Ucraina

(REUTERS) Ukraine sees signs Kharkiv front stabilising, but warns of buildup near Sumy region

• Ukraine's top military spy said on Tuesday Kyiv's troops appeared close to stabilising the situation after Russia's ground attack into the Kharkiv region, but warned of a buildup of Russian forces to the north near the Sumy region.
• A cross-border attack on a new flank in Sumy region would likely stretch Kyiv's depleted defenders even further after Russia's incursion in the north of Kharkiv region opened a new front on Friday, forcing Ukraine to rush in reinforcements.
• Apart from the devastation and the blow to Ukrainian morale in the region, home to Ukraine's second largest city of Kharkiv, the incursion is a distraction for Kyiv's defensive operations in the east where Russia has focused its offensive for months.
• Military spy chief Kyrylo Budanov said Moscow had already committed all the troops it had in the border areas for the Kharkiv operation, but that it had other reserve forces that he expected to be used in the coming days. Top Ukrainian officials say they do not believe Russia has the troop numbers to capture the city of Kharkiv.
• Russia was maintaining the tempo of its attacks in the region, according to data compiled by the Ukrainian General Staff which said there had been 13 Russian assaults so far on Tuesday, compared with 13 on Monday and 22 the day before. Budanov described the situation as fluid and rapidly changing, saying the "active phase" of the Russian operation was still under way.

(Associated Press) Blinken in Kyiv says US arms will make a difference as Ukraine reels from a new Russian offensive

• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that American military aid on its way to Ukraine would make a “real difference” on the battlefield, as the top diplomat made an unannounced visit to Kyiv to reassure an ally facing a fierce new Russian offensive.
• In increasingly intense attacks along the northeastern border in recent days, Moscow’s troops have captured around 100 to 125 square kilometers (40 to 50 square miles) in the Kharkiv region that includes at least seven villages, according to open-source monitoring analysts. Though most of those villages were already depopulated, thousands of civilians in the area have fled the fighting.
• The Kremlin’s forces have also been making a concerted push in the east, seeking to drive deeper into the partly occupied Donetsk region. The main focus of Russian attacks Tuesday was Pokrovsk, just inside the Ukrainian border in Donetsk, where the Kremlin’s forces launched 24 assaults, the Ukrainian general staff said in a report.
• Analysts have called this moment one of the most dangerous for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Tuesday for more air defense systems to protect civilians under Russian fire in the northeast.
• The visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long-delayed foreign assistance package that sets aside $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, much of which will go toward replenishing badly depleted artillery and air defense systems. Some of that “is now on the way,” Blinken said, and some has already arrived in Ukraine. Moscow’s renewed offensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv is the most significant border incursion since the early days of the war — and comes after months when the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line barely budged.

Israele

(Associated Press) The Latest | UN says over half a million people flee fighting in Gaza; Israel marks Independence Day

• Israel’s escalating incursion into Rafah the past week has driven some 450,000 Palestinians to flee the city, many of them setting up new sprawling tent camps further north. Israel has seized the Rafah crossing into neighboring Egypt and has stepped up bombardment and ground incursions into parts of the city, saying it aims to root out Hamas fighters who remain there.
• The United Nations chief “is appalled by the escalation of military activity in and around Rafah by the Israeli Defense Forces,” which is further impeding desperately needed aid deliveries and worsening “an already dire situation,” the U.N. says. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also criticized the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Hamas militants, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Tuesday.
• Thousands of people marched in the southern Israeli city of Sderot on Tuesday calling for the a return to military occupation for Gaza once the war is over. Far-right Israelis are calling for the reestablishment of settlements in Gaza, saying they’re needed to protect the country. Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in 2005, uprooting some 9,000 settlers in a move that bitterly divided Israel.
• “We want to tell everybody in Israel and everybody in the world that Gaza is very very important to us and it has to be again in Israeli hands. Because if it won’t be in Israeli hands we won’t finish the things that we started doing in this war,” said Smadar Dei, one of the marchers. The Biden administration says it won’t accept a return of Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip. Sderot, which is a few kilometers from Gaza, was one of the first towns impacted when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, and the war is still very much felt in the area.
• The United Nations said Tuesday that a U.N. convoy that was attacked in Gaza a day earlier, killing an Indian staff member and injuring another staffer, was clearly marked and its planned movements had been announced in advance to Israeli authorities.
• Qatar’s prime minister said Tuesday that Doha would continue in its work as a mediator between Israel and Hamas amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and that “a cease-fire is required now.”

Europa

Georgia:

(REUTERS) Georgian parliament passes 'foreign agent' bill amid protests

• Georgia's parliament on Tuesday passed the third and final reading of a "foreign agents" bill, clearing a major hurdle on its way to becoming law. The draft now goes to President Salome Zourabichvili, who has said she will veto it, but her decision can be overridden by another vote in parliament, controlled by the ruling party and its allies.
• Opponents of the bill, seen as a test of whether the South Caucasus country stays on a path towards integration with Europe or pivots back towards Russia, have called for further protests. The bill passed with 84 members of parliament out of 150 voting in favour.
• It would require organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, imposing onerous disclosure requirements and punitive fines for violations. Opponents have dubbed the bill "the Russian law", comparing it to Russian legislation used to target critics of President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
• Georgia's government says the bill is needed to promote transparency, combat "pseudo-liberal values" promoted by foreigners and preserve the country's sovereignty.
• About 1,000 protesters picketed the fortress-like parliament building amid a major police presence during the debate, with water cannon idling nearby. On hearing the bill had passed, they shouted "Slaves!" and "Russians!".

