NATO launches 'largest' drills in Baltic Sea amid efforts to militarize area

NATO's Baltic Operations 2024 (BALTOPS) exercises have begun in the Baltic Sea, the Lithuanian Armed Forces' press service announced.

About 9,000 military personnel, more than 50 ships and more than 80 aircraft from 20 alliance countries will take part in the maneuvers. The US Navy's Sixth Fleet is in charge of organizing the exercises.

"In terms of scale, this will be the largest exercise ever conducted in the Baltic Sea," the Lithuanian Armed Forces said.

Sweden will also participate in the exercises for the first time since it joined NATO.

Russia has repeatedly said that NATO's actions could lead to a deterioration of regional security. Moscow's diplomatic and military posture in the region has demonstrated conclusively that Russia has no comparable megalomaniacal NATO-style plans to turn the Baltic Sea into its 'lake'.

Today, Russian military activities in the region are almost exclusively aimed at blocking NATO's efforts to strangle its assets by militarizing the strategic area.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Total losses of Ukrainian troops over the last day was 1,590 soldiers, according to the report of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️Units of the Tsentr Battlegroup defeated four enemy brigades in one day, repelled five attacks. Ukrainian losses amounted to 360 military personnel;

▪️Units of the Vostok Battlegroup occupied more advantageous positions within 24 hours and destroyed up to 125 soldiers;

▪️Units of the Sever Battlegroup have improved the situation along the front line. Ukrainian losses amounted to 290 soldiers;

▪️Units of the Yug Battlegroup have improved the situation along the front line over the last 24 hours. Ukrainian losses amounted to 230 soldiers;

▪️In one day, Russian air defenses shot down 55 Ukrainian drones, ten HIMARS and Alder missiles, two Hammer bombs, and two Patriot air defense missiles.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇧🇾Belarus will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

"Following the results of the Astana Summit in July, the number of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will reach double digits after Belarus joins as a full participant," the organization's Secretary General Zhang Ming said, stressing that this expansion will be a "historic breakthrough".

The SCO is an international organization established in 2001. It includes India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

In July 2023, at the SCO summit in New Delhi, Iran became a full member of the organization. In the same place, Belarus signed a memorandum of obligations to obtain the status of a member state.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️LIVE: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov holds joint press conference with Burkina Faso's Foreign Minister Karamoko Traore

👉 Watch the livestream here or on Sputnik's website

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇧🇫 Russia intends to supply Burkina Faso with additional military products to strengthen the country's defense capability, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov has said.

On Tuesday, Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov visited the African country, and the number of Russian instructors there will grow, Lavrov added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The first deaths occurred after the mining of the Tisa coast by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The first dead appeared among the Ukrainians who tried to avoid the total mobilization. They tried to illegally swim across the Tisa River and leave the country, but the coast was mined by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Western Regional Department of the State Border Service of Ukraine reported that at least 45 people died trying to cross Ukraine's border with EU countries. They were called victims of adventurism and cowardice.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on the main idea of SPIEF 2024: the Russian Federation stands for business cooperation based on equality and offers it to interested parties.

#SPIEF2024

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Journalists from unfriendly countries will also take part in Putin’s meeting with the heads of international news agencies as part of the forum.

#SPIEF2024

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on US Treasury statements about possible sanctions against China: Beijing does not like this and the Russian Federation is in solidarity and considers such a tone inappropriate

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Switzerland is moving away from its neutrality by not inviting Russian representatives to the conference on Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The Kremlin agrees with the arguments of the Swiss party, which called on the authorities of their country to invite Russia the day before, but consider this issue an internal matter for Switzerland, the presidential press secretary noted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

What consequences may arise from the installation of US air defenses on a Baltic Sea island?

The permanent deployment of the US Typhon missile system with Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea is a “likely” scenario, Mikael Valtersson, a former officer of Swedish Armed Forces/Air Defense, former defense politician and chief of staff with Sweden Democrats, told Sputnik.

“The main consequence of this [possible] development” could be “a continued increase in military tension in the Baltic Sea,” Valtersson said, warning that “it will also increase NATO's ability to close the Baltic Sea to Russian shipping.”

This would, in turn, “probably mainly have an impact on Russian ability to deliver goods by sea” to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, according to Valtersson.

“Another impact is that Tomahawk missiles with a range of 1,500 km will be permanently based near Russian territory and have longer reach. This could, of course, be achieved with a permanent deployment of [the Arleigh Burke class of guided] missile destroyers (DDGs) but they would be very vulnerable to attacks from Russian anti-ship missiles,” the expert says.

He also commented on Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics’ recent remarks about NATO members’ plans to close the Baltic Sea to Russia “as an ultimate answer to alleged Russian hybrid warfare.”

“This would of course be a breach of international law and could be seen as a de facto declaration of war. That kind of statements and ideas [….] are unfortunately new and dangerous steps towards large-scale open conflict in Europe,” Valtersson concludes.

Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Kasatonov earlier said that the US deploying its Typhon missile system on the Bornholm island in the Baltic Sea would pose a threat to Russia’s Baltic and Northern fleets.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Over two dozen countries endorse China's Ukraine peace efforts

26 countries have backed China's plan to end the conflict in Ukraine, according to Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Both Russia and Ukraine have "affirmed most of the content" of the political solution laid out by China and Brazil in a joint statement last month, Wang Yi said.

Additionally, the diplomat noted that a total of 45 countries have given “positive feedback” to the ideas outlined in the plan.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Warm welcome Ursula... Finnish style?

"Ursula's a war criminal," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen heard while peddling her anti-Russia position on June 4 in Finland.

Among other things, the official was trying to unite the EU member's population before the forthcoming Euro-elections, scheduled for June 6-9.

Nice try Ursula, but your efforts were seemingly ruined.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The family tree of Russian President Vladimir Putin was displayed at one of the stands of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

A company representative from the firm that conducted the genealogical research told Sputnik that the study was ordered by Vladimir Putin's third cousin, Alexander.

He noted that based on the results of the genealogical expertise, the Putin family can trace its roots to the Tver Region, and their ancestors were peasants who lived in this area.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Peril in the Tisa River: Ukrainian draft dodgers dying from drowning, freezing, and land mines

Several Ukrainians attempting to evade the draft have died on the banks of the Tisa River after border guards laid mines to prevent escapes, highlighting the severe soldier shortage in the country.

🔸 The Ukrainian border guards have been installing anti-personnel mines on the Tisa River banks since April to prevent draft dodgers from leaving the country, according to a Sputnik source familiar with the matter. The source noted that the guards were ordered to stop draft dodgers "by any means possible."

🔸 The Tisa Riva separates Ukraine from Hungary and Romania. Those who seek to evade mobilization regularly try to cross it.

🔸 Over 6,000 Ukrainian military-aged men have swum across the river to Romania since February 2022, the New York Times reported in April, citing Romanian authorities.

🔸 Those crossing the river regularly fall victim to the cold water, poor-quality wetsuits, and obstacles which they can't see while swimming at night. Smugglers take several thousand euros from Ukrainians fleeing mobilization for giving instructions on how to cross the river, as per local newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

🔸 Ukrainian border guards have recovered the bodies of 32 people from the Tisa since the president ordered total mobilization in February 2022, as per RBK Ukraine. Ten Ukrainians drowned in the Tisa River in May only, according to the Western Regional Directorate of the State Border Service. It's impossible to say how many Ukrainians have actually drowned.

🔸 After the Kiev regime's latest draconian draft law came into force, the price to smuggle draft evaders abroad has increased from $5,000 to $20,000, according to Andrei Rubel, the head of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️ Pentagon tells Sputnik that new guidance on Kiev using US weapons in Russia has just entered into force, but declines to confirm whether such strikes have already happened

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian Aerospace Forces and artillery hit warehouses containing weapons and military equipment of the "Foreign Legion" fighting for Ukraine, according to the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

JCPOA: How US torpedoed Iranian nuclear deal

Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran have urged the West to demonstrate political will and take actions to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), criticizing the US, UK, France, and Germany for stalling due to political reasons.

So what is the accord all about and how was it killed off by America?

▪️Even though Iran constantly insisted that its nuclear program is purely peaceful, the West continues to claim it seeks to obtain a nuclear weapon. On July 14, 2015, the JCPOA was clinched in Vienna between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UK, China, France, Russia, and US) together with Germany and the EU.

▪️The deal stipulated Iran restricting its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment, at a level of 3.67% in exchange for the US and European nations lifting their oil and financial sanctions on Iran.

▪️In May 2018, then-US President Donald Trump announced America’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, also reinstating the anti-Iran sanctions, in a move that came as Tehran repeatedly signaled its readiness to adhere to the deal. Trump argued at the time that the deal failed to curtail Iran’s atomic program and its alleged "proxy warfare" in the Middle East.

▪️Tehran responded by starting to gradually scrap its JCPOA commitments, specifically resuming uranium enrichment. Then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi stressed last year that the US’ exit from the JCPOA rode roughshod over America’s commitments and was "an inappropriate response" to Iran’s dedication to fulfill the conditions of the agreement. Raisi urged Western powers to do their best to return to the deal.

▪️When entering office in 2021, incumbent US President Joe Biden indicated intent to resuscitate the JCPOA, which was followed by nine rounds of talks in Vienna on resuming the deal. The negotiations, however, eventually came to a standstill amid Washington’s allegations about Tehran purportedly lacking a serious approach to the issue.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🇮🇳 Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and congratulated his party on its success in the Indian parliamentary elections, the Kremlin said.

Both sides expressed satisfaction with the level of strategic partnership between the two countries and agreed to continue constructive personal interaction.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt