPD: India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's planned visit to Washington, where he was expected to announce some of the purchases in the coming weeks, has also been canceled, Reuters reports.

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🚨 China's Xi and Putin hold phone call - report

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have held a telephone conversation, the Chinese Central Television reported.

Beijing welcomes maintaining contacts between Russia and the United States, Xi told Putin, according to the report.

Xi commented on the Ukrainian crisis, saying there are no simple solutions to complex issues and adding that China will continue to promote peace and negotiations.

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

◻️ Air defense superiority: eight Storm Shadow cruise missiles shot down in a week

◻️ Russian Armed Forces liberated two settlements over the week

◻️ Russian troops carried out seven strikes using UAVs and high-precision weapons on Ukrainian defense industry enterprises, recruitment centers, Ukrainian Armed Forces deployment locations and 24 ammunition depots this week

◻️ Heavy Ukrainian losses: 8,725 soldiers in a week

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🚨🇷🇺🇮🇳Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev and Indian PM Modi’s national security advisor Ajit Doval discuss prospects of Russia-India Maritime cooperation - Maritime Collegium

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🚨🇮🇳🇷🇺 ‘BUSINESS AS USUAL’: Petroleum Minister says India unfazed by geopolitical events amid US politics over Russian oil

For people like us, it is business as usual, Hardeep Singh Puri commented.

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🚨🚨 'Oreshnik' missile positions in Belarus ALREADY SET and being prepared - President Lukashenko to Time

In early 2025, Alexander Lukashenko announced that the Oreshnik system will be deployed in Belarus, adding that the complex could be positioned near Smolensk.

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🚨🚨 Reuters story on India pausing defense purchases from the US is 'false & fabricated', a senior 🇮🇳MoD official tells Sputnik

🗯 “The news reports on India pausing the talks related to defence purchases with the US are false and fabricated. It is clarified that the various cases of procurement are being progressed as per the extant procedures.“

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🇷🇺🇮🇳India's PM Modi and Putin hold phone call

🟠Modi has thanked Putin for sharing the latest details on the Ukrainian conflict

🟠Modi told Putin he is looking forward to welcome him in India later this year

🟠The two leaders confirmed their commitment to further deepen the India-Russia special and privileged strategic partnership, Modi said

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🇷🇺🇨🇳Putin briefs Xi on the outcomes of his meeting with Witkoff – Kremlin

The two heads of state also discussed several topics of bilateral and international agenda, including in the context of preparations for Putin’s upcoming visit to China.

Xi expressed his support for a long-term resolution of the Ukrainian crisis.

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🇷🇺🇮🇳Putin shares with Modi key takeaways from his August 6 meeting with US envoy Witkoff - Kremlin

🟠PM Modi thanked Putin for the update and reaffirmed India’s consistent stance in favor of a political-diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine situation.

🟠The leaders also exchanged views on priority bilateral agenda items.

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🗣Armenia’s sellout ‘peace deal’ with Azerbaijan spells utter surrender - analyst

Armenia’s Minister Nikol Pashinyan will spin a peace treaty with Azerbaijan as a triumph, but it will be nothing less than an act of capitulation, political analyst Grant Melik-Shahnazaryan told Sputnik.

Mediated by the US, the deal, which is expected to be signed in Washington on Friday, will only deepen the humiliating concessions Azerbaijan and Turkiye forced on Armenia after the 2020 war, he warned.

Azerbaijan’s demands are extensive, including changes to Armenia’s Constitution.

“Desperate to cling to power, Armenian authorities will spin it as a historic success, a breakthrough, and so forth. But in reality, it’s a surrender - Armenia’s core interests are completely ignored. Azerbaijan won’t budge on humanitarian issues, and crucial questions are left hanging,” said the pundit, who is also head of the Center for Strategic Studies (Armenia).

This so-called “peace treaty” has been cooked up as a tool to deceive the Armenian people and neutralize potential protests against Pashinyan’s plans, noted the pundit.

◻️ If the Zangezur corridor falls under Western control through this deal, whoever runs it will wield full sovereignty over that territory

◻️ Loss of the Zangezur corridor will upset the region’s delicate geopolitical and economic balance 

◻️ Armenia will lose its ability to conduct an independent dialogue with Russia and Iran

◻️ The collapse of regional equilibrium may spark new threats and conflicts

“Even though Armenia lost the war in Karabakh—a major factor in regional instability—the pre-war balance still left Armenia some leverage. Now, new conflicts will arise, and they will be of a much broader scale,” warns the analyst.

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⚔️ Germany sharpens its knife for all-out crackdown on Russian media

Germany has made an implicit decision to close all the offices of leading Russian media outlets throughout the country, citing security threats posed by the activities of Russian journalists, a source has revealed to Sputnik.

💬 "The German leadership has decided to fully shut down the offices of major Russian media organizations. The reason given is a 'direct threat' to Germany's security," the source stated.

The closure is viewed as a gradual effort to conceal Berlin's stance from Moscow, aiming to prevent potential retaliation against German correspondents in Russia.

