Scientists are studying the sensational huge craters in Yamal. These are giant funnels that can easily fit a 10-storey building. The pits are tens of metres deep. So, where do they come from? See in our post.

In the film Black Holes of Yamal, a group of scientists talk about their theories of the mysterious phenomenon.

#Russia #Yamal

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‘In 2014, I decided to come help protect the people of Donbass from all the madness that was happening here’, says volunteer Alexis Castillo. For the last eight years, he’s been fighting on the side of the DPR. But, he says, ‘people had a legitimate right not to support the illegal coup in Maidan’.

Alexis is originally from Colombia but has lived in Spain for a long time. There he participated in the anti-fascist movement. We have already talked about Alexis in one of the posts. Watch the whole history in our film Foreign Fighters of Donbass.

#Donbass

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‘Put it like this so you can't be seen, but you can see everything. I tell you this for the future. You are a sniper; you will be the first to be shot.’

This footage shows a militia fighter training a new soldier, a yesterday's civilian, to defend himself against Ukrainian nationalists. During the fierce fighting for Mariupol, people from various professions were forced to take up arms. ‘Some are miners, security guards. A journalist is here. Electricians, drivers’, told us Mariupol residents. Those who went to fight say the desire to protect their people from the atrocities of the Ukrainian military was stronger than fear.

This excerpt will be included in our future film about the battle for Mariupol and those who took part in it. It will premiere soon.

#Ukraine #Mariupol

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June 4 is the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression. The purpose of the day is to pay attention to children’s rights who are the victims of physical, mental and emotional abuse. This problem is acute in the West African country of Togo. Almost a third of the population lives below the poverty line. As a result, many families have to send their children to work from an early age. Кids do heavy labour, which is intended for strong men. They work in quarries and mines. The conditions are often deadly and close to slavery.

‘I have an agreement with the parents of children who work here. They start at 7 am and work till noon. Then they take a break and continue from 2 pm till 4 pm.,’ said Bernard Kpodzro Kokou, the enterprise owner, where children crush stones into gravel with hammers.

To learn more stories of children deprived of childhood, watch the clip and documentary Togo: Tough to Survive.

#Togo

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Within minutes, Leith’s entire family was killed by terrorists in front of him. In 2016, militants in Syria seized the boy’s village. His father fought the terrorists and waited for reinforcements until the last moment. It never came. Three generations of the family were in the house when the fighters stormed it. Only five-year-old Leith and his grandmother survived.

Watch the clip to learn his fate years after the tragedy. Then, find more about the conflict and its victims in the documentary Syria: The Story of One Tragedy.

#Syria

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‘They told us who really tortured them, who used them as human shields. These Nazis, these fascists. How they’d get shot in the back, how children were shot.’

Daniil Martynov takes part in Russia’s special operation in Ukraine as one of the commanders of a Chechen unit. Daniil says his fighters encounter frightened civilians when liberating territory from Ukrainian forces. They’re afraid of any military because they have suffered a lot from Ukrainian fighters. But after talking to Russian soldiers and receiving humanitarian aid, people change their minds. Daniil said his soldiers never started fights in populated areas and stayed away from civilians, unlike the Ukrainian nationalists.

Listen to the stories of residents of the liberated territory. Daniil Martynov is the subject of We’re Fighting the World’s Evil about the Russian special operation in Ukraine.

#Ukraine

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June 5 is World Environment Day. On this day, we want to tell you a story from Zimbabwe, where hundreds of elephants are killed by poachers.

Roxy Danckwerts founded the Wild is Life wildlife sanctuary at her family farm. She and her staff nurse orphaned baby elephants. They wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild but get a second chance at Roxy’s sanctuary.

‘When we have a new baby, we will often hang a blanket, and the baby will go into there thinking it’s the shape of the mother and put his head up to suckle,’ says Roxy.

Do these infants have an opportunity to return to the wild? Watch the clip and documentary When an Elephant Smiles to find out.

#Zimbabwe #wildlife #nature

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‘When the Ukrainians are shelling us, something’s always falling down.’ A nun from the Nikolo-Vasilievsky Monastery in the village of Nikolsky told how the Ukrainian military shelled them.

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‘There are six things humans need on this planet: they need water, they need comfortable shelter that doesn’t use fossil fuels, they need electricity, and they need to treat their sewage in some way. An Earthship is a vessel, a machine that provides all of these things’; that’s what Michael Reynolds said about the ‘Earthship’ he founded.

It’s a type of solar-powered home made of natural and recycled materials. People who live in eco-friendly dwellings suggest Earthships are the way of the future. Why? Watch our video to learn about it from an interview with one of the Earthship architects.

Its entire story is the film Green Citadels.

#USA

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‘They’re [Ukrainian nationalists] 500m this way and 500m that way. Maybe 700, no more. We hear gunfire all the time. We crawl! We’ve forgotten how to walk. We’re scared to go anywhere’, says Tatyana, a Zaytsevo village resident.

The Ukrainian army shelled her house: the windows were broken, the gates were destroyed, and the barn collapsed. She says the Ukrainian military has begun to use drones. ‘They watch all the time and don’t care who or what. You walk and they chase you’.

Watch the stories of residents and those who help them in the RT Documentary film Foreign Fighters of Donbass.

#Donbass #humanstories

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The Vostok battalion's founding commander Alexander Khodakovsky, DPR, talks about how they droved the Ukrainian nationalists and military out of the Azovstal plant.

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There is a joke in China: if a humanities student learns to pronounce Dostoevsky’s surname by the end of their studies, their efforts weren’t in vain. For the Chinese, it is too complicated and lengthy. However, there are a lot of those who love and appreciate the writer’s novels. They help to see the world differently. See our new video to learn why it is so difficult for the Chinese to understand the actions of the characters of the Russian classics and how they do it.

It’s an episode from the film Universal Dostoevsky. We’re showing it today to mark the Day of the Russian language. You can see the whole documentary here.

#Russia #China

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‘Here they [Ukrainian military] had a temporary firing position on the approaches to the exit. This might have been where the machine gunner was positioned to meet everyone who would come in here.’

Russian sappers told RT Documentary how the Azov fighters and the Ukrainian military took refuge in the Azovstal steel plant. See where the command post, armoury and firing positions were located.

‘It’s a mess here. They turned everything upside down. The Ukrainian flag was left. They did not take it away. Here’s the flag. We don’t act like them, don’t burn or trample on their national heritage. That’s the difference between us.’, says one of the sappers.

This exclusive video will be included in our new documentary, premiering soon.

#Ukraine

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In the Indian state of Punjab, thousands of farmers decide to commit suicide. This is because they cannot repay their loans to corporations that sell genetically modified seeds. And if they refuse to plant GMO plants, people are not given loans.

The debate about how dangerous genetically modified food is has been going on for years. On World Food Safety Day, watch the documentary The Peril on your Plate.

#India

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‘Our units are not in good shape. Lots of guys want to escape – they even wound themselves to escape. The commanders say that if you retreat, you’re done.’

A Ukrainian POW described the situation in their regiment. He was captured by a Chechen unit of Russian troops commanded by Daniil Martynov. He interacts a lot with the POWs and says Ukrainian soldiers are forced to fight: ‘He was told that if he didn’t fight, they would murder his family. If he runs, they will kill him. So he must dig the trenches and keep shooting until it’s all over.’

According to the Chechen commander, every POW is valuable: ‘He [a Ukrainian POW] may not even understand some things, but we can still gather a lot of important information. We listen to his testimony and put the whole puzzle together.’

Here’s an excerpt from our premiere of Battle for Freedom: On the frontline. Watch the whole film here.

#premiere

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