❗️Latest statements by Russian Defense Minister Shoigu at the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense:

◾️The willingness of the West to invest a significant part of available resources in Ukraine to turn the tide on the battlefield creates serious risks of conflict escalation

◾️About 360,000 troops, 8,000 armored vehicles, and 650 planes and helicopters have been deployed by the West near the borders of the Union State

◾️Poland has announced its intention to build most powerful army on the continent, and has begun large-scale arms purchases

◾️Russia will strengthen the groups of troops of the armed forces on its western borders

◾️The total aid from NATO, the EU and their partners to Ukraine has exceeded $160 billion

◾️NATO countries are actively working on transferring F-16 fighters to Ukraine

◾️The West, being ready to reverse the situation on the battlefield in its favor, creates serious risks of further escalation of the conflict

◾️Threats to Russia's military security in the western and northwestern strategic directions have significantly increased

🎙 Briefing by Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department Alexey Zaitsev (Moscow, August 9, 2023)

🔷 FM Sergey Lavrov’s schedule
🔷 Ukrainian crisis
🔷 Developments in Niger
🔷 EU Report on Human Rights and Democracy
🔷 Situation in Pakistan
🔷 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing anniversary

And more...

📚 Read in full

#Ukraine

Having no results on the battlefield to demonstrate to their Western masters, the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev continues to vilely resort to terrorist methods against people in Russia, striking civilian targets, including those far from the front line.

It is revealing that NATO countries are supporting the barbarous actions of the Kiev regime, and continue supplying it with arms, training Ukrainian soldiers and supplying Ukraine with intelligence information for dealing strikes with missiles and drones, including at strictly civilian facilities.

#Niger

We consider it is extremely important to prevent further escalation of tension in Niger. We believe that there is no alternative to the restoration of law and order and the start of an inclusive national dialogue as soon as possible.

We support the mediation efforts undertaken by the African community to help the people of Niger overcome the crisis. At the same time, we believe that an intervention by the troops of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in a sovereign state is unlikely to contribute to the achievement of lasting peace in Niger or the stabilisation of the subregion.

🚀 On August 11, the Soyuz-2.16 carrier rocket with a Fregat booster lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome and launched the Luna 25 automatic station into Earth orbit.

Russia’s first lunar station in the contemporary history of the country will land near the lunar south pole, an area with a rough landscape, and carry out lengthy research. This mission is expected to kick off the exploration of the Earth’s natural satellite in Russia.

In keeping with Russian law, our country has fulfilled its international obligations, according to the established procedure, and advised the UN Secretary-General of the nuclear sources of energy on board the Luna 25.

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 The Kiev regime is a neo-Nazi malignant growth on the body of Eastern Europe. It gives the Hitler salute, stages torchlight processions, harasses the Jewish population and, of course, espouses total Russophobia.

But now new documents have come to light concerning yet another oppressed group of people, Muslim Tatars.

Journalists from the Turkish Aydinlik newspaper received access to the correspondence of Deputy Chief of the 3rd Sector of the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) State Security Department for the Kherson Region Lt-Col D. Dosenko, including classified documents.

In them SBU employees report to their superiors that the Tatar (Crimean Tatar) population of Ukraine “continues to pose a threat to the territorial integrity and the constitutional system of the country”. We don’t know when this report was submitted but most likely it was in 2020-2021, according to experts.

The document is full of derogatory language about Ukraine’s Tatar population (I will recall that this is an official SBU report). This is from the background file on activist Gulnara Bekirova, a candidate of Zelensky’s party Servant of the People – “Holds nationalist views”.

The document also raised other issues, for instance, financial ones: “The financing of Lenur Islyamov’s initiatives and projects will be substantially reduced because he failed to fulfil his commitments and did PR events instead of real work”. More broadly, this shows once again the extent of the theft in Ukraine in all areas – from allocations for arms supplies to funds for national policy. It’s corruption from top to bottom.

While in Russian Crimea and the new territories, all ethnic groups live in peace and are able to move forward, speak their language and maintain their identity, neo-Nazi militants from Kiev continue their attempts to build a mono-ethnic state. They do not care who is crushed under the wheels of repression, be it Russians, Trans-Carpathian Hungarians, Jews, Roma or Tatars.