Russian conscripts called up for military service line up during a ceremony in the Rostov region. REUTERS/Sergey Pivovarov
Ukraine-Russia war
Plans are afoot for an American-owned company seized by the Kremlin and placed under state control to be used to supply food to the Russian army, a document seen by Reuters showed, potentially threatening Moscow’s warming relations with the US.
Top Ukrainian officials flew today for a previously unannounced visit to Paris, where Europeans were assembling to plead Kyiv’s case to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff. Separately, Ukraine and the US have made “substantial progress” in their talks on a minerals deal, Kyiv said.
Israel-Hamas war
Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defense Minister Israel Katz said, as efforts to revive a ceasefire agreement faltered.
“Uninhabitable” according to the US, the Palestinian enclave is strewn with undetonated explosives. Clean-up efforts have stalled. In this visual piece, our graphics teams breaks down the issue.
In other news
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, sources said.
The US Department of Homeland Security said Harvard University will lose its ability to enroll foreign students if it does not meet demands from the Trump administration. We look at how science is caught in the crossfire of Trump’s fight with universities.
The US president plays host later today to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a close ally who wants to act as a power broker between Washington and Europe.
Drug-traffickers were most likely behind a wave of attacks against French prisons though foreign influence and the far-left remain possible instigators, French interior minister Bruno Retailleau said.