State of the World with Ian Bremmer
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A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Hard Numbers: Deadly shelling, drug kingpin's jail security, Lai sighting, Sweden soccer semi, twin takeover

7: Shelling in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson Ukraine on Sunday killed seven people, including a 23-day-old baby girl. The attack followed denials by Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar that Ukrainian forces had engaged in Russian-occupied territory in the region.

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Nuclear weapons could be used; Russia's war gets more dangerous
Nuclear Weapons? Maybe | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Nuclear weapons could be used; Russia's war gets more dangerous

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take to kick off your week. I have to talk about Russia. There's plenty of news in the world. There's Brazil, there's United Kingdom, there's Iran, but no, Russia is the biggest story, and it's because we've just seen the worst week in the war in terms of escalation and danger that we've had since the initial invasion on February 24th. President Putin, after meeting with some of his closest remaining friends on the global stage, the Indian prime minister, the Chinese president, the Kazakh president, all telling him directly, "Hey, the war is a horrible idea. Please end this as soon as possible." Putin does exactly the opposite and escalates. Calls up a minimum of 300,000 additional troops in a mobilization, something he had been dragging his feet on and avoiding over the last months because he knew how unpopular it would be in Russia.

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Ukraine gains; Russia to escalate
Ukraine Gains; Russia To Escalate | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Ukraine gains; Russia to escalate

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here, backstage of all things, but have a few moments and wanted to give you a Quick Take on what is going on in the world. Want to get to Russia, Ukraine.

I mean, of course, over the weekend, massive amount of news after the Queen's death and King Charles in charge of the UK. And also in the United States, we had of course, the 9/11 commemorations. But actually the big news in the world is once again on the ground in Ukraine with the Ukrainians having taken a significant amount of territory with counterattacks against the Russians. This is after months of close to, I mean, just incremental grinding land gains by the Russians, taking a little more than 20% total of Ukrainian territory.

And then over the course of 72 hours, several thousand square kilometers lost by the Russians as the front lines just melted away, particularly in the town of Izium, which has been captured by the Ukrainians critical because it was the headquarters for Russian military operations in the north and half of the Donbas. And of course the Donbas is the entire focus of the second phase as the Russians have announced of the special military operations, the war in Ukraine. A lot of this is, of course, because the Russians are getting exhausted. Because they haven't been able to increase their forces on the ground. And the Ukrainians are getting better trained by NATO and they're getting a lot more weapons from NATO, and they're also fighting very courageously for their territory.

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Employee at a gas station during a protest against rising fuel prices in Assam, India.

David Talukdar via Reuters Connect

Hard Numbers: India taxes diesel exports, Donetsk citizens told to flee, France nationalizes EDF, NYC needs lifeguards

100,000: New export taxes on fuel could reduce the amount of diesel India sells abroad by as much as 100,000 barrels per day, exacerbating shortages and high prices elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Indians keep scooping up Russian oil at bargain prices.

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Putin improves his hand in Ukraine
Putin Improves His Hand In Ukraine | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Putin improves his hand in Ukraine

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, fresh back from Tokyo, not too jet-lagged. And I have your Quick Take to get a start for the week.

And yes, more on Ukraine and the Russian war. You've probably seen the latest news that Luhansk has fallen. The Donbas, which is now the focus of the Russian war, not the entire focus, but certainly the lion's share of. It is comprised of two different administrative regions, one Donetsk, the other Luhansk. The Ukrainians had been giving a pretty solid fight, but they've been losing territory pretty consistently if slowly, over the last month and a half. And this means that Luhansk is now fully under Russian control. It has been largely destroyed. The towns that exist there and the villages are in disastrous shape, many of them with over 80% of homes damaged beyond repair. And so life there is going to be absolutely horrific, but the Russians do have the territory.

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Putin keeps his war cards close
Putin Keeps His War Cards Close | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Putin keeps his war cards close

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey, everybody, Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take to start off your week. It is, of course, May 9th, and that means Victory Day. It's when the Soviets were celebrating their defeat of the Nazis in World War II. The Russians of course, continued that after 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

And today even more important in the context of Russia's invasion into Ukraine, not in any way victorious and Putin, wasn't trying to claim it was, rather, it was all about justifying what he referred to as a preemptive rebuff to NATO aggression. He talked about the Ukrainians as a Nazi regime, that they were trying to get nuclear weapons, that NATO and Ukraine were going to take Crimea back from Russia. All of which was made up from a whole cloth, but nonetheless was the basis of Putin's speech.

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Pro-Russian activists react to Russian recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic.

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Ukraine crisis: Was that an invasion?

In the space of just two hours on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin dramatically escalated the course of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. He unilaterally recognized the independence of the separatist regions of Eastern Ukraine, vowing to send Russian “peacekeepers” into the area, and delivered a ferocious 40-minute speech that, among other things, rejected the idea of Ukraine as an independent country altogether.

What does it mean, and what comes next?

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A militant of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic patrols the damaged building of a local school in the Luhansk region, Ukraine.

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Setting Ukraine's rebels free?

The pace of Russia-Ukraine news is accelerating. Russian President Vladimir Putin says his troops are pulling back from the border, while Washington, NATO, and Kyiv say they’re not. Russia has expelled the deputy American ambassador from Moscow.

The week’s most ominous developments, however, center on the Donbas, the breakaway region of eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian soldiers have been exchanging fire throughout the eight-year conflict. On Thursday, reports emerged that two schools, including a kindergarten, had been hit by shelling. Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over which side fired first, raising concerns that finger-pointing could lead to an escalation. Russia is “actively trying to provoke the Ukrainians into steps that would justify a Russian military intervention,” GZERO Media President Ian Bremmer said on Thursday in Germany ahead of the Munich Security Conference.

But there’s another Donbas development that reminds us of what Putin really wants – and signals what he might do next.

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