Category: Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠

В поселке Хантли (Huntly), на юго-западе от Вашингтона, в окружении лесов и полей на территории 53 га стоит особняк. На табличке у въезда в поместье – слово Patria. (Родина – лат.). Сюда 13 августа 2024 года приехали агенты Федерального бюро расследований (ФБР) и начали проводить обыск, о чем первым сообщило местное издание Rappahannock News.

В комментариях российскому государственному агентству РИА Новости Саймс сказал, что никто не уведомлял его о происходящем: «Я нахожусь в Москве и не был в США с октября 2022 года. Соответственно, в моем доме там нет и не могло быть ничего связанного с моей нынешней жизнью и деятельностью», – заявил политолог.

Согласно налоговой отчетности «Центра национальных интересов», в 2017 году Саймс заработал 586 349 долларов – это в разы выше среднего для столицы США (около 75 тыс. в год).

В июле 2021 года вместе с женой Анастасией Саймс купил дом в Хантли, штат Вирджиния, за 1,6 млн долларов. По оценкам сайта недвижимости Zillow, сегодня этот дом бы стоил 2,26 млн долларов.

Кто такой Дмитрий Саймс?

Дмитрий Саймс (Dimitri Simes, Дмитрий Симис) родился в Москве 1947 году в семье советской правозащитницы Дины Каминской. Он окончил исторический факультет Московского государственного университета и затем работал в Институте мировой экономики и международных отношений (ИМЭМО).

В 1973 году Саймс иммигрировал в США, где стал работать в ведущих аналитических центрах и университетах.

Потом стал неофициальным советником по международным делам бывшего президента США Ричарда Никсона и бывшего госсекретаря Генри Киссинджера. В этом качестве он ездил вместе с Никсоном в СССР.

В 2018 году Саймс начал вести передачу «Большая игра» в России, а в 2022-м ушел с должности директора «Центра национальных интересов».

Саймс часто упоминался в прессе после начала расследования о российском вмешательстве в президентские выборы США 2016 года и в особенности после полномасштабного российского вторжения в Украину.

Обыск у Риттера

Саймс – не единственный американский эксперт, известный своей пророссийской позицией, чей дом недавно обыскивало ФБР.

7 августа американский телеканал Fox News сообщил, что агенты ФБР провели обыск в доме бывшего инспектора ООН по вооружениям Скотта Риттера в г. Делмар (штат Нью-Йорк). ФБР не прокомментировало ситуацию журналистам издания, но связало обыски с «продолжающимся федеральным расследованием».

Риттер высказывался в поддержку Путина, главы Чеченской Республики Рамзана Кадырова и поддерживал российское вторжение в Украину.

В июне американские власти отобрали у него паспорт, когда он собирался вылететь из США для посещения Петербургского экономического форума.

В своем телеграм-канале Риттер связал расследование с возможным нарушением американского закона FARA о регистрации в качестве иностранного агента и назвал его частью проекта по запугиванию журналистов, к которым Риттер себя относит.

FBI agents have raided and searched the Virginia home of Dimitri Simes, an author and policy analyst, who advised Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign and who currently hosts a current affairs program on Russia’s state-run Channel One.

The raid began on 13 August, the FBI told the local Rappahannock News, which first reported the story.

Simes, whose name was included more than 100 times in the 2019 Mueller report into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, told the paper he was out of the country and had not been notified about the search ahead of time. He was not aware he was the focus of any current law enforcement investigation, he said.

“I’m puzzled and concerned,” he said. “I have not seen a warrant. I was not contacted by any law enforcement or anyone else whatsoever.”

In an interview with Russian government-owned Sputnik News, Simes said on Friday that the raid “clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state”.

He added: “My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back.”

Simes’s son, Dimitri Simes Jr, told Sputnik News that his father has not been in the United States since October 2022. “The Biden regime is terrified of being called out over Ukraine and Israel,” he tweeted on Friday. In another tweet, he added: “Elements of Biden regime are trying to disrupt any possibility for deescalation with Russia and plunge America into World War III.”

Simes, who was born in Moscow, emigrated to the United States in 1973. He served as an informal foreign policy adviser to President Richard Nixon before leading the Center for the National Interest for nearly three decades.

After meeting Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at a luncheon in honor of Henry Kissinger in March 2016, Simes began providing the Trump campaign with informal counsel on foreign policy, including advising on a speech Trump gave envisioning greater cooperation with Russia.

Simes and the Center for the National Interest featured prominently in the Mueller report, which cleared them of any wrongdoing. Around the same time, Simes underwent a Senate finance committee investigation into his contacts with Russian Central Bank official Alexander Torshin and Maria Butina, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trying to infiltrate US conservative groups before the 2016 election.

Last year, Simes moderated a conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the St Petersburg international economic forum. And in June, Simes participated in a closed-door meeting with Putin, the state-owned Russian news agency Tass reported.

