Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
Russia/Ukraine
Reservists receive training during the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Taoyuan, Taiwan July 9, 2025.
22,000: Taiwan has mobilised 22,000 reservists to carry out its largest-ever military drills this week, with surface-to-air missiles and US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems as part of the maneuvers. When asked about the drills on Tuesday, the foreign ministry in Beijing – which considers self-governing Taiwan a part of China – called the exercises “nothing but a bluff.”
50%: US copper prices surged after President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to impose 50% tariffs on the metal. Copper is essential for home construction, car manufacturing, energy infrastructure, and data centers.
728: Russia launched a record 728 drones at Ukraine overnight, marking the third time in the last two weeks that Moscow has outdone itself. Last night’s attack came after Trump resumed shipments of critical air-defense weapons to Ukraine and declared he was tired of Putin’s “bullsh*t” on Tuesday.
400: A massive wildfire has reached the outskirts of Marseille, France’s second-largest city, prompting the evacuation of at least 400 people and injuring nine firefighters. At its peak, the fire spread at 1.2 kilometers per minute, driven by strong winds, dense vegetation, and steep terrain. Over 1,000 firefighters have been deployed to battle the blaze, which continues to threaten the area.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with U.S President Trump in the Hague during the NATO Summit on Wednesday June 25, 2025.
Now Zelensky has a reason to say ‘thank you’
In a major White House U-turn, US President Donald Trump declared that his government would resume sending key defensive weapons – including Patriot missiles – to Ukraine. The move, which undoes a Pentagon order from last week to pause the shipments, is a big win for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as Ukraine has recently been suffering Russia’s worst aerial attacks of the entire war. The decision also reflects Trump’s growing impatience with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has rebuffed White House calls for meaningful talks on a ceasefire.
Trump’s latest tariff extravaganza
The Trump administration has announced a new schedule of tariffs on 14 countries, which appears to replace some of the “reciprocal tariffs” that he announced on April 2. While the rates are similar to those earlier ones – standouts include 25% rates on close US allies Japan and South Korea – Trump has also extended the deadline for negotiations from July 9 until Aug. 1. A preliminary deal with the EU, a major trading partner which has played a bit of hardball with Trump, is reportedly close, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said further announcements are due in the next 48 hours.Afghan refugees face triple deportation threat
Iran plans to deport at least one million more people back to their home country of Afghanistan, adding to the 1.2 million already deported from both Iran and Pakistan this year. The move is part of a larger crackdown on the millions of migrants from Afghanistan, many of them undocumented, who have fled war to settle in both countries over the past two decades. Meanwhile, Germany has also pledged to increase deportations to Afghanistan amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment. Aid groups warn that Afghanistan is ill-prepared to cope with the arrivals.Russian Minister of Transport Roman Starovoit attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, Russia January 30, 2025.
$246 million: Ousted Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was found dead in his car with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday, just hours after being fired by President Vladimir Putin. Starovoit, a former governor of the Kursk region – which was invaded by Ukraine last summer – was potentially implicated in an embezzlement probe focused on $246 million which was earmarked for border defenses. The Kremlin says that it was “shocked” to learn about his death.
2,355: X said the Indian government ordered it to take down 2,355 accounts last week, including two belonging to Reuters. The Indian government, which has come under fire from press freedom watchdogs in recent years, said it had “no intention” of blocking international news orgs. X warned that it was “deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India.”
4,000: Clashes between armed groups in Myanmar have driven around 4,000 refugees across the border into India’s Mizoram state in recent days. While both of the warring groups oppose Myanmar’s military junta, they are also competing for territorial control among themselves.
200,000: Liberian President Joseph Bokai issued a formal state apology to victims of the country’s brutal 14-year civil war, as part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation campaign. The war, which raged from 1989 until 2003, claimed the lives of around 200,000 people and saw widespread abuses including mass killings, rape, and the use of child soldiers.
The BRICS, a loose grouping of ten “emerging market” economies led by Brazil, Russia, India and China, held their 17th annual summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this weekend. While the official readout from the summit emphasized their commitment to multilateralism, the guestlist begged to differ. Five of the 10 leaders were no-shows, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While the group’s declaration took aim at tariffs increases and recent attacks against Iran, it stopped short of mentioning the US or naming President Donald Trump directly. For more, here’s GZERO writer Willis Sparks’ explainer on why the BRICS are a bad bet.Demonstrators with US and Ukrainian flags rally near the U.S. Capitol ahead of President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C., USA, on March 4, 2025.
Earlier this week, the US cut shipments of a number of weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot interceptor missiles, a critical part of Kyiv’s air defenses. Here’s a short guide to making sense of why that happened, and how it could affect the course of the Russia-Ukraine war.
What is a Patriot interceptor? It’s one of the world’s most advanced air defenses, able to shoot ballistic missiles out of the sky. The US-made system is sold to nearly 20 countries, and was first given to Ukraine in early 2023. The Patriot’s main theaters of action are Ukraine as well as in the Middle East, where it has protected US forces and Israel from ballistic missiles launched by Iran or Iran-aligned groups.
Why did the US stop sending them to Ukraine? Low stockpiles, evidently. Nearly two years of intense use in both Ukraine and the Middle East have crushed supplies of Patriot missiles, of which only about 500 are made annually, and drawn resources away from other critical weapons systems as well.
