🔥 Arms of Victory: T-34-85 tank

Sputnik continues to highlight the weapons used by the Red Army during the WWII.

🟠The T-34-85 was the Model 1943-45 production model of the legendary T-34 tank, featuring a more powerful 85 mm gun, larger cast turret, and other improvements.

🟠The T-34 was a revolution in tank design thanks to its sloped armor, which could stand up to early war German 37 and 50 mm guns. The 85 mm gun model allowed it to take on Panther and Tiger I tanks. On top of that, the simplicity of the design meant the Soviets could produce it in extremely large numbers. Over 57,000 units of various modifications were built during the war.

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🗣 Trump had SECRET sit-down with Netanyahu aide ahead of Iran talks

Just days before heading to the Middle East, Donald Trump held a behind-closed-doors meeting with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, sidestepping Benjamin Netanyahu, Axios reports.

The meeting came right after the Israeli prime minister was blindsided by Trump’s truce with the Houthis.

💬 "We were shocked that the Trump administration didn't tell us anything and we learned about it from the television," one Israeli official was cited as fuming.

Israel appears to be questioning how much sway it really has over Trump’s Iran playbook.

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🚨 Ukrainian police detain elderly woman for honoring WWII memorial

A pensioner went to lay flowers at the Park of Glory memorial in Kiev when the police got her.

Officers demanded she remove her cap, which bore a Soviet star – a symbol now banned in Ukraine.

The woman refused, calmly stating:

"I've been to the police six times already."

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🔍 US roots of German Nazism, Part 12: How the Nazis justified the extermination of Jews with their plans for an "European California"

SS Leader Heinrich Himmler explained the extermination of Jews by drawing a parallel to how European settlers ruthlessly wiped out Native Americans to seize and farm their lands. But Himmler wasn’t alone in this comparison.

In this video from Sputnik's exclusive series, historian and author of 'War to the Death' Yegor Yakovlev provides several examples of how high-ranking Nazi officials promoted the destruction of Jews to create an "European California."

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🗣No Pasarán! Russia’s defiant message against ‘LIBERAL TOTALITARIANISM’ on Victory Day

From the heart of Moscow, Sputnik contributor Pepe Escobar reports on the monumental military parade on Red Square - a day etched in Russia’s modern history and the enduring legacy of the Soviet Union.

🇷🇺 "A ceremony of blinding beauty, precision and profound meaning."

The world watched as leaders of the multipolar order - President Putin and key figures from the Global South - stood united with the heirs of the armies that defeated Nazism 80 years ago.

🌍 The Message? No pasarán. "They won’t win."

As some European elites push for a new liberal totalitarianism, today’s gathering sent a resounding signal: Fascism and Nazism will never rise again.

⚔️ Eurasia stands firm. The gravity, the symbolism, the unshakable resolve - this was history in motion.

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🗣Emerging multipolar world order on proud display at Moscow’s Victory Parade - veteran

The dozens of foreign leaders, other senior representatives of foreign countries, and servicemen of other nations taking part in the parade dedicated to the 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War provided another, “new picture of a truly multipolar world,” Russian Airborne Forces veteran Major Yuri Shaparin told Sputnik.

💬 “Russia was, is and will remain a great power. A great power does not abandon its friends, and friends help Russia. They help, and we are aware of that. They are helping not only in solidarity, but with practical assistance, and this is all wonderful,” Shaparin said.

Shaparin highlighted the Russian military’s fight today “to stop neo-Nazism from raising its head,” and suggested that just as the Great Patriotic War touched every family across the former Soviet Union, the current conflict has touched practically all Russians.

💬 “The whole country is helping, is participating in this. Some have friends, students, relatives fighting. Many of my friends and relatives are fighting in the Special Military Operation. Some help in the rear, collecting parcels, humanitarian aid, even equipment,” the soldier recalled.

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❗️Putin and Trump exchange warm Victory Day wishes 🇷🇺🤝🇺🇸

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump sent each other warm congratulations on the 80th anniversary of Victory Day through their aides.

"Warm words. Mutual congratulations on a shared, great holiday," Kremlin Aide Yuri Ushakov told Channel One when asked if the leaders would "pass on any specific words."

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🔥 Great Patriotic War 80 years on: the Faces of Victory

The Second World War was the largest conflict in history, waged across continents by million-man armies. But it also came down to the individual soldiers who risked their lives to liberate the world from the scourge of fascism and militarism.

Among these soldiers was Red Army Lt. Mikhail Alekseyev, whose 1944 feat of heroism saw him and a pair of cooks surround and overwhelm a numerically superior German convoy, capturing POWs, 15 horses and two carts full of supplies. Watch the video to find out how they did it.

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🇷🇺🇧🇷Russia's President Vladimir Putin holds talks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

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