Donald Trump could be imprisoned immediately after his upcoming sentencing, law professor and former Bush administration official John Yoo said.

Judge Juan Merchan is due to sentence Trump in September in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. Yoo pointed out that Merchan has ruled against Trump many times and could jail him as the sentencing hearing.

Woo was appearing on America’s Newsroom on Fox News, where host Bill Hemmer called Trump’s sentencing “the story nobody’s talking about” and a “surprise that’ll hit in September.”

Yoo replied: “Bill, it’s excellent you noticed how the calendar is working this way. Judge Merchan has ruled against Donald Trump every opportunity he’s had.”

Yoo, a law professor at the University of California in Berkeley, said that Merchan had already moved the sentencing date closer to the beginning of mail-in voting.

“He could have exercised his discretion here to change the sentencing date. But instead, he actually moved it closer to the beginning of absentee voting in my home state of Pennsylvania.”

“Could you imagine what would happen if Judge Merchan sentenced Donald Trump to jail time, even though he’s a first time nonviolent offender?” Yoo asked.

“What if Judge Merchan even went crazier and said, Donald Trump doesn’t even get to stay out of jail while his case is on appeal? He has the power to actually order Donald Trump sent to jail immediately, although I expect he wouldn’t.

“But this judge has used his discretion every time to try to force this trial in a political direction that will have an effect on the election.”

Yoo was speaker at the 2024 National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., and he is the author of Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power.

It was Trump’s lawyers who requested a delay in sentencing. They had sought to overturn the conviction, based on the Supreme Court‘s broad new formula for presidential immunity.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, faced trial in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records over hush money payments made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.

On May 30, a jury convicted him on all 34 counts.

Newsweek sought email comment from Trump’s attorney on Friday.

On July 1, the Supreme Court delivered its presidential immunity ruling. Later that day, Trump’s lawyers claimed in a legal brief to Merchan that some of Trump’s actions occurred while he was president, and that evidence should have been excluded from the jury.

They also claimed that his social media posts as president should have been excluded. They wrote that prosecutors had placed “highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence,” including meetings at the Oval Office and Trump’s social media posts.

Merchan, who was due to sentence Trump on July 11, wrote in response that he’ll rule on the defense immunity application on September 6, and postponed Trump’s sentencing until September 18.

Ukraine’s forces have captured an example of an electronic warfare (EW) system used to protect Russia’s tanks, along with documentation on how it operates, it has been reported.

Vladimir Putin’s forces are trying to stabilize the front line in the southwest Russian region where Ukraine launched a surprise operation on August 6 in which Kyiv has claimed it controls over 70 settlements and 385 square miles of territory.

Amid Ukraine’s claims of territorial gains and trophy pieces of Russian equipment are reports Kyiv’s troops have also seized a tank-mounted “Volnorez” EW system and documents that show how it works.

The system, whose name means “Breakwater” in Russian, is used to protect military vehicles from drone attacks and was first seen in use in 2023, mounted on T-80BVM main battle tanks.

Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty has described Volnorez as: “An advanced electronic blocking system designed to protect tanks and other military equipment from UAVs.”

The devices act by disrupting drone signals, which information portal Unmanned Airspace said gives vehicles and those near them, “enhanced levels of protection in an increasingly intense conflict.”

Ukrainian journalist Yurii Butusov posted a video of the electronic warfare system after it had been captured, saying it had been found in its original packaging.

Ukrainian military news site Militarnyi noted how the system is used to combat FPV drones and was designed as a cone that is attached to a tank’s armor with magnets.

According to Unmanned Airspace, Volnorez can disrupt drone signals from ranges in excess of one kilometer (0.6 miles), providing jammer-equipped vehicles with enhanced levels of protection.

“The drone is supposed to lose communication with the control station and veer off course, allowing the carrier to avoid being hit,” Militarnyi said. “The Russians are keeping the technical details of their product secret, but the captured documents may disclose these specifics.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.

The news comes as Ukraine’s incursion shows no signs of relenting. Alexey Smirnov, the acting governor of Kursk, on Wednesday ordered the evacuation of Glushkovo, 12 miles from the Ukrainian border and 42 miles northwest of Sudzha, where Ukrainian soldiers have been filmed removing Russian flags from buildings.

Smirnov said this week that 121,000 people had left Kursk Oblast and that authorities would evacuate a total of 180,000 people from the region.

Ukraine’s push over the lightly defended frontier is the biggest challenge Vladimir Putin has faced in his full-scale invasion and is having logistical and security impacts within Russia.

Satellite imagery from Maxar has shown newly dug field fortifications, including trenches and anti-vehicle ditches, southwest of the town of Lgov and that the fortifications are as far as 27 miles away from the border.

CNN has reported on how Russian job portals are advertising trench-digging positions, with workers being offered pay rates of between 150,000-371,000 rubles ($1,600-4,000).

