Zuckerberg expresses regrets over covid misinformation crackdown

In a letter to GOP leader, Meta CEO says Biden administration was “wrong” to pressure tech firms on content moderation.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

by Will Oremus

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that the Biden administration in 2021 “repeatedly pressured” his company to take down certain posts related to covid and was “wrong” to do so.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain covid-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” Zuckerberg wrote in the letter sent Sunday. “Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down."

Zuckerberg also reiterated that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, had erred in temporarily suppressing a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and said the company has since changed its policies to avoid any similar move. Specifically, he said Meta’s social networks would no longer “demote” potentially false posts or stories while it awaits a verdict from its fact-checking partners. Instead, it will wait for the results of the fact checks before taking any action.

The letter to Jordan shows Meta attempting to mend fences with the political right ahead of the 2024 election, amid a years-long, ongoing Republican-led investigation into the content moderation policies of major social media networks. While President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders have criticized the company at times for failing to rein in false information about the 2020 election and the pandemic, Jordan and other House Republicans have been vocal in accusing Meta and other tech giants of overreacting by “censoring” conservatives’ speech.

In June, the Supreme Court rejected a bid led by Republican state attorneys general to restrict contacts between the White House and tech companies. And in July, it threw out lower-court decisions that would have limited social networks’ right to moderate users’ posts.

Zuckerberg’s letter marks the first time Meta has weighed in publicly on the lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general, which alleges that the Biden administration’s pressure on it and other tech giants to crack down on covid-19 misinformation amounted to illegal censorship. The Meta chief’s use of the word “censor” mirrors that of Jordan and other Republicans, as does his criticism of the Biden administration.

But Zuckerberg also said Meta’s content moderation actions were its own and not the result of government compulsion — a characterization consistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show a direct connection between government pressure and the removal of their posts.

"We own our decisions, including Covid-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure,” Zuckerberg wrote.

He added: “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

Zuckerberg’s criticism of the Biden administration and pledge to pull back on demoting potentially false content was greeted as a victory by some on the right.

“Big win for free speech,” the House Judiciary Republicans posted on X

Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things:

1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans.

2. Facebook censored Americans.

3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Big win for free speech. pic.twitter.com/ALlbZd9l6K

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 26, 2024

The announcement that Meta will no longer demote stories flagged as potential violations of its misinformation policies could mean that falsehoods will circulate more freely on its networks before and after a contentious 2024 presidential election. Since suspending Donald Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Meta and other major tech firms have reinstated him and lifted restrictions on his accounts.

Also in the letter, Zuckerberg confirmed reports that he will no longer donate money for local election infrastructure through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a program that some called “Zuckerbucks.” The Washington Post reported this month that he would no longer support the program — potentially leaving funding gaps for elections in small jurisdictions.

“They were designed to be nonpartisan — spread across urban, rural and suburban communities,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Still, despite the analyses I’ve seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”

Katie Harbath, CEO of the tech consultancy Anchor Change and a former Facebook official, said she has “conflicting reactions” to Zuckerberg’s letter. While she said the effort to clear the air with House Republicans ahead of the election is understandable, she questioned Zuckerberg’s decision to address Republicans’ concerns but not those of Democrats, who see Jordan’s committee as applying undue government pressure of its own.

“Reflection on how they do moderation decisions in times of crisis is good,” Harbath said. “I’d just like to see that be done in a more neutral way.”

David Kaye, a professor at UC Irvine School of Law and former U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of expression, was more critical of the letter, which he called “cynical” and “obsequious.”

Zuckerberg’s missive, he said, “reinforces the sense of many activists around the world that Zuckerberg does not necessarily stand with his rules but can be swayed by government pressure — even while his letter tries to disclaim that perception.”

Meta declined to comment beyond confirming the letter’s authenticity.

Durov’s arrest represents persecution of alternative viewpoints – Maduro

FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ©Getty Images/Carlos Becerra/Stringer

The arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov in France aligns with a broader policy of using maximum pressure to control alternative media platforms, according to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

He made the remarks on Monday during his address at the 11th summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). Maduro noted that the ALBA meeting was being broadcast on the Telegram platform.

