Ruined houses in Beirut's Dahieh district after Israeli strikes on Lebanon

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces said they eliminated 70 members of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, and struck over 120 Hezbollah targets.

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⚡️Russian troops have liberated the settlement of Izmailovka in the Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian Defense Ministry announced

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❗️For the first time, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the destruction of the Israeli-made ieMHR tactical radar complex, and two Swedish-made Viking armored personnel carriers in the special military operation zone.

🇷🇺🪖More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry's daily briefing on the special military operation's progress:

◻️Russian forces defeated the Ukrainian infrastructure of military airfields, drone assembly and storage sites, and a temporary deployment point;

◻️Ukrainian losses amounted to 500 soldiers in the area of responsibility of the Russian Zapad combat group;

◻️Ukrainian troops lost up to 60 militants in the area of responsibility of the Russian Sever Battlegroup in the Kharkov region.

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Iran's Supreme Leader: Israeli strikes 'should neither be magnified nor downplayed'

In his first public comments since Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the Israeli regime is making miscalculations with regard to Iran, as Israel "should understand the strength, will and initiative of the Iranian nation."

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces announced strikes on military installations in Iran as a response to attacks on the Jewish state on October 1.

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Israeli strikes damaged Iran's defense and missile production capabilities — Israeli Prime Minister

"On Saturday morning, the Israeli Air Force launched strikes against Iran. We have launched powerful strikes on Iran's defense and production capabilities, where missiles aimed at us were produced," Netanyahu said at a state ceremony on the commemoration of victims of the October 7 attack by the Palestinian Hamas movement.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had struck military targets in Iran on Saturday, in response to the attacks on the Jewish state on October 1. 

The CBS News broadcaster, citing sources, reported that the Israeli attack on Iran had been limited to military targets without involving nuclear or oil facilities.

The Tasnim news agency, for its part, stated that the military centers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, elite units of the Armed Forces), located in the west and southwest of the Iranian capital, were not damaged.

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Iranian officials will determine the form of response to the Israeli attack, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

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Trump vs Harris: What’s for Ukraine after US presidential election?

The two US presidential candidates offer seemingly different approaches to the Ukraine conflict, Ian Proud, a former British diplomat who served as economic counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow, tells Sputnik.

“Kamala Harris offers very much more of the same in terms of what the Biden administration has offered to this conflict. Which is unflinching support for the government in Kiev, no change in terms of their posture towards negotiations with Russia, which basically means no talks with Moscow,” Proud points out.

He suggests that if Harris wins the election, “she will find it much more difficult to provide the level of financial support to Kiev that has been possible under the Biden administration when over $100 billion in support is being provided," something that Proud says would “make her job harder.”

“She'll continue to support whatever Volodymyr Zelensky says he wants to do. But what she might not be able to do is provide him with the amount of money and the amount of weapons that he seeks. Then this causes the scope for friction between her government and the Ukrainian government,” the ex-UK diplomat says.

As for Donald Trump, he has repeatedly underscored that “the war should really end” and that it is “far better to kind of cut a deal with Russia, put an end to the conflict and then start a kind of long-term peace process,” Proud recalls.

“That is a very significant difference from what Harris would offer, [and] whether he's able to deliver that - let's see,” the analyst says, pointing to Trump’s public statements that “he would not want to provide the unending financial resources to prop up the government in Kiev, which is gradually losing the war.”

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Watch Russian 'fire-breathing metal dragon' wipe out minefields and Ukrainian positions

The UR-77 Meteorit is a tracked mine clearing vehicle that operates by firing a nearly 100-meter-long line charge that, upon extending through the target area, detonates and thus destroys or disables nearby mines and explosive ordnance.

The vehicle is often referred by troops as “Zmey Gorynych,” a reference to a three-headed fire-breathing wyrm from Russian folk tales.

Mine clearing aside, the UR-77 has proven to be an effective offensive weapon as well, with its line charge sometimes being used to obliterate enemy strongpoints.

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2024 BRICS Summit showed collapsing Western hegemony – experts

The recent BRICS Summit in Russia’s Kazan showed that the group “has transformed from a limited bloc into a force with international political and financial clout,” Zakaria Hammoudan, the head of the Lebanese National Institute for Research and Statistics, tells Sputnik.

"BRICS is important because it creates a new multipolar world order, helping to weaken the hegemony of Western countries and traditional financial institutions such as the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank," he points out.

In a separate interview with Sputnik, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies with the Moscow-based National Research University Higher School of Economics, said that the BRICS Summit in Kazan received “unusually extensive” international media coverage.

He noted that all Western media outlets had covered the summit, which Suslov said is a “serious” factor. “They came to realize the fact that they gradually lose ground because a new system is being formed that is beyond their control. The fact that the summit was attended by delegations from so many countries, with many of them seeking to join BRICS, means that Western hegemony is collapsing," Suslov stressed.

He was echoed by Argentina's Christian Lamesa, an analyst and ambassador of the Russian society "Knowledge", who told Sputnik that the BRICS Summit showed that the US and Europe had failed to isolate Russia.

“Despite attempts by America and Europe to isolate Russia through sanctions and other restrictive measures, the BRICS Summit in Kazan proved that Russia is not only not isolated, but is a real world leader along with China and other countries that form BRICS,” Lamesa emphasized.

He added that BRICS’ strength and potential show how the US and Europe fear to lose hegemony and the belief that "the White House can rule the rest of the world without any objections."

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❗️Assassination attempt on Bolivian ex-president, Evo Morales 

Morales posted a video on his Facebook account of his car being attacked by gunfire.

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Trump vs Harris: How NATO’s stance on Russia could change?

“I believe Harris will actually be more aggressive, push NATO stronger, on strengthening NATO, to the amount that she can will probably strengthen the support to Ukraine and all conflicts around the world,” Earl Rasmussen, an international consultant and retired lieutenant colonel with over 20 years in the US Army, tells Sputnik.

There is “a lot of the neo-conservative party, neo-liberal[s], [that] are all backing her. The warmongers are the ones in her corner and even President Biden has never gone against any type of intervention or a war. I see Harris being more hawkish of the two candidates,” Rasmussen said.

Donald Trump is an “indicated noninterventionist,” he says. “[Trump] reaches out to have a dialog. He reached out to [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] last time, he reached out to North Korea, [Russian] President Putin. He tries to talk to all sides, not just closing up with the current administration,” according to the analyst.

“If there's any hope for resolving this [Ukraine], it's going to be through President Trump. Trump has a more of a mitigating factor within here,” the expert says.
Rasmussen, however, warns that previously Trump had likewise already talked about improving relations with Russia, but instead he applied “God knows how many sanctions" on Moscow, during which "tensions got worse.”

As for NATO members, they're afraid of Trump because they don't know what he's going to do, the analyst notes. “It's unpredictable. They don't know if he's going to withdraw funding. If the US pulls out of NATO, it falls apart completely,” he says.

The analyst suggests that if Trump wins the election, “he'd be more independent to do what he wants to do” even though advisors are usually behind. There are “people in the background like the Obamas and the Clintons” who are playing a role, Rasmussen concludes.

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Beneath the waves: The technology and risks behind global internet cables

Given the unsubstantiated and repeated allegations by Western media of Russian and Chinese plans to disrupt the global network of undersea cables, Sputnik invites you to dive into a different realm to learn:

What’s the purpose of these cables, how are they installed, and what will happen if they are damaged?

▪️Also known as submarine communications cables, these fiber-optic structures sit on the ocean floor and are used to transmit internet data between continents. The cables’ creation dates back to the 1850s, when they were laid for telegraphy-related purposes.

▪️At least 485 undersea cables totaling over 900,000 miles (1.4 million km) currently span the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as strategic passages such as the Suez Canal.

▪️The cables are often referred to as “the backbone of the global internet,” given that they carry more than 95% of international communications, including email, webpages and video calls.

▪️Laying the cables is a complicated process that starts with meticulous seabed surveys to chart a map in order to avoid natural hazards and minimize environmental impact.

▪️Ships equipped with giant spools of fiber-optic cable then start navigating the predetermined route. As a ship moves, the cable is unspooled and carefully laid on the ocean floor, a process that may take months or even years, depending on the length and complexity of a cable route.

▪️Each cable – which is about as wide as a garden hose - consists of strands of glass or plastic that use light signals to carry huge amounts of data over long distances with minimal loss.

