💬 "We’re hopeful for the personal participation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. His bond with President Putin sets the pace for stronger, mutually beneficial ties."

💬“Russia has opened a window of opportunity, with hopes that other countries will follow suit,” Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, tells Sputnik regarding Russia’s recognition of the Afghan government.

💬“We are in serious talks about forming a left-wing pre-election bloc. We don’t have a name yet, but we will announce the results of these negotiations by the end of July,” Dodon promised on his Telegram channel.

💬 "The ongoing war in Ukraine has exposed serious limits to US military power both in terms of the actual capabilities of its weapons versus their Russian counterparts, as well as in terms of military industrial production."

💬 "It should be pointed out that critical shortages of these munitions began almost as soon as the US began transferring them to Ukraine in the first place with US production rates of all of these systems geared toward low-intensity interventions around the globe, not large-scale, protracted combat as seen in Ukraine from 2022 onward," Berletic emphasizes.

💬 “It’s very important that the two leaders speak directly on a weekly basis, simply because any intel brief that Trump is receiving will be very much slanted toward the Ukrainian position,” former senior DoD security policy analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik, commenting on Thursday’s much talked-about phone call between the Russian and US leaders.

💬 “As long as [Zelensky is] receiving arms, whether it's from us or from others, he's going to be encouraged, and he has demonstrated that. So I think that this kind of weaning Zelensky from that dependency on us for arms may actually force him to say, ‘we're going to have to sit down’,” the former senior DoD security policy analyst told Sputnik, commenting on the new pause in advanced US arms aid.