🚨 Trump secretly authorizes CIA covert operations in Venezuela — Report

The Trump administration's secret authorization includes potential lethal operations against Nicolás Maduro's government, according to a New York Times report citing US officials.

The authorization allows the CIA to operate unilaterally or alongside military forces as the US openly seeks to remove Maduro from power.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔊 Trump: “PM Modi assured me that India would stop buying Russian oil”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔊 Ukraine wants to go offensive — Trump

The US president said he will make a determination on supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨 Hamas: recovering remaining hostage bodies requires 'special equipment'

Hamas has returned 8 bodies of dead Israeli hostages this week, but disputes over identification and recovery threaten the fragile ceasefire.

Hamas states that locating the remaining 21 remains is hindered by wartime destruction — and requires "major efforts and special equipment."

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the IDF to prepare a "comprehensive plan to defeat Hamas" if it refuses to implement Trump's deal — including disarming and returning all bodies.

"If Hamas refuses… Israel, in coordination with the US, will return to fighting to achieve the complete defeat of Hamas," Katz warned.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇸🇩 🇷🇺 Sudan eyes Russian partnership in energy projects

Sudan plans to launch joint projects with Russian companies, Energy Minister Moatasem Ibrahim tells Sputnik, noting that 60% of Sudan’s territory faces electricity shortages and could benefit from Russia’s nuclear energy expertise.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📈 Global debt to hit highest level in 80 years, IMF warns

📑 “Global public debt is projected to rise above 100 percent of GDP by 2029. In such a scenario, public debt would be at its highest level since 1948,” the IMF said in its new Fiscal Monitor report.

And it could climb to 123% within four years in a worst-case scenario.

Rising defense budgets, aging populations, and soaring interest rates are piling pressure on public finances, as the Fund warns that “the size and cost of debt” have drastically changed since the pandemic.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

✍️ Pentagon purges press in media crackdown

The US DoD effectively expelled dozens of journalists who refused to sign a controversial new press policy.

▫️ Over 30 outlets declined to sign, forfeiting Pentagon access

▫️ New rules brand journalists security risks for asking about even unclassified information

▫️ Pentagon Press Association calls it "a dark day for press freedom"

Chief spokesperson Sean Parnell dismissed criticism as a "full blown meltdown," asserting the policy protects troops and national security.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

✈️ Boeing 737 Max clips two jets in Toronto

An Air Canada 737 Max hit two parked planes while maneuvering at Toronto Pearson Airport, after ground crew misjudged the space.

The incident — caught on video — comes days after two Delta jets collided in New York, fueling fresh safety concerns in aviation.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎤 Trump team rejects Israel's 'Hamas violation' narrative

Senior US advisers to President Trump are pushing back against Israeli claims that Hamas is violating the ceasefire by not returning all hostage bodies, Axios reports.

Senior US advisers to Trump told reporters that Kushner and Witkoff demanded Israel share intelligence on body locations so the US can "challenge Hamas to do more".

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇯🇵 US demands Japan cut off Russian oil imports

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Japan's Finance Minister, linking strategic investment in the US with a demand to stop importing Russian energy.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔍 US drug supply dangerously dependent on China — Report

A New York Times analysis reveals the US relies exclusively on China for raw materials in nearly 700 approved drugs, exposing critical vulnerabilities in America's pharmaceutical supply chain.

This dependency — affecting essential medications — highlights strategic risks as Washington debates supply chain security and reducing single-source reliance.

China’s monopoly on drug ingredients gives it significant leverage in any future trade or geopolitical tensions, the report says.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤝 US recruits diaspora Palestinians for postwar Gaza government — Report

The Trump administration is actively recruiting Palestinians from the diaspora to form a technocratic transitional government in Gaza — explicitly excluding both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, the Times of Israel reports.

A senior adviser revealed the strategy, bluntly stating that living under the PA has been "like living under the mafia."