▪️The bundled fibers are encased in protective layers to withstand the harmful undersea environment, such as pressure, and potential damage from fishing activities or ship anchors. An estimated 100 to 150 undersea cables are annually cut, mainly due to the aforementioned factors. March 2024 saw massive internet disruptions affecting at least 10 countries due to unexplained cable failures off the coast of West Africa.

Video from a YouTube channel

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Western press: BRICS+ expands, de-dollarizes and resonates with Global South

Despite the Kazan BRICS Summit wrapping up earlier this week, the Western press is still musing as to how Russia managed to overcome sanctions pressure and continue to play big in global politics.

Moscow is pushing for "an alternative world order… to counter one dominated by the wealthy Western nations," writes the Washington Post. The newspaper quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying that the bloc is "striving to build a better world where the opinion of every nation will be respected."

The latest BRICS Summit "shows determination for a new world order," echoes the online publication the Conversation. While the publication insists that the West may still have time to re-engage with the Global South, it acknowledges that there is "a substantial increase in interest in BRICS membership," as a number of new applications to join the format continue to pile up.

The issues presented at the summit "resonate strongly among a variety of countries, from global powers like China to nations throughout the Global South," writes Responsible Statecraft (RS), a media outlet of the Quincy Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank.

"They all share a common interest in navigating the emerging challenges presented by a rapidly developing multipolar architecture," the think tank points out. "After several decades of war and harmful sanctions, BRICS+ nations are increasingly distrustful of the United States led 'rules-based order' that favors the few at the expense of many."

De-dollarization and a shift to alternative means of payment is another noteworthy development, especially given that BRICS+ countries are steadily increasing their gold holdings, emphasizes RS. The focus on accumulating the yellow metal shows developing nations are moving away from dollar reliance, the think tank notes.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the Kazan Summit and called it a tool to solve global problems in an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin released on Telegram on October 27.

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❗️An attempt to cross the Russian state border by an armed group of people was stopped in the Klimovsky district of the Bryansk region, the enemy was hit by fire, the region's governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

According to him, the situation in the area is stable and is under the control of the regional Operational Headquarters forces.

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📹 Ukrainian militants are targeting white-flag-waving civilians leaving Chasov Yar in the Donetsk People's Republic, who are being led out by Russian soldiers from the Yug Battlegroup

Sputnik has obtained footage of the attempt to evacuate civilians.

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Trump vs Harris: No hopes for peace in the Middle East?

“There is a lot of contradiction” in what both US presidential candidates are saying and doing on Middle East-related problems, Elijah J. Magnier, a veteran warzone correspondent and political analyst with over 35 years of experience covering the Middle East and North Africa, tells Sputnik.

“We heard the American administration, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, saying that they want a ceasefire in Gaza and in Lebanon, but they are supporting the Israelis with all the weapons that Israel needs and the ammunition to support the war on Gaza.”

As for Harris, she is “a professional prosecutor” rather than “a professional politician,” which is why “at the end of the day [if she wins the election], she will fall in the hands of professional people who are the real decision-makers in the [US] administration and not her, to impose on her their view of the situation,” according to Magnier.

On the other hand, “We had [ex-US] President Trump saying that he wants to stop the war on Gaza, but then delivering another information, saying that Israel is too small and needs to be enlarged… Therefore, enlarging Israel means more war on its neighbors. We're talking about Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt.”

When it comes to Biden, he “left so many ambushes on his way to avoid, for example, stopping the war in the Middle East,” the analyst says. “This is why if Trump wins, I don't think he's going to manage to do what he promised - to stop the war in the Middle East and then find a solution for Iran,” on which “both the Democrats and the Republicans imposed sanctions and the Republicans even more.”

“Therefore, at the end of the day, there is an institution in the US and in the administration that both candidates need to abide by the global interest of the US and its allies, and in this case, Israel. This is why things depend more on the new team that is going to rule the US and how far this new team can go,” Magnier concludes.

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Forty years of BAM: The railway that conquered Siberia’s wilderness

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) was completed on October 27, 1984, and stands as a monumental feat of Soviet engineering and resilience. Stretching over 4,300 kilometers from Siberia’s heart to the Pacific, BAM connected remote regions, resources, and industries. Built by over two million Soviet workers who faced extreme conditions, BAM overcame challenges from permafrost to vast rivers and mountain ranges. Today, it remains a crucial artery for Russia’s economy, supporting Siberia’s key industries and embodying a lasting legacy of endurance and vision.

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