This is “despite the fact that their president [Telegram CEO Pavel Durov] was taken into custody as part of this policy of persecution, maximum pressure, blackmail, arm-twisting of alternative social and communication networks,” Maduro stated, adding that “power is abused across the world. They persecute in order to subjugate.”

Durov was arrested at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday immediately after arriving from Azerbaijan by private jet. The Russian entrepreneur is also a citizen of France, the UAE, and St. Kitts and Nevis.

The French judicial authorities have twice extended Durov’s detention. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office has stated that he was arrested as part of a broad criminal inquiry in relation to an unnamed person.

Durov has previously stated that his commitment to user privacy has made him a target for intelligence agencies. In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this year, Durov said he had rejected requests from Washington to share user data with US authorities or build so-called surveillance “backdoors” into the platform.

Telegram is a popular messaging app with nearly a billion users globally. It offers end-to-end encryption, enhancing privacy for both sender and recipient, and generally refuses to provide user data or chat records to law enforcement. According to Durov, Telegram respects the rights of its users to privacy and freedom of expression.

The tech mogul’s arrest has sparked strong reactions and concern over the future of free speech, with X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk describing it as “dangerous times” and calling for Durov to be released. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has compared the case to the persecution of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.

Snowden, a whistleblower who revealed the extent of NSA spying on Americans and foreign leaders back in 2012, has accused France of holding Durov “hostage” in order to access private communications on Telegram.

Snowden, a whistleblower who revealed the extent of NSA spying on Americans and foreign leaders back in 2012, has accused France of holding Durov “hostage” in order to access private communications on Telegram.

Pepe Escobar: EU to Telegram - We're Coming to Get You

The Pavel Durov saga is a gift that will keep on giving for a long time to come. This is what hot information war is all about. So let’s attempt to connect several loose ends.

A high-level Russian analyst makes the case that Durov’s arrest is connected with “anti-French protests in its former colonies, withdrawal from its traditional 'sphere of influence' where Telegram infrastructure was used to push anti-colonial and anti-Macronist narratives”.

Add to it an “attempt to influence narratives on Ukraine both in Russian and the international media field, which is highly dependent on Telegram infrastructure.”

Paris is indeed desperate to make itself relevant when it comes to psy ops and influencing/special warfare in Ukraine.

However, as the analyst notes, the French don’t have the tech means to accomplish it. So this may have led to Macron deciding to “exercise a personal pressure campaign against Durov himself. French authorities must be rather desperate in trying to keep their heads in the game of global politics. And Telegram today is (his italics) global politics.”

Paris was just waiting for a big break. When the pilot of Durov’s Embraer private jet submitted his flight plan, there was no warrant for his arrest in France. Only when the jet was on its way to Le Bourget, Paris filed the warrant in haste. Durov was clueless all along.

In a nutshell: Paris got a fateful heads up he was flying into France – could have been via Durov’s Dubai-based, post-obsessive, social climbing girlfriend – and laid out the trap in a flash.

An Eminence in Jail

There’s a myth that the FSB in the past asked Durov for Telegram’s encryption keys. False. The FSB wanted Telegram to provide top access on investigations of serious crimes, on a case-by-case basis. That’s an enormous difference compared to what the US Government does with Meta or Twitter/X via their totally open backdoors.

Durov though got drunk on NATOstan’s “freedom and democracy” propaganda, rebuffed Russia, and left.

And that brings us to President Putin. Putin had better things to do than to meet Durov in Baku, and the Kremlin has gone on the record to deny the meeting. Durov was doing a tour of Central Asia and the Caucasus, they happened to cross their paths in Azerbaijan.

There’s one thing that Putin never tolerates: betrayal of Russia. And that applies to the letter to Durov. When Durov went to the US, the Americans, predictably, demanded Telegram’s backdoors to surveil everybody. So he set up shop in Dubai and later applied for French citizenship.

Durov became a French citizen only 3 years ago – significantly, before the launch of the SMO - via a special “eminent foreigner” program set up by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Very few are eligible; only a “French-speaking foreigner who contributes through their eminent action to the influence of France and the prosperity of its international economic relations”.

Well, no “eminent action” was enough to keep him away from a French slammer.

How to Get Those Keys

The European Commission (EC) in Brussels can be summarily described as a notorious bunch of EUrocrat cowards and/or psychopaths cheerfully praising “our values”.

Predictably, the EC refuses to comment on Durov’s arrest, saying it's a "national investigation".

An "investigation" which happens to have been “encouraged” by the US Deep State, carried out since July 8 by vassal Macronist police, to the benefit of NATO and... the European Commission itself.

The charges against Durov revealed by France’s Prosecutor of the Republic should be destroyed in court by any crack legal team. Essentially, the claims are that Durov himself is responsible for those abusing Telegram. He is “complicit” of every misdeed under the sun – from organized fraud to drug-trafficking – all the way to a hazy accusation of providing encrypted services without a “certified declaration”.

The accusations about Telegram’s lack of moderation are false. For instance, Telegram actively censors correspondence inside the EU; EU residents cannot access countless chats and channels. Moreover, Telegram is not concerned by the recent, hardcore neo-Orwellian EU law against mega social networks, because it harbors less than 45 million European users a day.

Now let’s focus on motive.

The current liberal-totalitarian Euro-gulag, or EuroLag, is a massive power bloc that does not have access to Telegram’s content.

Telegram maintains its own servers around the world, and routing goes via Amazon, Cloudfare and Google. Since the start of Telegram, US intel/surveillance has the means to easily block it - if they feel like it.

The EU is a different ball game. So here we have Brussels, via Paris, trying to acquire at least some control over Telegram – and social networks in general.

A crucial reminder – which could be billed under the Pathetic Tech department: Europe has no (italics mine) social networks.

The key question now is: will they get it by applying pressure over Pavel Durov? There’s no evidence he has Telegram’s encryption keys. What if they got the wrong guy?

Nikolai Durov, Pavels’ ultra-discreet brother, is the prime genius architect of Telegram: math master, two PhDs, gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad. The French would rather cut a deal – thus the extended interrogation: but that would imply breaking Pavel so he would influence Nikolai to hand over those fabled keys.

Why Now? And Who Profits?

Predictably, Durov’s interrogation goes on with zero transparence. France is an excruciatingly secretive society, prone to absolute silence on serious matters, nerve-wracking slow, punctuated by rare formal declarations. It’s all about procedure – and the bureaucracy is stultifying.

Yet French bureaucracy may have given a precious hint on what really bothers them. They simply cannot accept that anyone uses – or provides – the means of “obfuscation” in terms of financial transactions, bypassing censorship and bypassing surveillance.

So this may go way beyond the obsession to get some or all of Telegram’s encryption keys. The French bureaucratic apparatus wants to go no holds barred to suppress any possibility of any bypassing – while retaining the power to punish anyone.

If the saga goes on and on, leading to a trial and eventually a 20-year prison sentence, that means Durov would not be broken facing the bureaucratic apparatus, and he will always remain “an accomplice”.

Hardly likely. Bye bye to unlimited glitz and glamour, in exchange for a daily stale baguette in a French gaol?

Two more inevitable questions. Why now? Because the EU needs it, badly. And who profits? The leading candidates are the “esprit de corps” of ultra-regimented French bureaucracy and their Franco-European oligarch connections. Envy is also in the cards. Durov is Russian, an outsider, and Telegram – with a billion users worldwide – is a resounding success.

Anything can happen further on down the road – including the blocking of Telegram in France and the EU. The Global Majority could not care less. Meanwhile, multitudes marvel at how a narcissist tech globalist could be so naïve to believe that liberal totalitarianism would ever protect his freedom.

Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Pepe Escobar - Sputnik International

Ukraine Mulling 'Dirty Bomb' Use, False-Flag Chemical Provocations With US Help - Russia's MoD

CCO//

Since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in 2022, its Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops have laid bare the extent to which the US Pentagon, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and American biotech firms have been funding potentially illegal biological research in Ukraine.