The US-led West is clinging to global domination and can?t accept a multipolar world, Andrey Belousov has said

The Ukraine conflict is a de facto clash between Russia and the West, in which the US is determined to cling to its global hegemony, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has claimed.

Speaking at the opening of the Army 2024 International Military-Technical Forum on Monday, Belousov stated that the US and its allies are seeking to “prevent the creation of a new multi-polar and equal world order,” with the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev among the telltale signs of these efforts.

The Ukraine conflict, he stressed, “is essentially an armed confrontation between Russia and the collective West” which is “caused by the desire of the United States and its allies to maintain their dominance.”

According to the Russian defense chief, this struggle is subsequently a matter of concern not only for Moscow, but also for every other state in the world.

Belousov also said that Russia could achieve success on the battlefield only if the national defense industry is able to provide the army with the most advanced weapons, including high-precision systems. Other conditions that could give Moscow an edge involve honing new tactics – including in drone warfare – as well as creating a new command and control framework based on cutting-edge technology, and improving combat training.

Russian officials have repeatedly said that one of the key reasons for the conflict with Ukraine is Kiev’s aspirations to join NATO, which Moscow views as an adversary. Moscow has also condemned Western arms shipments to Ukraine, arguing that they only prolong the conflict while making the West a direct participant in the hostilities.

The US and its allies have accused Russia of launching an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine in February 2022 and have vowed to stand with Kiev for “as long as it takes.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin argued in June that Europe needs a new security infrastructure, claiming that the West’s “selfishness and arrogance” had brought the continent extremely close to a “point of no return.” Moscow also maintains that the Ukraine conflict cannot be addressed without taking into the account the broader geopolitical landscape and Russia’s security interests.

(RT.com)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Social media influencers got the royal treatment at the White House on Wednesday as President Joe Biden gave a nod to their ability to hold sway with millions of loyal followers.

The White House played host to a group of more than 100 influencers, also known as content creators, across a range of media platforms — from chefs and makeup artists to fitness gurus and medical students — to talk about issues including mental health, pay equity and the abuse of artificial intelligence.

Biden stopped by to tell the influencers gathered in the Indian Treaty Room in the White House complex: “The fact is, you are the future.”

“You’re the source of the news,” he said. “You are the new possibilities. You are the new breakthrough in how we communicate.”

Biden added, to laughter: “And that’s why I invited you to the White House, because I’m looking for a job.”

Those in attendance included makeup artist Jackie Aina, chef My Nguyen and medical student Joel Bervell. Together, the influencers count millions of followers.

In showcasing the importance and heft of the content creator economy — valued at roughly $250 billion worldwide — the White House is also recognizing the youth vote that will be a crucial constituency for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump in the November election.

In late July, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed the vice president. The youth-led progressive organizations had warned for months that Biden, 81, had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. They’re hoping Harris can harness a new explosion of energy among young voters.

Trump has also spent time courting influencers. Notably, his campaign is counting on younger male voters to give him the edge in November.

Trump participated in an interview last week with Twitch streamer and online personality Adin Ross, who has more than 7 million Instagram followers. The internet personality ended his interview with the former president by gifting him a Tesla Cybertruck wrapped in images of Trump raising his fist after the assassination attempt against him.

The White House event comes as the Biden administration is embroiled in a legal battle with TikTok over a federal law that will determine the future of the platform in the U.S.

Many creators who earn income on TikTok have opposed the law, which requires TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the popular platform to a U.S.-approved buyer or face a ban.

In May, TikTok and ByteDance sued to block the law, arguing divestment isn’t commercially, legally or technologically possible and that they would have to shut down the platform in the U.S. by January 19 if the law were to go into effect.

The measure was passed after it received bipartisan backing in Congress and by top-level administration officials who expressed concerns about how the Chinese government could influence ByteDance.

TikTok was previously in negotiations with the Biden administration to resolve some of those concerns. However, those talks fizzled out before the two sides reached a deal.

__

Hadero contributed from South Bend, Indiana.

It is now more than a week since Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack on the region.

While much is unknown about the full extent of the incursion, a top Ukrainian general said Tuesday that their forces had captured some 390 square miles of Russian territory.

The incursion appears to have caught Russia off guard, with regional officials saying Ukraine seized 28 settlements along the border, and causing more than 120,000 people to flee.

On Monday, Kirby’s remarks came in response to a question about earlier remarks by Putin, in which he accused the West of “waging war against us using Ukrainians” in the shock incursion into Kursk, as Russian state-controlled media reported.

It’s unclear if the White House had prior knowledge of the attack. Last week, spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre suggested it did not, saying it was planning to reach out to Kyiv to learn more about its objectives.

The US and other Ukrainian allies have been blunt in their responses to Russian complaints about the incursion.

Earlier in the week a State Department spokesperson said it was “a little bit rich” for Russia to complain of an attack on its territory when it was deep into the invasion of Ukraine.

European officials have said Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to counterattack on Russian soil.