🇷🇺 🇷🇺 🚀 SARMAT, the most POWERFUL missile system in the world will indeed be put on combat duty — Putin

"The total power of the delivered warhead is more than 4 times greater than the power of any existing most powerful Western analogue"

He added that the missile can move not only along a ballistic trajectory, but also along a suborbital trajectory

@worldpravda

🇺🇸 Americans Are About to Pay Even More at the Grocery Store

As Americans confront a surge in prices at the pump, another inflation wave is headed for the grocery store.

A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average pace. In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El Niño weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027.

The hit to US household finances from higher grocery bills is set to intensify just ahead of the November midterm elections, amplifying affordability as a defining issue. And to a greater extent than the surge in gas prices, the slower-moving food shock will be difficult to reverse quickly because the size of autumn harvests is determined by planting decisions made in the spring.

“It’s going to be a challenging year,” said Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness professor at California Polytechnic State University who previously worked at the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. “Food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be prepared for it.”

The latest USDA food price outlook, published Friday, projected a 3.2% advance in grocery prices this year, while Volpe said he expects inflation more on the order of 4% to 4.5%.

Outsize price increases so far in 2026 have reflected a mix of bad luck, trade policy and slower-moving pressures linked to climate change. The weather in particular has not been kind to American farmers, who have endured outbursts of record-breaking heat, historic cold, ping-pong size hail and wildfires.

The US saw its warmest-ever start to the year, with temperatures running about 6F (3C) above average through the end of April, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. The early heat prompted some domestic crops to begin blossoming weeks ahead of schedule instead of remaining dormant throughout the winter, leaving them exposed to subsequent frosts, according to Brad Rippey, a USDA meteorologist.

Beef prices, among the most politically sensitive in the US, rose to a record in April thanks to the smallest cattle herd in 75 years, squeezed by drought and high production costs.

Tomato prices, meanwhile, surged 33% over the last two months after two winter storms brought widespread damage during the peak of the growing season in Florida — while shipments from Mexico were declining following the Trump administration’s imposition of duties on imports.

Heat and drought in the western and central US spell more pressures to come. California accounts for almost half of annual US vegetable and three-quarters of fruit and nut cash receipts, and diminished snowpack in the Sierra Nevada this year — to just 23% of typical levels as of mid-April — has raised concerns about irrigation supplies.

Drought has also spread across the nation’s breadbasket, where staple wheat crops that are typically used to make all-purpose flour or pasta have withered for lack of rain. As of May 19, 70% of US winter wheat production was in areas of drought, along with 25% of corn production, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

🔗 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-27/us-grocery-prices-face-new-inflation-threat-from-el-nino-and-iran

🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺 Ukrainian attack drones successfully attacked Russia's Kronstadt naval base this morning, hitting and heavily damaging the Steregushchy-class corvette Boikiy in drydock.

The Boikiy was one of the most capable surface combatants in the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet.

🔗 OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical)

Spencer Pratt all of a sudden stops getting any votes whatsoever. (1 min, 8 sec)
Join @davidavocadowolfe 🥑

🇷🇺❌🇺🇦 — Kiev's Metro is now flooded with civilians that didn't managed to reach bomb shelters across the Ukrainian capital

🗳 🇺🇸 🚫 The Senate just killed the SAVE Act, 48-50.

Voter ID and proof of citizenship, supported by over 80% of Americans, dead.

Four Republicans voted no: Tillis, Murkowski, McConnell, Collins.

📎 Mario Nawfal

🇮🇱🇦🇿 CNN: Israel sent troops to Azerbaijan during Iran war as part of secret network across region, sources say

Israel secretly deployed elite military and intelligence units to Azerbaijan during the war with Iran as part of a network of covert sites across the Middle East to facilitate operations against Iran, four sources familiar with the matter said.

The forces operated out of several locations in southern Azerbaijan, two of the sources said, adjacent to Iran’s northern border and, at its closest point, only about 60 miles from the Iranian city of Tabriz, which Israel struck during the war.

Special commando units were also deployed to the location and carried out intelligence-gathering missions and drone operations, the other two sources said, giving Israel a valuable perch from which to see into northern Iran during the war.

The secret deployment to Azerbaijan, reported by CNN for the first time, was one of several military positions Israel maintained across the Middle East that gave its military unprecedented reach, highlighting the role Iran’s neighbors played — some with permission, some likely without — in facilitating operations against Tehran and becoming entangled in the conflict.

The locations in Azerbaijan were among numerous covert military sites and bases in multiple countries, the sources told CNN, including in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Somaliland. The forces, initially planned as potential rescue teams in the event of an emergency, expanded in scope to become military and intelligence gathering positions.

Israel has long viewed Azerbaijan as a strategic partner in its fight against Iran, and the preparations began weeks before the opening strikes of the war. In mid-January, as Iran crushed wide-scale protests with the mass killing of demonstrators, Israel prepared a covert mission along the Azerbaijan-Iran border, two of the sources familiar with the plans told CNN. The sources described it as a preliminary operation laying the groundwork for additional steps by installing listening devices and intelligence equipment in the area.

Israel was planning to execute the operation under cover of what were to be the opening strikes of the war in mid-January. But US President Donald Trump called off the strikes at the last minute, saying that Iran had agreed to stop the killing of demonstrators.

Israel proceeded on its own.

The Israeli Air Force used stealth jets and special forces as part of the operation to install the devices, as Israel’s political leadership believed negotiations between the US and Iran were doomed to fail. The intelligence-gathering site became another means by which Israel could collect information on Iranian military movements and facilities, as well as potentially providing early warning of missile launches.

One of the key operations launched from Azerbaijan, one of the sources said, was the killing on March 4 of Rahman Moghaddam, who led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) intelligence division and who Israel said was responsible for planning an assassination attempt against Trump in 2024. One day later, drones struck an airport in Azerbaijan’s enclave of Nakhchivan, damaging a terminal building and wounding several people. President Ilham Aliyev blamed Iran, calling it “an act of terror” that was “ugly, cowardly and shameless.” Iran denied launching the drones.

🔗 https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/05/middleeast/azerbaijan-israel-iran-war-intl