The US, aided by Ukraine, continues to act in violation of international treaties banning chemical and biological weapons, evidence presented by the Russian Defense Ministry shows.

Furthermore, Washington is boosting efforts to develop bioagents capable of selectively targeting specific ethnic groups, the MoD said at its briefing on August 27.

Screenshot of evidence released at a briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2024, analysing activities of the United States of America and Ukraine violating international treaties banning chemical and biological weapons.
©Photo : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

An updated analysis of the activities of the US and Ukraine has revealed:

• Washington is drawing Moldova and Romania into the logistics chains involved in the process of acquiring biomaterials from citizens of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states.



• Over 2,000 biomaterial samples were transported from Ukraine to the US via Moldova between August 2022 and May 2024.



• Export is carried out by the US-based international biosample procurement company BioPartners, Inc., and Q2 Solutions, a subsidiary of a Pentagon supplier.
  
  
  
  Screenshot of evidence released at a briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2024, showing change in algorithm for export of biomaterials from Ukraine after the start of Russia's special military operation in 2022.
  ©Photo : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
  
  
  
  



• The freight company Gamma Logistics and Aerotranscargo (controlled by Moldovan President Maia Sandu and Western organizations) escort biological cargoes from Ukraine, per information presented at the MoD briefing. /li>
  
  
• Andrei Gorkavchuk and Svetlana Stefanenko, directors of BioPartners' Kiev office, oversee export to the US of cryocontainers of biological material from Ukrainian citizens.
  
  
  
  Screenshot of evidence released at a briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2024, showing officials involved in exporting biomaterials from Ukraine.
  ©Photo : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
  
  
  
  



• BioPartners employees Marianna Gredil and Lyudmila Gorodnyaya are in charge of legal support and collaboration with US organizations and Big Pharma companies.



• Kakhaber Zaalishvili oversees the collection of clinical and pathoanatomical material; helps set up clinical trials in Ukraine.

Evidence previously revealed by the MoD showed that the US and its allies had taken at least 16,000 biosamples out of Ukraine before the special military operation started. As part of the UP-8 Project, blood samples were taken from 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers, while dangerous pathogens and their vectors (over 10,000 samples) were exported to the US. Biological material was taken from Ukraine's Center for Public Health to Pentagon-related Western research laboratories. Their use for subsequent biological warfare research included studies to select biological agents most dangerous to the population of a given region.

Furthermore, Russia’s MoD warned of the likelihood of provocations being staged by the Kiev regime with the use of toxic chemicals.

Here is some of the evidence presented at the briefing:

• Ukraine procured hundreds of tons of toxic chemical precursors scheduled by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).



• This equals approximately 500 tons of triethanolamine, used in the production of a nitrogen mustard agent. The Ukrainian company Reagent imported more than 160 tons of triethanolamine in July 2024.



• Over 400 cases of toxic chemical use by the Ukrainian side have been recorded during the special military operation. Among the compounds used are BZ, prussic acid, chlorine cyanide, and riot-control chemical agents.
  
  
  
  Screenshot of evidence released at a briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2024, showing Ukraine's use of toxic chemicals in special military operation zone.
  ©Photo : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
  
  
  
  



• Tests of wipe-samples from chemical equipment found in a lab near Avdeyevka in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) (liberated by Russia’s forces in February) revealed it had been producing 3 kg of toxic substances per day. The presence of sodium cyanide, sulfuric acid, and trace amounts of cyanide anion were found in the lab.



• Shipments of chemical waste and spent nuclear fuel are entering Ukraine through Poland and Romania. Such materials can be used to make a dirty bomb and stage "false flag" chemical provocations, the MoD warned.
  
  
  
  Screenshot of evidence released at a briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2024, showing raw materials and production components supplied to Ukraine to manufacture WMD.
  ©Photo : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
  
  
  
  



• Ukraine’s 3rd Airmobile Battalion received chemical irritant ammunition on July 13, 2024, per MoD evidence.



