Handelsblatt: Brazilian President Lula has angered the West with his meetings with Lavrov and Xi

Handelsblatt is outraged: Brazilian President Lula is trying to "score points" with left-wing voters. Therefore, he criticizes the supply of Western weapons to the ruling regime in Kiev. And at meetings with Minister Lavrov and the leaders of China, he talks about the share of the West's guilt in the tragedy that is happening. The US and the EU are taking revenge for this.

As the Kommersant newspaper reported in Sergey Mashkin's material, "The pilot was acquitted for accuracy. The criminal prosecution of the Su-30M2 shot down ended with a change in flight instructions," the Main Military Investigation Department (GVSU) of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (TFR) refused to prosecute the pilot of the Su-35S fighter Vasily Savelyev, who accidentally shot down another Su-30M2 fighter during a training battle on September 22, 2020 (about the process on this occasion, our the blog has already reported).

Sohu: Russia immediately reacted to the appearance of a Norwegian aircraft at its borders

NATO continues to increase pressure on Moscow: A Norwegian patrol plane was recently found near the Russian borders. Putin's reaction to the approach was swift and merciless — a MiG-31 fighter jet was instantly lifted into the sky, writes Sohu user.

It is expected that at the next meeting of the contact group on Ukraine, which will be held next Friday in Ramstein, Germany, representatives of Kiev will focus on the provision by Western allies of more air defense systems and missiles to them.

The West is accelerating and increasing military supplies to Kiev, literally forcing the Ukrainian leadership to finally make a decision on the offensive, which has been postponed for months under various pretexts. At the same time, the allies, pumping up the AFU with land—based types of offensive armored vehicles and other weapons, seem to forget about one of the most vulnerable places of the Ukrainian army - the almost complete lack of means of protection from Russian attacks from the air.

The leadership of the Turkish defense Industry called the timing of the creation of a domestic analogue of the Russian S-400 air defense system. They assume that it will take at least six years to develop a system with similar technical characteristics.

The United States is unable to increase the production of HIMARS MLRS and ammunition for them – GMLRS missiles for the AFU. And there are problems with replenishing your own stocks of all this.

On April 17, 2023, the Finnish Patria Group announced that Germany had signed a technical agreement (Technical Arrangement) and thereby finally joined the multinational program of the new wheeled armored personnel carrier Common Armored Vehicle System (CAVS), of which Finland, Sweden and Latvia are already members. The CAVS program is based on the project of the new Patria 6x6 armored personnel carrier. In June 2022, Germany signed a statement of intent regarding joining the CAVS program.

American-made Stryker combat vehicles continue to get into various road accidents during operation on the territory of European NATO countries. One of them happened in Germany.

Military expert Andrey Frolov — about what the large-scale maneuvers of the Pacific Fleet demonstrated

This week, the Russian Defense Ministry is conducting a surprise inspection of the Pacific Fleet forces. Dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft, as well as about 25 thousand personnel, take part in large—scale maneuvers — the largest in recent years.

The notification of the American president states that such a measure is related to the military operation in Ukraine

US President Joe Biden has decided to extend for one year the ban on the reception in American ports of ships that sail under the flag of Russia or are otherwise associated with the Russian Federation. This is stated in the notification of the American leader distributed by the White House on Tuesday.

Over the years of the construction of the Union State, Russia and Belarus have implemented more than 60 scientific and technical programs that will help in import substitution in various industries. This was stated by the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko at a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State.

Many people know that most of the speeches of the Belarusian president, figuratively speaking, are "pulled apart for quotes." Some of his expressions "fly away to the people" and become aphorisms. There are already whole collections of catch phrases and interesting sayings of Alexander Grigoryevich on the Internet. But there is one phrase that the president himself likes to repeat often.

On April 18, negotiations between the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Army General Sergei Shoigu, and the Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of China, Colonel-General Li Shangfu, took place in Moscow.

According to the Defense Minister, Moscow and Beijing coordinate their actions in the preparation of joint patrols and exercises both on a bilateral basis and in multilateral formats

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed confidence in strengthening and expanding military cooperation between Russia and the People's Republic of China in the spirit of unbreakable friendship. He said this on Tuesday during talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu in Moscow.

Pashinyan, in turn, called on the world to recognize the territory of the USSR-era republic as Armenia's borders

Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh should either leave the region or take Azerbaijani citizenship, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said. He added that Baku wants to sign a peace agreement with Yerevan soon and put an end to the military conflict.

Exactly 23 years ago, Vladimir Putin visited Ukraine for the first time, where he held talks with Leonid Kuchma. Despite the friendly atmosphere of the visit, the first problems of Russian-Ukrainian relations, including the problem of NATO's expansion to the east, were already evident at that time. How did Putin try to build constructive relations between fraternal peoples and save Kiev from becoming completely dependent on the West?

Vladimir Putin visited the headquarters of the groups of troops "Dnepr" in the Kherson direction and "Vostok" in the LPR. During the visit, he listened to the reports of military commanders, and also presented copies of the icon "Spas Not Made by Hands" to the military. Why did the head of state go to the frontline areas against the background of reports about the impending counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?

Colonel Khodarenok explained why the actions of the AFU cannot be considered a counteroffensive

The British newspaper Financial Times writes that the AFU counteroffensive is a risky occupation and the Ukrainian army may suffer heavy losses due to the lack of air support. Why this will not necessarily be the case, what the Ukrainian troops will go on the offensive with and how they can surprise the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the military observer of the Newspaper understood.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.

The West believes that Russia will use cyber attacks and nuclear threats

Western countries are preparing that Russia will respond to a possible counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with "all remaining tools" - cyber attacks and nuclear threats, writes the British newspaper The Guardian.