🇸🇾⚔️🇮🇱 Two people were killed and one serviceman was wounded in an Israeli attack in southern Syria, the Syrian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

“At approximately 23:40 [2040 GMT] on June 26, the Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression from the side of the occupied Golan Heights, striking a number of posts in the southern region. Our air defense systems responded to enemy missiles and shot down some of them. As a result of the aggression, two people were killed and one serviceman was wounded," the ministry said.

Some material damage was also caused, the statement added.

Earlier, a Sputnik correspondent reported that explosions could be heard in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Bolivian Attorney General's Office has charged General Juan José Zuñiga who led Wednesday's coup attempt with terrorism and launching an armed uprising against the state, media reported.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ EXCLUSIVE: Criticize NATO, get couped?

Bolivian President Luis Arce sharply criticized the NATO military alliance in an exclusive interview with Sputnik just over two weeks ago, on June 7, on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2024.

“I believe that NATO's actions are putting world peace at risk,” the leader insisted. “We have seen it not only here in Europe, but also in Latin America,” he noted, referring to the bloc’s attempts to form partnerships with the historical US ally Colombia and, more recently, with Javier Milei’s Argentina. “We see with great concern that NATO is acting in several countries in the region where it previously did not participate, where it did not exist.”

“We see how NATO acts in other places and where it has gone, there have been problems… We do not share the militarist, liberal objectives it proposes when what the planet needs today is peace,” the president emphasized.

Western countries have historically interfered throughout Latin America and in Bolivia in particular, where the CIA collaborated with the notorious Nazi torture chief Klaus Barbie to persecute leftists. The United States backed a coup in the Andean country in 2019, having long objected to former President Evo Morales’ anti-imperialist government. Observers suggest the US maintains a keen interest in the country’s lithium deposits, which are some of the largest in the world.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇨🇬🇷🇺 President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso said in an interview with Sputnik that he will discuss ways to resolve the Ukraine conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

"Tomorrow, I will have an exchange of opinions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on this matter [ways to resolve the Ukraine conflict], we will be seeking peaceful solutions," the Congolese president said.

He added that he does not plan to visit Ukraine after his trip to Russia as he did in 2023 when participants of the African peace initiative, which included the Republic of the Congo, first visited Moscow and then Kiev.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Bolivian Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo has presented General Juan José Zuñiga, who has been detained after a coup attempt, to the media, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

Zuñiga was in handcuffs and was wearing a bulletproof vest that read "detained," the correspondent reported.

"It is not going to be an easy process," the minister said, adding that the general had made an attempt on the lives of Bolivian President Luis Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca, as well as committed an uprising against the people of Bolivia.

According to the minister, at least 9 people were injured by gunshots during the attempted putsch.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺 It is necessary to qualitatively improve the combat readiness of the Russian navy in strategically important areas at sea, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized.

"As you know, the Decree on naval activities through 2030 set clear guidelines, namely, to comprehensively develop the Russian navy, including ship, aviation and coastal components, to establish infrastructure, strengthen its position in strategically important areas of the world ocean, and qualitatively increase combat readiness," Putin said at a meeting on shipbuilding.

It is planned that domestic shipbuilders will deliver more than 40 ships to the Russian Defense Ministry in 2024, the Russian president added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Sevastopol using US-provided ATACMS munitions constitutes terrorism and an act of war by the United States, independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.

“The word that describes this is terrorism. It is an act of war by the US against Russian civilians,” Kennedy emphasized in a statement via social media platform X.

Only the US Congress is authorized to declare war, the politician highlighted. Lawmakers should stop the “unaccountable and reckless hawks” directing US President Joe Biden, Kennedy insisted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔸 Bolivian President Luis Arce addressed the nation, calling the event happening in La Paz an attempted coup d'état

🔸 Bolivian President criticized NATO in an exclusive interview with Sputnik just two weeks ago

🔸 The Ukrainian strike on Crimea using US-provided ATACMS missiles constitutes terrorism and an act of war by the US - Kennedy Jr.

🔸 Radical Zelensky's regime willing to sacrifice own people for anti-Russia crusade – analyst

🔸 United States pushes the envelope on press freedom, nuclear threat

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹Footage of Bolivian President Luis Arce having conversation and rebel General Zuñiga

The meeting took place at the palace in the capital before Arce addressed the nation and appointed a new military leadership. Soon after, Zuñiga was arrested.

In the footage, the Bolivian president orders the military to return to the barracks, but they refuse.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Bolivia’s coup attempt: Three hours that failed to rock the nation

President Luis Arce has thanked Bolivians for support after his country went through an attempted coup, which left at least nine people suffered gunshot wounds.

How did the events unfold?

🔹 On June 26, troops led by General Juan Jose Zuniga, former commander-in-chief of the Bolivian army, stormed the Casa Grande presidential palace and took up positions in the square outside, amid reports that a tank had rammed the palace doors.

🔹 The general was fired on June 25 for his political attacks on former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who plans to seek another term in 2025.

🔹 Zuniga did not explicitly say he was leading a coup, but at the palace he argued that the army was trying to "restore democracy and free our [Bolivian] political prisoners."

🔹 Shortly thereafter, state television showed President Arce confronting Zuniga in the palace hallway, saying, "I am your captain and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination.

🔹 Arce thanked Bolivia's police and regional allies for standing by him and then named a new army commander, Jose Wilson Sanchez, who immediately ordered the troops to stand down.

🔹 Shortly thereafter, the armored vehicles left the plaza, followed by scores of soldiers, as Zuniga was taken into custody along with former Navy Vice Admiral Juan Arnez Salvador. In all, the coup attempt lasted about three hours.

🔹 Hours later, Defense Minister Edmundo Novillo told reporters that "everything is now under control" and that Bolivia had experienced a "failed coup.

🔹 The Public Prosecutor's Office has opened a criminal investigation, and Morales has condemned the coup attempt and demanded that Zuniga and his "accomplices" be prosecuted.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Russia strongly condemns the coup attempt in Bolivia and expresses its full support to President Luis Arce, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Russian ambassador recommends Russians to refrain from traveling to Lebanon

Earlier, the authorities of several Western countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, advised their citizens to leave Lebanon because of the danger of escalation on the border with Israel.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Joe unable to perform regular duties — US journalist Sean Hannity

"At least 16 aides are helping Biden prepare with mocked debates and strategy sessions. Also, according to reports, Biden's intensive week-long debate prep at Camp David also includes exercises where Biden practices standing up for a whole 90 minutes straight," Hannity said on air on Fox News.

According to Hannity, most Americans believe that Biden could be taking some drugs in order to "help his ailing memory and his poor stamina."

"A vast majority of our viewers believe that it's going to be a jacked-up, hyper-caffeinated Joe that's going to show up at Thursday's debate, like the State of the Union," the journalist added.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

General Zuniga, who led the coup attempt in Bolivia, faces up to 20 years in prison, republic’s Minister of Justice announced.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt