🇺🇸🇷🇺US nuclear test threats another example of ‘rhetorical pendulum diplomacy’ - expert

💬“I believe this statement is aimed exclusively at a domestic audience, since in foreign policy in cooperation with nuclear powers such as Russia or China, such issues are not resolved by any one statement,” Higher School of Economics analyst and US specialist Egor Toropov told Sputnik.

🔶“As our president has emphasized, if [US] nuclear tests are actually carried out, Russia reserves the right, and most likely conduct them as well,” Toropov said, referring to President Putin’s remarks at last Wednesday’s emergency Security Council meeting.

👉Washington’s nuclear testing announcement should “be seen in the context of [the president’s] use of rhetorical pendulum diplomacy,” swinging back and forth between “cooling and increasing pressure,” epitomized in his Ukraine policy, Toropov said, recalling US threats to deliver Tomahawks to Ukraine, and then swinging back the other way.

📍Plus, the president cannot ignore the legislative branch and its traditionally hawkish stance vis-à-vis Russia, exemplified in Lindsey Graham’s* “bone crushing” 500% tariff threats.

📑Congress’s power to draft and pass budgets, including foreign policy-linked expenditures like defense, means the president is forced, even with majorities in the Senate and House, to take lawmakers’ demands into account, Toropov says.

🗣“There’s currently a bipartisan consensus in the Senate that the US needs to increase defense spending, increase geopolitical pressure globally, and not yield to nuclear-armed geopolitical rivals,” the expert explained.

In this light, “Trump’s announcement about nuclear testing is less a form of presidential pressure on Congress than a form of feedback. That is, Congress, by threatening new sanctions, new restrictions, new tariffs behind Trump’s back, is tying his hands, and Trump is forced to take a tougher stance, primarily in the rhetorical sense…with rare exceptions that aren’t particularly significant for Russia,” Toropov said.

*listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia

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🇩🇪 Germany targets Ukrainian security agents in Nord Stream bombing probe

💬 “By tracking boat rental companies, phones and license plates, the Potsdam [investigative] team laid the groundwork for German authorities to issue arrest warrants for three soldiers from the special Ukrainian military unit and four veteran deep-sea divers,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

🔶 The saboteurs’ goal was to disrupt both Russia’s oil revenues and economic relations with Germany, according to the WSJ.

🔶 The newspaper added that the investigation was conducted by “a crack team of detectives” who gathered each weekday morning around a whiteboard at the German Federal Police headquarters in Potsdam.

🔶 Explosions on Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipeline network occurred on September 26, 2022, followed by the Kremlin opening a criminal case on charges of international terrorism. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Russia has repeatedly requested information regarding the Nord Stream explosions, but never received any.

For more details on the Nord Stream terrorist attacks, read HERE

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🇭🇺 Hungary safe from Russian oil sanctions under Trump’s rule – Orban

💬 “As long as he [Trump] is president there, and I am prime minister here, there will be no sanctions,” Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs quoted Prime Minister Viktor Orban as saying.

The Hungarian PM added that if US sanctions on Russian energy carriers had taken effect by Christmas, Hungary would have faced “a real catastrophe.”

👉 Touting his recent “most important meeting” with Donald Trump, Orban praised Hungary successfully averting the sanctions-related danger “so that Hungarian families can have the kind of Christmas they have been hoping for.”

Orban earlier announced that energy supplies from Russia to Hungary via the TurkStream and Druzhba pipelines would be completely exempt from US sanctions.

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🇺🇸 US revives antimony mining for arms industry

🔹 The US is restarting antimony mining in Alaska and Idaho to meet defense demand after China halted exports last year in response to US sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reports.

🔹 Antimony prices have quadrupled in two years, prompting Washington to invest $43 million to accelerate extraction in Alaska and sign a $245 million supply contract with the United States Antimony Corporation.

🇨🇳 China has now temporarily lifted its export ban on critical materials — including gallium, germanium and antimony — until November 27 2026.

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🇷🇺 Russia’s gold reserves hit highest level since 1995

🔹 The share of gold in Russia’s international reserves has reached its highest level in nearly 30 years, rising to $300 billion — a record for modern Russian history, Central Bank data show.

🔹 As of November 1, total reserves stood at $726 billion, up from $713 billion in October. Gold holdings increased by 6.2%, growing from 39.6% to 41.3% as a share of all reserves — the highest since February 1995, when gold accounted for 43.9% of reserves but was valued at just $5.5 billion.

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🚨🇺🇸🇸🇾US Treasury suspends Caesar Act — the 2019 sanctions on Syria

The US has also authorized the export of civilian goods and technologies to Syria.

Washington will continue reassessing Syria’s designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” the Treasury Department said.

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🇷🇺💪 Su-57: the 5th-gen jet securing Russia’s aerial dominance through of the 21st century

👉 Russia’s entry in the multi-role fifth-gen fighter race differs markedly from its main competitor, the F-35, with the Su-57’s twin-engine design, superior speed, supermaneuverability, and standoff attack capabilities its key standout features.

📍 The Su-57 has an effective combat range of over 1,500 km, Mach 1.3 high altitude supercruise flight speed and Mach 2 (up to 2,600 km km/h) top speed.

🔹 Its 12 hard points (6 internal, 6 external) can carry up to 10 tons of munitions, including all of Russia’s latest air-to-air (up to 380 km range), air-to-surface, anti-ship, anti-radiation and cruise missiles, as well as heavy guided glide bombs. For dogfights, the aircraft has a 30mm autocannon.

🔹 Unlike the do-it-all F-35, which has a single engine, the Su-57 comes with twin AL-51F1 engines with built-in supercruise, stealth-optimized nozzles and 2D thrust vectoring capability. Having two engines means that even if one is disabled, the Su-57 can safely limp back to friendly airspace.

Advanced subsystems

🔶 The Su-57 comes with multifunctional integrated radio electronic system, glass cockpit, wide-angle HUD and AI-equipped pilot support system.

🔶 The aircraft can also be paired with drone ‘wingmen’, including the new Okhotnik (‘Hunter’) – a large, flying wing-shaped heavy combat drone.

🔶 An advanced infrared search and track (IRST) system complements the Su-57’s main N036 radar and side-facing AESA radars, enabling passive tracking across a wide field of view.

Balanced Stealth

🟧 Stealth is achieved through the Su-57’s sharply swept wings, canted vertical tails, curved S-shape air inlets, internal weapons bays, and radar-absorbent coatings and composites, including on the canopy.

🟧 Frontal stealth is prioritized to penetrate enemy air defenses as powerful, multifrequency sensors detect the enemy before the Su-57 can be spotted, and standoff range air-to-air missiles and supermaneuverability do the rest.

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🔸 US nuclear test threats another example of ‘rhetorical pendulum diplomacy’ - expert

🔸 Russia and Egypt strengthen strategic partnership

🔸 Europeans mislead Ukraine with false hopes of victory – Kremlin spox Peskov

🔸 THROWBACK: BBC's Bucha hoax – 'massacre' manufactured by outlet

🔸 Oreshnik missile systems "will never be in one place" in Belarus – Pres. Lukashenko

🔸 Russia’s gold reserves hit highest level since 1995

🔸 Su-57: the 5th-gen jet securing Russia’s aerial dominance through of the 21st century

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🚨 Patel’s shakeup of the FBI has Five Eyes alliance seeing red

👉 Budget cuts and the pullback of US intel assets and agents from Five Eyes countries is reportedly undermining FBI director Kash Patel’s credibility within the Anglosphere intelligence alliance.

🔶 Patel’s campaign to root out “thoroughly compromised” senior officials who investigated Trump, and reassignment of manpower from counterespionage and terror toward domestic priorities, like helping ICE with deportations, has “heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift,” NYT has reported, citing former officials and others familiar with the situation.

🔶 In one example deemed emblematic, Patel pulled an agent from London who was familiar with technology which MI5 sought to use to spy on China’s new super embassy and redeployed him back to the United States, breaking a promise to MI5 chief Ken McCallum to keep the posting.

🔶 During Patel’s visit to London in May, FBI and British officials reportedly got into a spat over his security detail not being allowed to carry guns, despite exemptions being made for the CIA and NSA.

🔶 Patel’s complaints about the number of meetings, and attendance of the event in a trucker hat and green hooded sweatshirt, also apparently rubbed Five Eyes allies the wrong way.

📍 In July, when he visited New Zealand to open a new FBI office, police had to confiscate and destroy plastic 3D-printed replica pistols that Patel brought with him as gifts to officials, citing the country’s gun laws.

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📹🇷🇺 Russian Grad crews rain fire on Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk and Zaporozhye Regions, wiping out enemy positions

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 New START future: US open to Putin’s offer, but cautious amid Ukraine tensions

💬 "Trump seems more positive than negative toward [Putin’s idea]—there’s no urgent need for the US to exceed current limits,” Andrey Kortunov, Valdai Discussion Club expert, tells Sputnik

🔶 President Vladimir Putin proposed that Russia would voluntarily keep observing New START’s limits for one year after the treaty expires in February 2026—if the US reciprocates. Donald Trump called the offer “a good idea,” and Washington has confirmed through diplomatic channels that it is reviewing the proposal.

🔶 However, the expert notes that Washington now links progress on arms control to the broader “Ukrainian context.” While not a formal precondition, the state of the Ukraine issue shapes the political atmosphere—and the level of trust—that will determine whether strategic dialogue moves forward or stalls once again.

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🇷🇺 Watch Russian drones annihilate Ukrainian armor near Krasnoarmeysk

A video released by Russia’s Defense Ministry shows Russian drones destroying an enemy armored personnel carrier, armored vehicle, and troops on the Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) and Dnepropetrovsk front lines.

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🇺🇸 US no longer fosters global stability, that comes from China and Russia – expert

🗣 The US “can destabilize the situation — that’s true. But the United States is no longer capable of creating stability,” Director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University Alexey Maslov tells Sputnik. “Stability is now being built by China, Russia and several other countries offering new models.”

💬 “The more pressure Washington puts on China and Russia, the more these countries consolidate their strength — moving from secondary players to primary centers of power,” Maslov added.

📍 He noted that the US loss of control stems from the shift of production and intellectual centers to Asia, which changed the balance of power.

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🇷🇺 Russian Pantsir-S air defense system shoots down an enemy drone while guarding key facilities — working round the clock to secure the northern front’s skies

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🇨🇳 🇯🇵 China slams Japan over Taiwan remarks

🗣 “We express sharp dissatisfaction and a resolute protest,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on possible military action in the Taiwan Strait.

🔶 Beijing accused Takaichi of “blatant interference” in China’s internal affairs after she claimed a Chinese attack on Taiwan would pose a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan.

🔶 Lin reiterated that resolving the Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese matter and warned against any foreign intervention.

🔶 Taiwan has been governed independently of mainland China since 1949. Beijing views the island as a breakaway province.

🔶 Taiwan, with its own elected government, maintains that it is an autonomous country — but has stopped short of declaring independence.

📍 Beijing opposes any official contacts by foreign states with Taipei and considers Chinese sovereignty over the island indisputable.

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🇷🇺 Russia plans to boost rare and rare-earth metals sector

🟧 The Ministry of Industry and Trade has drafted a national plan to develop Russia’s rare and rare-earth metals sector which is set to be signed by December, Deputy Minister Mikhail Yurin announced.

🟧 It focuses on expanding mining operations, improving metallurgical and processing stages and boosting the production of high-tech goods with greater added value.

🟧 Prepared under a Russian presidential directive, the plan has been sent to government agencies and major companies for discussion.

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🚨Ukrainian-British operation to hijack Russian MiG-31 fighter jet thwarted

🔊 The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said that it had thwarted an operation by Ukrainian military intelligence and its British handlers to hijack a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile.

Ukrainians attempted to recruit Russian pilots, promising a $3 million reward, the Service stated.

"The [Ukrainian] intelligence service subsequently planned to send an aircraft armed with a Kinzhal missile to the deployment area of ​​NATO's largest airbase in southeastern Europe, located in the city of Constanta in Romania, where it could have been shot down by air defense systems," the statement read.

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🇬🇧🚁 UK’s helicopter industry falters: Last factory on the brink of closure

🔊 The fate of Britain's last helicopter factory, owned by Italian defense holding Leonardo, is under threat due to a prolonged lack of government contracts, the FT reported, citing Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani.

The future of the Yeovil plant in Somerset is at risk unless it receives a $1.3 billion contract to replace the country's decommissioned combat helicopters.

🗣 The company "cannot subsidize Yeovil forever" as it hasn't received any contracts from the British government for 14 years, Cingolani reportedly said.

If the contract is not awarded, the company "should consider why we keep a plant there for 15 years and don’t get anything," Cingolani added.

He also noted that he had recently spoken with UK Defense Secretary John Healey to "make sure things are coming/moving" and that he expected a decision by the end of the year.

😅 European defense industry at its best...

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