🔊Putin briefs Tajik counterpart Rakhmon on Russia-US contacts - Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a telephone conversation with Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon.

Putin informed his Tajik counterpart about the main results of his recent meeting with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow.

Rakhmon voiced support for efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣 The US systems are increasingly appearing in regions where they have a DIRECT IMPACT on Russia's security, said Sergei Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia.

💬 Other statements by Ryabkov on lifting the moratorium on INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces):

🔹 Russia must use such methods to cool down the heated heads in NATO countries.

🔹 In today's realities, it is inappropriate to use the term "détente" in relations between Russia and the US.

🔹 What we need now is not détente, but political will to begin lowering the temperature in international relations.

🔹 Everything Moscow does in terms of weapons deployment is a reaction to the steps taken by the Americans and their allies.

🔹 Apart from the Oreshnik systems, Russia also has other advanced weapons.

🔹 The first signs of common sense are appearing in Russia-US relations, which were absent for several years before.

🔹 The risk of nuclear conflict in the world is not decreasing.

🔹 Russia sees the risk that after the expiration of the New START Treaty, nuclear arms control will be completely absent.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

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

◻️ Russia's Armed Forces struck a critical railway hub in the Dnepropetrovsk region, disrupting Ukrainian troop transfers to Donbass

◻️ A Ukrainian M577 armored personnel carrier destroyed in the Donetsk People's Republic

◻️ Air defense superiority: two Neptune missiles and 372 fixed-wing drones intercepted over the past day

◻️ Heavy Ukrainian losses: 1,375 militants in the past 24 hours

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💸💰 Alaska’s hospitality industry cashing in ahead of Putin-Trump summit

Hotel rooms in Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, have nearly doubled in price ahead of the Putin-Trump meeting scheduled for August 15.

For example:

🟠 Hilton Anchorage jumped from $347 to $657/night after the meeting was announced

🟠 Wyndham Garden Anchorage Airport surged from $499 to $609/night

🟠 Hampton Inn Anchorage skyrocketed from $352 to $616/night

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

✍️ EU & Ukraine demand US security guarantees as part of future peace deal - report

The message was sent by senior European and Ukrainian leaders during a recent high-level meeting near London, the NYT reported, citing two European officials.

They said that:

◻️ Any peace settlement with Russia must include firm US security guarantees for Ukraine

◻️ NATO’s door must remain open to Ukraine, “even if that is not practical now"

Previously, Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov confirmed that a summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will take place in Alaska on August 15 and that the settlement of the Ukraine conflict will top the agenda.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Putin-Trump summit: Ukraine ‘will pay dearly’ – Fico

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming Putin-Trump meeting in Alaska, Ukraine will face consequences, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has pointed out.

💬 Ukrainian authorities are responsible for these consequences because they backed “the unsuccessful Western strategy of damaging Russia through comprehensive support for Ukraine in the military conflict,” he added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹🤬 Mobilization, Ukrainian style: 5 officers vs 1 cyclist

In a video, a van swerves to block a cyclist, and within seconds, five draft officers from Lvov’s military recruitment center forcefully drag him inside.

No summons, no discussion — just straight to the front.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔍Who did Putin brief on his meeting with Witkoff and upcoming summit with Trump?

His counterparts from the CIS and BRICS:

🇨🇳 President of China Xi Jinping
🇮🇳 Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi
🇿🇦 President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa
🇧🇷 President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
🇧🇾 President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko
🇺🇿 President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev
🇰🇿 President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
🇹🇯 President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon
🇰🇬 President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣Trump wants the US to stop funding the conflict in Ukraine—Americans are tired of their tax dollars being spent on it, US Vice President JD Vance said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Putin and Trump may ‘reconfigure the world order’ in Alaska

Donald Trump chose Alaska as the place to hold his meeting with Vladimir Putin for two reasons, argues Tiberio Graziani, chairman at Vision & Global Trends - International Institute for Global Analyses:

⚡️ To assert his administration’s intent to “enhance the US' role as a diplomatic actor”

⚡️ Due to the region’s shared history with both the US and Russia, and its location, that both highlights the closeness between Trump and Putin and the distance between Trump and the EU

The negotiations will not focus on Ukraine alone but will likely also encompass “establishing a security architecture” that would both assuage Russia’s “existential concerns regarding the intentions of Brussels and London” and recognize the US’ interests in the continental Europe.

💬 “They are working towards a reconfiguration of the world order,” Graziani says.

He did note, however, that the two world leaders pursue different goals: whereas Trump wants to “maintain his primacy in the new polycentric international system,” Putin seeks to “define the new global order by bringing the countries of the Global South into the discussion and decision-making process.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇬🪖 Egyptian Defense Minister inspects elite troops

Abdel Mageed Saqr, Egypt's Defense Minister visits airborne & special forces units, checking combat readiness and morale.

⚔️ Mission: Boost efficiency & ensure top-tier security for Egypt.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇳🌳 CHINA IS BULLDOZING THE DESERT INTO OBLIVION

First, they flatten the dunes—stopping sandstorms dead in their tracks.

Then, they plant millions of super-trees with roots so deep they can survive a year without rain and lock the desert down.

Result: 930 sq. miles of desert ERASED yearly—transformed into forests, grasslands, and farmland.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 Putin and Trump may ‘reconfigure the world order’ in Alaska

🔸 Trump wants the US to stop funding the conflict in Ukraine - JD Vance

🔸 Putin-Trump summit: Ukraine ‘will pay dearly’ – Fico

🔸 Apart from the Oreshnik systems, Russia also has other advanced weapons - Russia's Deputy FM Ryabkov

🔸 Journalists to be among the first ousted by AI – Simonyan

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹🇷🇺 WATCH: A young Russian boy shows absolute devotion to the motherland by passionately singing the Russian National Anthem

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Zelensky’s draft squad: abduct the husband, drag the wife on the roof

In Ukraine’s latest mobilization horror — allegedly filmed in Volyn and posted by MP Artyom Dmitruk — draft officers snatched a man off the street. His wife, risking her life, tried to save him.

Dmitruk claims they first tried to run her over. In desperation, she climbed onto the roof of the van carrying her husband.

Even that didn’t stop Zelensky’s men — they sped off at full throttle, the woman clinging on top.

Footage from social media

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 Al Jazeera reporter KILLED in Israeli strike on Gaza - reports

Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh were killed in an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, along with cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, according to Al Jazeera.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt