🎥 WATCH: Artillerymen from Battlegroup Tsentr use high-precision 'Krasnopol' ammo to wipe out another Abrams tank near Avdeyevka.

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🫢 NATO will demand "additional steps" from Ukraine before membership talks progress because Kiev is 'too corrupt to join NATO”, a senior State Department official told The Telegraph.

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🎥 WATCH: Battlegroup Dnepr’s paratroopers effectively unleash 'Lancet' loitering ammunition and their 'Zala' system to obliterate a Ukrainian electronic warfare station located on the right bank of the Dnepr River in the Kherson region.

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▪️Putin arrives in Kazakhstan to attend SCO Summit

▪️Russian artillery obliterates another American Abrams tank near Avdeyevka

▪️Ukrainian military's call signs discovered in foreign mercenary's notebook

▪️Operation Bagration: How Minsk was liberated from Nazi occupation in 1944. Check out our infographic

▪️Video: Joint operation between the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and the Houthis

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All loss, no gain: Tallying up the top failures chalked up by Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Syrsky

It has been nearly half a year since Volodymyr Zelensky replaced Valery Zaluzhny as Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief with Oleksandr Syrsky, who earlier earned the nickname ‘The Butcher’. The change has had no impact, as warned by Moscow. Here are some of the topmost setbacks since Syrsky took over:

◾️ Russian troops breached kilometers worth of Ukrainian fortifications around the Donetsk suburb of Avdeyevka in February, liberating the city and forcing the militants to flee.

◾️ Kiev's corruption has once again made headlines. Despite the allocation of approximately $960 million to build a network of fortifications, it has been revealed
that the defense lines barely exist.

◾️ By the end of April, the Russian military had driven Ukraine’s NATO-armed and trained troops back over 400 square kilometers in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), prompting an ex-Ukrainian presidential advisor to blame Syrsky. Since his appointment, “all the time, almost every day, settlements are being surrendered one by one,” said Oleg Soskin, who served under two Ukrainian presidents.

◾️ By mid-May, Russian forces nullified the only propaganda victory of Zelensky’s counteroffensive by liberating Rabotino, a village in the Zaporozhye region lying at a strategic crossroads.

◾️ Russia’s gains in the Kharkov region have again prompted Ukraine's military leadership to point fingers. With Russian advances made to the south of Belgorod (north of Kharkov) towards Liptsy – an area of the front largely under the control of Syrsky - reports have surfaced of the top general getting flack.

◾️ Russian forces have been steadily making headway in the city of Chasov Yar, which is key to liberating the DPR. The logistics hub for the Ukrainian Army since 2014 was earlier hailed by Zelensky as "an impenetrable fortress."

The losses the Ukrainian army suffered in 2024 has exceeded 111,000 people, 21,000 units of weapons and military equipment, Russia’s Defense Minister announced in May.

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❗️According to the FSB, French citizen Laurent Vinatier, who was detained in Moscow in June, gathered information on Russia's military activities by communicating with experts and government officials. The agency explained that this information could potentially be utilized by foreign intelligence services to compromise Russia's security. Vinatier, who was arrested in June, has already admitted to his guilt.

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Clinton digging for new Ukrainian offensive to reelect Biden, Russian pranksters reveal

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a conversation with Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, who pretended to be Ukraine’s ex-President Poroshenko, said that in order to win, Biden needs the successes of Ukrainians on the battlefield.

"And let's take it as we can, giving you the means you need to support yourself to try to not only hold the line but engage in an offensive. And then obviously many of us in this country will do everything we can to reelect President Biden. So that has to be your understanding that you go forward as best you can. And the rest of us will do everything we can to continue supporting you and to support President Biden,” she said.

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❗️WATCH: Putin holds bilateral meetings on SCO summit's sidelines

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Finnish President believes China could end conflict in Ukraine 'with one phone call to Russia'

Alexander Stubb claimed Moscow depends on Beijing, and if Xi Jinping convened peace talks then Russia would be forced to attend.

In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reminded the Stubb that Russia and China are both sovereign states.

“Let’s start with the fact that China and Russia are independent large states. China is neither the creator of the Ukrainian crisis, nor is a party to it,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

Russia and China have repeatedly stated they follow the principles of mutually-respectful and equal bilateral cooperation.

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‘Smokescreen’: Russian MFA Spokeswoman slams Kiev regime's rejection of Orban’s peace proposal

The Kiev regime’s peace rhetoric is nothing but a facade and a smokescreen, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

“Did you expect to hear anything else from them? I didn’t. All that rhetoric about peace is just a cover and a smokescreen, these words are just cliches and memes. These words are like a thesis that must be learned by heart and voiced,” she noted.

Zakharova emphasized that the goal of the collective West is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine.

The US hand-picked Zelensky as its tool, therefore nothing else can be expected from him, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stressed.

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Russian Defense chief Andrei Belousov was elected chairman of the Council of Defense Ministers of the CIS, the Belarusian Minister of Defense announced.

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Rheinmetall to receive the largest tank order in the company's history... from Italy

Italy will order more than 550 Panther tanks and Lynx infantry fighting vehicles from Rheinmetall. According to Handelsblatt, the dealt would be the largest in the German military firm’s history.

Italian media reports said the contract was worth about €20 billion.

Rheinmetall’s share price rose by more than three percent on Monday.

In the first quarter of this year, the operating profit of Germany's leading military-industrial concern increased by 60 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching €134 million.

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Night Watch: Russia destroys Ukrainian unmanned boats near Novorossiysk naval base

Spectacular footage from the Russian Ministry of Defense: another mission for Ukrainian kamikaze drone boats seems to be a shot in the dark.

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❗️The West was specifically the one that paved the way for and fomented the Ukrainian crisis, and is now deliberately prolonging it, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said during a meeting of CIS defense chiefs in Minsk.

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