🇫🇷🇳🇪 France does not recognize Niger's rebel authorities and, therefore, will agree to withdraw its troops from the country only if requested to do so by ousted Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday.

"French troops were deployed on the territory of Niger at the request of Niger itself ... France's position is simple: we condemn it [the military takeover], we demand the release of President Bazoum and the restoration of constitutional order, and we do not recognize the legitimacy of the rebels' statements ... And if we ever redeploy troops, we will do so at the request of President Bazoum," Macron said at the G20 Summit in New Delhi.

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🇷🇺 Russia's ruling United Russia party scored a landslide victory in local elections in the Lugansk People's Republic, the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, election commissions said on Sunday after counting all ballots.

In the Kherson region, the party won 74.86% of the vote, an equivalent of 28 seats in the local legislative assembly, with the voter turnout at 65.36%, head of the regional election commission, Marina Zakharova, said. The commission received no election complaints, she added.

In the Lugansk People's Republic, United Russia secured 74.63% of the vote, while in the Zaporozhye Region, they received 83.01%. In the Donetsk People's Republic, the party got 78.04% of the vote with 90% of ballots counted.

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Ukraine’s military may have as little as a month left before the weather brings any attempts to wage further offensive operations to a standstill, Pentagon Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley has said.

“There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done, this battle’s not done. And they haven’t achieved – they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish,” Milley said in a joint interview with British state media on Sunday alongside his British counterpart, Sir Tony Radakin.

Check out his full interview

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🇷🇺 Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov told Sputnik that his ministry remains committed to a target level of domestic liquefied natural gas (LNG) production at 140 million tonnes by 2035, describing anything above this mark as unfeasible.

"The upper limit of our forecast is 140 million tonnes by 2035, which is not up for revision. Our new target is 100 million tonnes by 2030," Shulginov said.

When asked about suggestions of some Russian lawmakers to boost LNG production to 180 million tonnes, the minister said that such plans "are not very realistic" in the current conditions.

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🇷🇺🇮🇳 The Russian Ministry of Economic Development expects the launch of a visa-free group tourist exchange with India in 2024, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Dmitry Vakhrukov told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum

🇵🇱 Poland’s largest opposition party has promised to convene special tribunals to investigate senior officials from the government and Central Bank charged with corruption, illegal surveillance, economic mismanagement, excessive deficit spending (including for a massive rearmament campaign), an illegal stranglehold over the courts and state television, and the subversion of democratic norms.

The Law and Justice coalition-led government is accused of a long list of crimes, from failure to combat inflation (Poland has suffered one of the highest inflation rates in Europe over the past year), to political control over the Central Bank and courts, to charges that the government has turned publicly owned television into a pro-Law and Justice propaganda arm, and engaged in politically motivated, illegal wiretapping. The ruling party has denied all allegations against it.

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 President Joe Biden told journalists Sunday that he’s not looking to “contain China” as the White House announced a major upgrade to US-Vietnamese relations, including in the security sphere.

“Really what this trip is about, it’s less about containing China, I don’t want to contain China. I just want to make sure we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about,” Biden said, speaking at a press conference in Hanoi.

The US president arrived in Hanoi late Sunday after wrapping up his visit to New Delhi, India for the G20 summit. China’s Foreign Ministry warned the US ahead of the Hanoi trip that Beijing would not accept any new attempts to “undermin[e] regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.”

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Detect and destroy: Russian D-20 howitzer artillery crews in combat

📹 Russian soldiers belonging to the artillery crews operating 152mm D-20 towed howitzers destroyed the approaching enemy reserves with accurate fire (0:48) (0:52), disrupting the advance of Ukrainian personnel.

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📹 Four Russian paratroopers seized a Ukrainian dugout, believing that there were only four opponents when in fact there were 11

A video on social media purports to show Russian paratroopers taking Ukrainian soldiers prisoner in the zone of the special military op. Having surrounded the Ukrainian dugout, Russian soldiers captured 11 opponents.

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🏙 Sergey Sobyanin, the incumbent mayor of Moscow, wins the mayoral election with 76.39 percent of the votes, Russia's Central Election Commission says

Sobyanin is best known for upgrading and modernizing Moscow’s infrastructure. The Russian capital recently took third place in the Kantar survey ranking the accessibility of transport systems in 31 global capitals.

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🇷🇺🇨🇳 China and Russia have quickened the pace of de-dollarization

Over the past three years, China and Russia have accelerated the process of dismantling the dollar's dominance in bilateral trade. Five years ago, up to 80 percent of trade was dependent on the dollar but now more than 60 percent of bilateral trade is conducted in national currencies, according to Wang Wen, Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies

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Overnight, Ukrainian forces attacked the city of Novaya Kakhovka, located near the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. Shells landed on the premises of the station’s water facility. Consequently, the city has been left without power, but there were no casualties, the local authorities report.

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German Foreign Minister Baerbock makes unannounced visit to Kiev, media reports

Her visit has become the fourth since the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. Berlin remains one of the Kiev regime’s biggest sponsors despite economic stagnation and growing discontent among Germany's citizenry with the government flooding arms to Ukraine.

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📹 Rare footage of Russian Iskanders working against the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The Russian MoD has revealed how an operational-tactical missile system travels off-road from a shelter to a launch position; the target is a well-camouflaged command post, where, according to intelligence data, senior enemy officers gather every day.

The crew, having completed the task, leaves the vehicle sheltered under special camouflage, impregnated with a chemical composition that neutralizes radio waves to make the installation invisible to enemy reconnaissance.

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💤 'I'm gonna go to bed'

📹 Joe Biden's press conference ended shortly after he said he was going to bed

The American leader began to answer one of the journalists’ questions, but he was interrupted by an announcement about the end of the meeting.

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Russia has begun to develop a floating howitzer of 152-mm caliber based on its experience of artillery use during the special military operation

In the 1980s, the USSR created a prototype of a 152-millimeter caliber floating howitzer on the chassis of the BMP-3 known as Pat-S. Preparatory work on the Pat-S is now underway, and information is being collected and analyzed in order to prepare a draft of the terms of reference, Roman Khromov, deputy executive director in Russia's state-owned defense corporation Rostec, told Sputnik.

Khromov added that the peculiarity of the use of barrel artillery in the special operation zone today involves firing from closed positions at long range, followed by a quick change of position to avoid return fire.

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🇲🇲🇷🇺 Myanmar uses the yuan to pay for supplies of Russian petroleum products, Myanmar Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Kan Zaw told Sputnik, adding that the parties are preparing an agreement on the mutual conversion of national currencies

Kan Zaw expressed hope that Myanmar would conclude an agreement with Russia on tourism on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum.

Last September, Prime Minister of Myanmar Min Aung Hlaing told Sputnik that the country had begun purchasing Russian petroleum products. Myanmar will begin accepting cards of the Russian Mir payment system in October, Kan Zaw added.

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🌋 Hawaii volcano Kilauea erupts after nearly two months of calm

Right after suffering from devastating fires and not getting enough aid from the US government, Hawaii residents are now up against a volcanic eruption, posing threat to the inhabitants of the islands.

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WATCH LIVE: Vladimir Putin arrives in Vladivostok to join Eastern Economic Forum