The union updated its personal sanctions list, and it now includes retired Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who allegedly has personal ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sputnik news agency reported. Moreover, the EU imposed sanctions against family members of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and co-founder of Yandex Arkady Volozh. The sanctions are also imposed against several Russian entities, including Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant (UAZ), vehicle developer KAMAZ and aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi. This visit comes a day after the European Union officially approved the sixth package of sanctions against Moscow, including a gradual phase-out of Russian oil and desconnection of more Russian banks from SWIFT.

Russia strengthens ties with Africa despite Western sanctions (Anadolu)
Sanctioned citizens to be able to sell shares of Russian cos without payment of personal income tax (Interfax)
EU adopts sixth package of anti-Russia sanctions, including partial oil embargo (TASS)

Food prices were rising long before Russia’s military operation began in Ukraine, a senior Russian official says.

The looming global food crisis that could result from skyrocketing food prices was enabled by a series of policy mistakes by Washington and Brussels, Maksim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told RT. The conflict in Ukraine alone could not have caused the crisis on such a massive scale, Oreshkin said.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's international food price index shows that between April 2020 and April 2022, global food prices rose by more than 60%. The increase occurred for the most part before February 2022, when Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine. In the four years from 2016 to 2020, the index grew by less than 7 points, but it increased by a whopping 27 points, from 98.1 to 125.7, in 2020-21. After the second year of the pandemic, the index stood at 141.1. Since Russia’s military operation began, the index has risen by a further 17 points.

💬 “Swings like that, with such huge increases in prices, are not happening due to one reason. It’s always a combination of a number of reasons which is leading to such a result,” Oreshkin, Russia’s economic development minister from 2016 to 2020, said.

Putin: Europe's 'Stupid, Short-Sighted' Policies Provoked Energy, Food Crises: European politicians' short-sightedness, not Russia, provoked the energy crisis, and Russia is ready to take necessary measures to alleviate a global food crisis, President Vladimir Putin has said. "We see attempts to shift the blame for what is happening on the food market on Russia, but this is an attempt to pin the blame on someone else," Putin said in an interview with Rossiya-1 on Friday. He recalled that contrary to Western politicians' claims, problems on the global food market began during the COVID-19 pandemic, long before Russia kicked off its special military operation in Ukraine.

Mike Whitney | Kissinger Nails It. For Once. | Kissinger grasps the gravity of the situation which is why he decided to put in his two-cents. But he wasn’t just critical of the policy, he also offered an ominous warning that has been almost-entirely ignored by the media. Here’s what he said:

   💬 “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be    easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante (…) Pursuing the war beyond    that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself”.

There it is in black and white, but let’s break it into two parts to get a better sense of what he’s saying: 1) The policy is wrong. 2) The policy must be changed immediately or the damage to the US and its allies will be severe and permanent. (“Negotiations need to begin in the next two months”)

The sale is significant because it puts an advanced reusable U.S. system capable of multiple deep strikes on the battlefield against Russia for the first time.

WASHINGTON, June 1 (Reuters) - The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia, three people familiar with the situation said. The sale of the General Atomics-made drones could still be blocked by Congress, the sources said, adding that there is also a risk of a last minute policy reversal that could scuttle the plan, which has been under review at the Pentagon for several weeks.

Ukraine has been using several types of smaller shorter range unmanned aerial systems against Russian forces that invaded the country in late February. They include the AeroVironment (AVAV.O) RQ-20 Puma AE, and the Turkish Bayraktar-TB2. But the Gray Eagle represents a leap in technology because it can fly up to 30 or more hours depending on its mission and can gather huge amounts of data for intelligence purposes. Gray Eagles, the Army's version of the more widely known Predator drone, can also carry up to eight powerful Hellfire missiles.

NATO Chief Says West Must Brace for ‘Long Haul’ in Ukraine (Antiwar.com)
Washington: NATO chief meets with Biden, Blinken, Austin, Sullivan to prolong Ukraine war (Anti-Bellum)
$700 million U.S. military package for Ukraine war includes four rocket systems (Anti-Bellum)

US regulators will soon approve "Covid-19 vaccines" for children under five, a top White House health adviser has told reporters, suggesting the green light could come as soon as this month. Speaking during a press briefing on Thursday, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is set to discuss the issue during meetings on June 14 and 15, with a formal decision expected “soon thereafter.”

💬 Dr. David Martin: It’s Gene Therapy, Not a Vaccine (PodCast + Transcript) (The Weston a. Price Foundation): "The public understanding is that you are being treated with an attenuated or alive virus or a fragment of an attenuated and that the treatment is meant to keep you from getting an infection and it is meant to keep you from transmitting the infection that vaccine in the common definition of a vaccine is meant to do. The problem is that in the case of Moderna and Pfizer, this is not a vaccine. This is gene therapy. It’s a chemotherapy agent that is gene therapy. It is not a vaccine. What is this doing? It’s sending a strand of synthetic RNA into the human being and is invoking within the human being, the creation of the S1 spike protein, which is a pathogen. It’s a toxin inside of human beings. This is not only not keeping you from getting sick, it’s making your body produce the thing that makes you sick."

WASHINGTON, D.C. 2 JUNE 2022 – The 68th Bilderberg Meeting will take place from 2 - 5 June 2022 in Washington, D.C., USA. About 120 participants from 21 countries have confirmed their attendance. As ever, a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia, labour and the media has been invited. The list of participants is available on bilderbergmeetings.org.