• Ready-to-use agents containing a toxic mixture based on thallium nitrate were found in a cache seized from Ukrainian troops in August 2024. Tactical mixtures of irritant agents listed in Schedule 3 of the CWC were also found.
  
  
  
  Screenshot of evidence released at a briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2024, showing increasing use of toxic chemicals by Ukraine in special military operation zone.
  ©Photo : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
  
  
  
  



• Ukrainian forces are being trained to use chemical ammunition with Western artillery systems, captured documents and manuals show.

Evidence of Ukraine violating the Chemical Weapons Convention has been submitted by Russia to the OPCW Technical Secretariat, the MoD said, and called for an impartial investigation. However, it added that because the OPCW is "controlled by the US" and is used for “score-settling,” there has not been any response from the organization.

Musk asks Macron to explain Durov arrest

FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk.
©Yolanda Ruiz/Keystone Press Agency/Global Look Press

US tech mogul Elon Musk has asked French President Emmanuel Macron to shed light on the reasons behind the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov. The Russian entrepreneur was detained last week upon arriving at Paris-Le Bourget Airport.

The French judicial authorities have twice extended Durov’s detention. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office has stated that he was arrested as part of a broad criminal inquiry against an unnamed person.

“It would be helpful to the global public to understand more details about why he was arrested,” Musk wrote in a comment under Macron’s post on X (formerly Twitter).

It would be helpful to the global public to understand more details about why he was arrested

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2024

On Sunday, the French leader took to X to deny having any political motive for detaining Durov. He insisted that the arrest is part of “an ongoing judicial investigation” in which the courts will decide the entrepreneur’s fate.

Durov has said he has faced pressure from the US. In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson in April, he claimed that he received “too much attention” from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies while on US soil.

According to the prosecutors, Durov could face charges ranging from complicity in drug dealing and money laundering, to facilitating the distribution of child pornography.

French media had previously reported that the arrest of the 39-year-old Russian citizen, who also holds French, UAE, and St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship, was related to alleged offenses regarding Telegram. Reports suggest that the authorities believe Durov is complicit in a range of crimes allegedly committed via the social media app due to insufficient moderation.

Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1984, Durov left Russia in the mid-2010s and has since mainly lived in the UAE. In 2021, he was granted French citizenship. In July, Durov wrote on his Telegram channel that the number of active monthly users of the messaging platform had grown to 950 million.

Durov’s arrest has been denounced as an infringement upon rights enjoyed in both the EU and the US. Carlson, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, former CIA and NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and Silicon Valley investor David Sacks have spoken out in support of the entrepreneur. Shortly after the arrest, Musk, who launched the hashtag #FreePavel, suggested that the pressure on freedom of speech could worsen.

RFK Jr. in Light of Durov Arrest Says Europe Has Lost Free Speech Rights

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in response to France arresting Telegram messenger's CEO Pavel Durov, said that free speech rights in Europe are gone.

"We've lost Europe. Europe now does not have free speech," Kennedy said during a podcast interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson that aired on Monday.

©AP Photo/Meg Kinnard

Kennedy also pointed out that US billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has been made out to be seen as a "villain" after purchasing Twitter and making it a free speech platform. Musk would have been the hero of the old Democratic party in the United States, Kennedy added.

Earlier, Durov's detention in France was extended until Wednesday.

Durov was detained at the Paris Le Bourget airport on August 24. According to a statement from the Paris prosecutor's office, he is suspected of involvement in a number of offenses, including failure to provide the requested information to the authorities, and management of a messenger that is allegedly used to distribute child pornography and to trade drugs.

According to the French press, Durov, who also has French citizenship, was on the country's wanted list; the businessman could face up to 20 years in prison.

Durov won’t give secrets to West – Russian spy chief

The West is highly unlikely to get any sensitive data on Russia from Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was arrested by the French authorities last week, according to Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

Asked in an interview with TASS on Tuesday whether Moscow was concerned about Durov handing over any secrets to the West, the Russian spy chief rejected the notion. “I really hope that he will not allow this,” Naryshkin said.

