Putin said the world faced the most dangerous decade since World War Two as Western elites scrambled to prevent what he saw as the inevitable crumbling of the global dominance of the United States and its allies. | Reuters
* The United States has not yet seen any indications that Russia’s ongoing annual “Grom” exercises of its nuclear forces may be a cover for a real deployment, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
* Ukraine has boosted its forces in the northern region near Belarus to counter any possible renewed Russian attack across the border, Ukraine’s General Staff said. * The Ukrainian military said that around two dozen Iranian-made “Shahed-136” drones had targeted the south of the country after taking off from Crimea. Many were shot down by air defenses, the military said. The Ukrainian air force said on Telegram it had shot down a Russian Kas-52 attack helicopter and a Su-25 attack aircraft in the south.
* The Russian defense ministry, which said its forces had repelled attempted Ukrainian advances in the east, said it had destroyed a Ukrainian military factory producing solid rocket fuel, explosives and gunpowder near the town of Pavlograd in the Dnipropetrovsk Region. It said it had also shot down a Ukrainian air force Mi-8 helicopter.* Russia will retaliate if its state and citizens’ assets are confiscated by the European Union, the Foreign Ministry said.