Russia

(Associated Press) Another top Russian Defense Ministry official is arrested on bribery charges amid Kremlin shake-up

• A second senior Russian defense official was arrested on bribery charges, officials said Tuesday, days after President Vladimir Putin replaced the defense minister in a Cabinet shake-up that fueled expectations of more such purges.
• Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, the 55-year-old chief of the Defense Ministry’s main personnel directorate, was arrested in a raid early Monday on his suburban Moscow villa, Russian media reported. He was detained on charges of bribery and jailed pending an investigation and trial, according to the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top state criminal investigation agency.
• Kuznetsov is accused of accepting an “exceptionally large bribe,” a charge punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The committee alleged he received the bribe in his previous post as head of the military General Staff’s directorate in charge of preserving state secrets, a position he held for 13 years.
• In the raid, agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, broke down the doors and windows of his home while he was asleep, the reports said, seizing gold coins, luxury items and over 100 million rubles (just over $1 million) in cash. His wife, who previously worked in several Defense Ministry structures, was also reportedly interrogated.

(REUTERS) Belousov says Russia must win in Ukraine while minimising casualties

• Russia's main task is to achieve victory on the battlefield in Ukraine with the minimal loss of troops, incoming defence minister Andrei Belousov said on Tuesday.
• Belousov, an economist whom President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly nominated on Sunday to replace Sergei Shoigu, said the military sector needed more efficiency and innovation in order to achieve its goals.
• "The key task, of course, remains achieving victory. Ensuring the achievement of the military-political goals of the special military operation, set by the president. At the same time - I want to specifically emphasise this - with minimal human losses," he told a parliamentary hearing.
• Belousov, who has no military experience, has been tasked by Putin with maximising efficiencies in Russia's war economy as its troops, having regained the initiative, attempt to push deeper into Ukraine.
• He said defence spending needed to be optimised so that "every rouble of budget money, which is ultimately paid by our citizens, brings maximal effect".

(Associated Press) Russian president Putin to make a state visit to China this week

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, in the latest show of unity between the two authoritarian allies against the U.S.-led Western liberal global order.
• The Kremlin in a statement confirmed the trip and said Putin was going on Xi’s invitation. It said that this will be Putin’s first foreign trip since he was sworn in as president and began his fifth term in office.
• China has backed Russia politically in the conflict in Ukraine and has continued to export machine tools, electronics and other items seen as contributing to the Russian war effort, without actually exporting weaponry. China is also a major export market for energy supplies that keep the Kremlin’s coffers full. The two continent-sized authoritarian states are increasingly in dispute with democracies and NATO while seeking to gain influence in Africa, the Middle East and South America.
• Putin’s visit comes just days ahead of Monday’s inauguration of William Lai Ching-te as the next president of Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China claims as its own territory and threatens to annex by force if necessary.
• Xi returned last week from a five-day visit to Europe, including stops in Hungary and Serbia, countries viewed as close to Russia. The trip, Xi’s first to the continent in five years, was seen as an attempt to increase China’s influence and drive a wedge between the EU and NATO on one side, and a yet-to-be-defined bloc of authoritarian nations on the other underpinned by Chinese economic influence that has been wavering amid a housing crisis and dramatically slower domestic economic growth.

Politica internazionale

Nord America

USA:

(Bloomberg) Biden Adds Tariffs on Chinese Chips, Critical Minerals, EVs

• President Joe Biden is hiking tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports — including semiconductors, batteries, solar cells, and critical minerals — in an election-year bid to bolster domestic manufacturing in critical industries.
• The US will also raise levies on port cranes and medical products, in addition to previously reported increases on steel, aluminum, and electric vehicles. The changes are projected to affect around $18 billion in current annual imports, the White House said.
• The moves represent Biden’s most comprehensive update to the China tariffs first imposed by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, and a recognition that a hawkish approach to trade with Beijing remains popular with US voters. None of Trump’s tariffs will be reduced. Biden will ratchet up rates on goods the US struggled to import during the coronavirus pandemic, and for key industries — like chips and green energy — that he’s sought to bolster since he took office.
• Still, Biden must strike a careful balance. Additional tariffs risk increasing prices for consumers already hurting from inflation, and inspiring the ire of China, which could choose to retaliate in kind.

Asia e Pacifico

Nuova Caledonia (Francia):

(REUTERS) New Caledonia deploys more police as 'streets on fire' over voting reform

• Authorities in the French-ruled Pacific island of New Caledonia sent more police onto the streets, shut the international airport and imposed a curfew in the capital after protests over the territory's voting system turned violent.
• New Caledonia's capital Noumea was covered by a thick cloud of black smoke as night fell and the curfew started, local broadcaster NC La 1ere reported, adding that a local sport facility had been set ablaze.
• One of five island territories spanning the Indo-Pacific held by France, New Caledonia is the word's third-largest nickel producer and is the centrepiece of French President Emmanuel Macron's plan to increase Paris's influence in the Pacific.
• Violence flared up as lawmakers in France's National Assembly discussed a draft law to change New Caledonian's voting statutes, with a final vote scheduled later on Tuesday in Paris.
• The proposed changes would allow French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years to vote in provincial elections - a move local leaders fear will dilute the vote of indigenous Kanak.