The Telegram CEO was arrested at a Paris airport after arriving by private plane from Azerbaijan on Saturday. According to French prosecutors, Durov, who is a citizen of France, Russia, the UAE, and St. Kitts and Nevis, was taken into custody as part of a broader probe investigating child pornography, drug sales, fraud, and other criminal activities on the platform. Durov is also being investigated for allegedly refusing to cooperate with law enforcement looking into cyber and financial crimes.

Telegram has pushed back against the potential charges, saying it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.” Meanwhile, numerous opinion leaders around the world have interpreted the arrest as a crackdown on free speech, with speculation that the US was ultimately behind the detention.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that the arrest had been made “obviously on someone’s advice,” adding that the people behind the decision were hoping to get their hands on Telegram encryption codes. “The French actions have proven that Telegram is indeed a resilient and popular network,” he argued.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed as “utter stupidity” the idea that Telegram users would have to delete their message feeds on the platform following Durov’s arrest, adding that senior Russian government officials do not use the network for work purposes.

French President Emmanuel Macron has insisted that Durov’s arrest “is in no way a political decision,” noting that his country remains committed to the principle of free speech. However, Peskov suggested that the investigation could turn political after all.

Any charges against Durov “require… a serious evidence base,” he cautioned. “Otherwise, it will be a direct attempt to restrict the freedom of communication and, one might even say, to directly intimidate the head of a large company.”

Watch Russian Assault Units Advance Towards Ukrainian Troop Positions

The task of Russian assault groups is to cut the supply lines of the large Ukrainian Armed Forces garrison in Ugledar, which passes through the settlement.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has released footage of combat pairs on motorcycles breaking through the gray zone to Ukrainian Armed Forces positions.

At the very edge of the forest belt the attackers dismount and storm the trenches. At the same time, an armored group with heavy equipment moves forward, firing at the enemy from tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.

Russia pounds Ukraine with missiles, drones for second day in row, Kyiv says

Russia launched several waves of missile and drone attacks overnight targeting Kyiv and other regions, Ukraine's military said early on Tuesday, a day after Moscow's biggest such attack of the war.

The size of the Tuesday attacks was not immediately known, but Ukraine's air force said it recorded the launch of several groups of drones and the take-off from Russian airfields of strategic Tu-85 strategic bombers and MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft.

Aha Dua Perkata could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said that its strikes on Monday hit "all designated targets" in Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure.

Russian Armed Forces liberate two settlements in Kursk Region

The Russian military liberated two more settlements in the Kursk direction, Deputy Head of the Main Military Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces and Akhmat Special Force Head Major General Apty Alaudinov said.

"I would like to happily say that the Arbat unit has completely mopped up today Nizhnyaya Parovaya and Nechaev - the two settlements, with Regiment 1427 coming there after them. So it turns out that this area has also been mopped up, with control established," Alaudinov said in a video posted on a Telegram channel.

No particular changes took place today in the situation on the line of engagement, the general said. "The enemy has huge losses today indeed. They attacked all over the day and sustained very big losses exactly because of that," he noted.

Two infantry combat vehicles, two armored combat vehicles, and three motor vehicles were also destroyed today in total, Alaudinov added.

Ukraine's Troop Losses Top 6,200 in Operation in Kursk Region - MoD

The Ukrainian armed forces have lost more than 6,200 servicepeople and 73 tanks since the beginning of the operation in the Kursk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"In total, during the military operations in the Kursk region, the enemy lost more than 6,200 servicepeople, 73 tanks, 33 infantry fighting vehicles, 61 armored personnel carriers, 404 armored combat vehicles," the ministry said in a statement.

Over the past day, Ukraine lost up to 400 servicepeople and 27 units of armored vehicles, including one tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, three armored personnel carriers and 21 armored combat vehicles, in the Kursk region, according to the statement.