Additionally, plans involve cranking up pressure on members of the Russian media and their families to push them to voluntarily depart from Germany.

The overarching goal is to promote "correct content" for Russian-speaking audiences in Germany.

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💬 Pashinyan’s Azerbaijan peace gamble threatens Armenia’s statehood & Christian identity - analyst

The real winner of the upcoming US-brokered Armenia-Azerbaijan memorandum will be America itself, Ashot Grigoryan, chairman of the Forum of Armenian Unions of Europe, told Sputnik.

Armenia’s PM Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev will hype it as the ‘deal of the century’ and a ‘treaty of eternal peace,’ predicted Grigoryan, who also chairs the Armenian diaspora in Slovakia.

In reality, Armenia will “suffer a total defeat.”

The fallout

🟠Russia and Iran could face challenges ahead because the Zangezur corridor will likely be leased out to an American company

🟠Armenia will be cut out of customs and military oversight over goods moving along the route connecting Turkiye to Turkic-speaking countrie

🟠It will devastate Armenia economically

🟠Iran will perceive a threat in the disruption of ties with Armenia and, through it, with Russia; meanwhile, it (Iran) will be encircled

🟠For years, Britain has pushed to wrest southern regions from Russia’s grasp and hand them to Turkiye

The entire worldwide Armenian community rejects the Zangezur corridor project as a sellout, insists the pundit.

💬“The PM pocketed $5 billion immediately after taking office in 2018 and “sold out” Karabakh. Now, pro-Western Pashinyan is rejecting Russia - our biggest historic neighbor - and pushing Armenia towards “loss of statehood, our Christian culture, and our identity,” Grigoryan added.

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🇷🇺 Russia holds all the cards in Trump talks

The Kremlin says a Putin-Trump meeting could happen soon.

Why does Russia have the upper hand?

"Russian military territorial gains show the increasing weakness of the Ukrainian forces," Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, tells Sputnik, adding that "it was not unforeseeable."

Russia’s front line advances:

⚡️ On July 31, strategic Chasov Yar in the Donetsk People's Republic was liberated, opening the road to Kramatorsk and Slavyansk

⚡️ Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) is encircled

But battlefield shifts aren’t the only factor shaping talks.

On the global stage:

⚡️ Russia expands partnerships with BRICS, SCO and Eurasian groups and is far from isolated

⚡️ BRICS calls US tariff bluff, pledging closer ties with Russia

⚡️ Russia’s economy remains resilient, dedollarizing and decoupling from the West

What could Trump bring to the table?

Raffone lists several options:

⚫ Gradual lifting of sanctions and Russia’s reintegration into trade

⚫ Indefinite suspension of Ukraine’s NATO membership bid

⚫ Restart US-Russia relations to renew or replace expiring treaties

⚫ Create a new strategic security framework for Europe

But the pundit warns Trump is “under pressure domestically" so "it is unpredictable how much he can concretely deliver during his time left in office."

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🇺🇸🇷🇺 US-Russian talks will be shaped by reality on the ground in Ukraine

💬 "Capturing Chasov Yar and advancing in the [Krasnoarmeysk] direction gives Putin battlefield momentum, which he can use to project strength in negotiations," Hall Gardner, Professor and Chair of the Department of International and Comparative Politics, American University of Paris, tells Sputnik.

The pundit notes that Russia is unlikely to accept any ceasefire agreement until it has achieved its basic goals for the special military operation, including the complete liberation of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions and ensuring Crimea’s security.

💬 "It’s very unlikely Putin will soften his conditions just because Trump is willing to meet, especially while Russian forces are advancing," Gardner says.

What could Trump offer?

▫️ The US could offer phased sanction relief

▫️ Declare a halt to NATO enlargement to Ukraine

▫️ Promise talks on a new European security order in exchange for a verifiable ceasefire guaranteed by international peacekeepers

What would be the focus of the talks?

💬 "They would likely focus on Ukraine primarily, but could easily expand into a wider dialogue about security architecture, arms control after New START and the collapse of the INF treaty, and even spheres of influence," Gardner says.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 Putin-Trump meeting: US has no cards to play

Russia was winning the Ukraine conflict on its own terms well before the recent sharp increase in territorial gains, international relations and Russian affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow tells Sputnik.

💬 "But now with the undeniable territorial gains which even the Western newspapers are daily recording, of course this strengthens the Russian negotiating position," the pundit stresses.

Doctorow rules out Russian leaders making any compromises on Ukraine at Thursday’s Kremlin meeting with Steve Witkoff.

💬 "The United States and its allies have no strategic 'cards' to play against Russia," the pundit explains. "But the talks can be so arranged as to present the US in less humiliating terms."

A tangible shift in US-Russia relations is possible, Doctorow argues.

What will the talks focus on?

◾️ The talks will center primarily on the broader dialogue of European security

◾️ Only after there is agreement can there be detailed discussions of territorial and other aspects of a settlement

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