After the Trump administration bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities ten days ago, for example, American forces fired the largest salvo of Patriots “in history” to repel Tehran’s (well-telegraphed) retaliatory airstrikes on the US base in Qatar. That may have pushed supplies below critical levels, raising concerns about broader US weapons production capacity.
Still, this is a message to Ukraine, right? Even if concern about scarcity was the primary motivation, US President Donald Trump – who won the election in part on promises to cut aid for Ukraine and force both sides into a “deal” – has clearly hit Kyiv with the short end of the stick here.
It’s worth noting that the decision to cut the shipments to Ukraine reportedly came from Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, a prominent China hawk who sees support for Ukraine as a distraction from challenging Beijing.
And that’s not the only China connection in this story. Amid a growing trade and technology war with Washington, Beijing recently banned the US-bound export of certain minerals that are essential in weapons manufacturing. Among them were gallium, antimony, and germanium, critical components of various weapons and ammunition systems, including the Patriot.
“To me, this is the most interesting untold story,” says Eurasia Group research director Marc Gustafson, a former national security intelligence chief, “mostly because the Pentagon cannot talk about it. China’s bans have been crushing for the US defense industry, particularly regarding the weapons the US has been providing to Ukraine and Israel.”
How badly will this decision hurt Ukraine? Kyiv called the announcement a “total shock.” At a moment when Russia has been launching its most ferocious – and increasingly indiscriminate – aerial assaults of the entire war, losing the Patriots will leave Ukraine’s cities and civilians vastly more exposed to the Kremlin’s missiles and drones.
But the move will have less effect on Kyiv’s primary goal of simply holding off Russia at the front lines, says Alex Brideau, Eurasia Group’s top Ukraine and Russia expert. “It’s not a back breaker,” he says. Still, if the Trump administration cuts to conventional ammunition last for any length of time, Ukraine could be in more serious trouble fast.
Hard Numbers: Russia and Azerbaijan tensions rise, Americans hit the road in record numbers, & More
People followed by mourners carry the coffins of Azerbaijani brothers Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov, who died in Russian police custody, to a cemetery in Hacibedelli, Azerbaijan, on July 1, 2025, in this still image from video.
2: Russia-Azerbaijan ties are fraying after the South Caucasus country said two Azeri brothers died last week after being tortured in Russian police custody. In retaliation, Azerbaijan has arrested half a dozen Russian state journalists working in the capital, Baku. The two former-Soviet countries generally get along but have had frictions over Azeri migrant labor in Russia, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that was shot down over Russian airspace, and Moscow’s backing for Armenia in that country’s decades long conflict with Azerbaijan. The Kremlin said Azerbaijan was being “extremely emotional.”
87.1%: In the latest blow to free movement in Europe, Poland has introduced checks along its borders with Germany and Lithuania, partly a response to the surging number of people seeking first-time asylum in the country – the amount increased 87.1% from 2023 to 2024, more than any other country in Europe. The move is also a tit-for-tat measure, after Berlin introduced its own checks at the Polish-German frontier.
500: The war is going from bad to worse for Ukraine: After Russia launched over 500 drones and other missiles into its cities over the weekend, the United States halted a weapons shipment that was headed to Ukraine. The White House said it was putting its own interests first after lending military support to other countries.
14: With international demand for customer service centers soaring, is Africa ready to answer the call? Experts think so, predicting that the “Business-Process Outsourcing” industry will grow 14% annually on the continent in the coming years, nearly twice the global average. Anglophone African countries are particularly well positioned – the industry is growing nearly 20% per year in Kenya.
72.2 Million: A record 72.2 million Americans are set to travel domestically during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday weekend, according to the AAA, a nationwide motorists’ group. More than 60 million of them will be taking trips by car, driven – as it were – by the lowest summer gas prices since 2021 (and some fight delays).
A banner announces the construction of a photovoltaic solar farm in Cabaiguan, Cuba, on May 21, 2025.
55: China is financing 55 new solar power projects in Cuba this year, the latest sign of how it is overtaking Russia as the crisis-wracked island’s main benefactor. Some of Moscow’s recent projects in the communist country have stalled: a Russian firm pledged two years ago to revitalize a sugar mill that once employed 2,000 people, but it still sits idle.
3%: In a win for US President Donald Trump, Canada walked back on its 3% Digital Services Tax that prompted the United States to suspend trade talks on Friday. The tax, which disproportionately affected American technology firms, was set to take effect on Monday.
71: Israel’s strike last Tuesday allegedly killed 71 people at a notorious detention facility in Tehran, per Iranian State Media. The prison houses thousands of political prisoners, including opposition politicians, journalists, and activists.
4,000: More than a third of Tuvalu’s population – around 4,000 residents – have applied for a landmark ‘climate visa,’ which grants Australian residency to migrants from Pacific Island nations battling rising sea levels. NASA scientists expect that the country’s main island, home to 60% of the population, will be fully submerged by 2050.
$80,000: US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly re-routed $80,000 in political donations to a newly established personal company during her time as South Dakota’s governor in 2023. Noem’s lawyer said she “fully complied with the letter and the spirit of the law.”