Units of the Russian northern group repelled attacks by Ukrainian troops and thwarted attempts by Ukrainian troops to attack in eight directions in the region, the ministry said, adding that Kiev has lost up to 30 people, one tank, three combat armored vehicles.

Chinese Scientists Propose New Method to Produce Water on Lunar Surface

China’s 2020 Chang’e 5 mission was the first to bring lunar soil samples to Earth in over four decades.

Chinese scientists have found a way to retrieve water from the surface of the Moon. The new method has only been tested on moon dirt samples brought back from China’s 2020 Chang’e 5 mission, but the findings may suggest that Moon base settlers could potentially produce drinkable water from moon soil.

In the study, which was published in the journal The Innovation, the researchers found that the moon samples had high concentrations of hydrogen and oxygen and other elements. When it was heated to temperatures exceeding 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius), the elements within those samples produced water vapor according to Chinese state media.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) - who were involved in the study alongside those from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering - have described the technique as “highly practical”.

The South China Morning Post adds that this approach could potentially produce up to 76 milligrams of water from 1 gram of lunar soil. That means that one ton of soil could produce about 50 liters (13 gallons) which would be enough for 50 people to drink in a day. The oxide mineral ilmenite found in the soil, as well as some of the other minerals, are capable of storing large amounts of hydrogen thanks to billions of years of exposure to solar wind.

The finding is promising, however the researchers caution that further missions will have to be carried out to see how feasible this technique would be in real life. Melting lunar soil by focusing sunlight through concave mirrors is one technique, for instance, that the team is contemplating.

The technique depends on extracting hydrogen and oxygen from the soil at extremely high temperatures, and was described on Thursday as “highly practical” by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The search for water has long been one of the top priorities for lunar exploration missions, but previous efforts had focused on the search for natural water reserves.

But researchers from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, the CAS Institute of Physics and other institutions came up with the new method after studying lunar rocks brought back to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 probe in 2020.

The team found that some of the minerals in lunar soil – especially the oxide mineral ilmenite – store large amounts of hydrogen as a result of billions of years of exposure to the solar wind.

When heated, the hydrogen chemically reacts with iron oxides in the minerals to produce large amounts of water, as well as iron and ceramic glass.

Then, when the temperature passes 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 Fahrenheit), the lunar soil itself will start to melt, releasing the water in the form of a vapour.

The team said they had studied the lunar soil using techniques such as high-resolution electron microscopy and concluded that 1 gram of lunar soil would produce about 51 to 76 milligrams of water.

This means that a tonne of lunar soil could produce about 50 litres (13 gallons) – “basically enough for 50 people to drink in a day”, the academy said.

Based on these findings, the team proposed a method of heating the lunar soil until it melts by focusing sunlight through concave mirrors.

The researchers said that the iron produced as a by-product of this process could be used as a raw material for making electronic equipment on the moon, while the melted lunar soil could be used as a construction material for a base.

But they also warned that subsequent Chang’e lunar missions would have to carry out further feasibility checks to see if this technique can become a reality.

The academy said: “This method is highly practical and is expected to provide a design basis for the construction of future lunar research stations and space stations.”

The study was published on Thursday in The Innovation, an English-language, peer-reviewed academic journal founded by a group of young Chinese scientists in 2020, which has become one of the world’s top multidisciplinary publications.

The search for water on the moon has been a decades-long quest for lunar scientists, who now believe that ice may exist in its natural state at its south and north poles, as well as in areas that lie in perpetual shadow.

The samples brought back from Chang’e-5 have shown that some minerals in the lunar soil – including glass and pyroxene – contain small amounts of water.

A separate analysis of those samples – published in the journal Nature Astronomy last month – detected a hydrated mineral “enriched” with molecular water.

But the Chinese Academy of Sciences warned on Thursday that the water content of these minerals is very sparse, ranging from 0.0001 to 0.02 per cent, making it difficult to extract and use them.

A variety of missions in the next few years will continue the hunt for water on the moon, including Russia’s Luna 26 orbiter and China’s Chang’e-7 mission, which is scheduled to launch around 2026 and will land on the lunar south pole.