The new governing body will be vetted and appointed by Trump’s "Board of Peace," signaling a total reset of Palestinian leadership — engineered by Washington.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📉 US oil prices collapse below $60 amid record glut fears

US crude has plunged below the critical $60 per barrel level as forecasters warn of a historic oil glut in 2026 — while the US-China trade war deepens the crisis.

🔶 WTI crude fell to $58.27, Brent at $62.04 — both near 5-month lows

🔶 IEA predicts a record 4 million barrel per day surplus next year

🔶 Bank of America warns Brent could crash below $50 if trade war continues

🔶 US and China escalate tensions with port fees and rare earths restrictions

A perfect storm of oversupply and geopolitical friction is crushing energy markets.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇳🤜 China defies US pressure, upholds legal oil trade with Russia

🗣Russia–China cooperation “within the framework of international law is reasonable and legal,” Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in the US, told Sputnik.

He stressed that this cooperation “does not harm the interests of any third party, and should be respected and protected.”

💬 “China firmly opposes any illegal unilateral sanctions and ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ and any form of coercion or pressure," Liu emphasized.

Donald Trump earlier said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured him India would not buy Russian oil, adding that the US should “get China to do the same thing."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨British and Ukrainian intelligence services preparing sabotage op against TurkStream – FSB

“We have information that the British, together with Ukrainian intelligence, are preparing sabotage against the TurkStream gas pipeline,” FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov stated.

Additionally, instructors from the British Army’s SAS and MI6 have reportedly planned a series of drone strikes on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, whose shareholders include companies from Russia, Kazakhstan, and the US, Bortnikov added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚨🇬🇧British intelligence planning attacks on Russian critical infrastructure – FSB

"Together with MI6, they are coordinating Ukrainian sabotage groups to carry out raids in Russia’s border regions, targeting critical infrastructure using drones, unmanned boats, and combat divers," FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov stated.

Bortnikov added at the 57th SCO session in Uzbekistan that there is reliable information indicating that terrorist acts and sabotage in Russia are carried out under the patronage of British intelligence. SAS units are reportedly directly participating in military actions against Russia.

▪️He also claimed that British intelligence orchestrated the Ukrainian SBU operation “Spider Web,” conducted right before Ukraine–Russia talks in Istanbul on June 2.

▪️The UK allegedly handled the propaganda campaign, spreading false reports of massive damage and attributing the operation solely to Ukraine.

👉In June, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukraine carried out FPV drone attacks on airfields in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions.

All attacks on the Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur airfields were repelled, and fires resulting from the attacks on Murmansk and Irkutsk airfields were extinguished with no casualties.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🤝🇸🇾'Everything was discussed' – Russian FM on whether Putin & al-Sharaa raised issue of Russian military bases

Syria seeks to relaunch its comprehensive ties with Russia, focusing on stability in the country and the region, President Ahmed al-Sharaa told Vladimir Putin earlier.

The talks between the two leaders lasted 2.5 hours.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🪖 Russian kamikaze drones devastate Ukrainian rear, shift frontline dynamics

Russia’s single-use Geran drones have showed a new capability “to dynamically seek out both stationary and moving targets near the frontlines,” Military Watch Magazine reports.

💪🏻 Analysts called the capability a potential “GAME CHANGER” in the Ukraine conflict, the outlet notes.

Geran drones are particularly effective in targeting enemy rear logistics, Military Watch stresses, adding that the expansion of production of these UAVs “has been a primary factor increasing pressure on Ukrainian air defenses.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚔️ Ukrainian use of Tomahawks against Russia would be ‘FOOLISH’ move

Hitting Russia with Tomahawk missiles would be "pointless" and "a foolish thing to do unless they [Ukrainians] want to make a political point that might go wrong on them,” Professor Michael Clarke told Sky News.

👉 Donald Trump earlier made it clear that he was close to making a decision regarding the possible delivery of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, but added that he would first like to understand how the Zelensky regime plans to use them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the use of such missiles by Ukraine would seriously damage relations between Russia and the US.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt