Important Takeaways:
- In the wake of a powerful earthquake shaking Russia and subsequent volcanic eruption, the country has been hit by two more seismic events.
- This magnitude 4.6 earthquake was reported in Buryatia, Russia, around 12 miles from the town of Severomuysk, while the 5.2 magnitude quake was detected 40 miles northeast of the tiny Russian island of Shikotan, just off the coast of Japan’s Hokkaido.
- These quakes occurred only days after a powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the Russian city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky early on Sunday, occurring about 60 miles off the country’s far eastern coast. Russian news outlets reported that Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky residents experienced some of the strongest shaking they had “in a long time,” according to the Associated Press. No major damage has been reported as a result of the quake, Russian media TASS reports, but “buildings are now being examined for potential damage, with special attention paid to social facilities.”
- In the day after the M7.0 quake, over 30 aftershocks were felt around the nearby region.
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Important Takeaways:
- One of Russia’s most active volcanoes spewed plumes of ash 3 miles into the sky
- The Shiveluch volcano began sputtering shortly after a powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off Kamchatka’s east coast early Sunday, according to volcanologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences. They warned that another, even more potent earthquake may be on the way.
- The academy’s Institute of Volcanology and Seismology released a video showing the ash cloud over Shiveluch. It stretched over 490 kilometers (304 miles) east and southeast of the volcano.
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Important Takeaways:
- Vladimir Putin fumed Monday during a televised meeting that his troops need to secure the Russian border after a shock Ukraine incursion. Days later, 100 of them surrendered.
- The latest victory is part of a surprise incursion launched by Ukraine into Russian territory earlier this month.
- Officials confirmed to the Ukrainian newspaper and Bloomberg News that the men, 102 total, were captured at a large underground facility in Kursk Oblast, the Russian region where Ukraine launched its surprise incursion on August 6.
- They were said to be heavily stocked with ammunition and supplies, while the bunker was outfitted with a dining hall, armory, and bathhouse.
- On top of capturing hundreds of soldiers and seizing territory, Ukraine’s surprise incursion has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and represents the most significant attack on Russia since World War II.
- Analysts generally agree that Ukraine’s incursion is designed to pull Russian troops away from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where the country has slowly lost ground in recent weeks, and to capture troops and territory that can act as bargaining chips in potential negotiations.
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Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine’s shock incursion across the Russian border into Kursk Oblast may force important strategic decisions on Moscow as President Vladimir Putin’s troops are taken as prisoners of war and supply lines are threatened. The Ukrainian attack took Russian forces by surprise, according to one U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
- According to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine’s cross-border gambit has allowed Kyiv to seize the battlefield initiative, long held by Russian forces who were able to dictate the time and place of fighting and force Ukrainian troops to expend manpower and equipment on defensive operations.
- “It’s been a very real success,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, now a senior director at the Atlantic Council, told USA TODAY. “The latest data, not confirmed, says they’ve taken as much as 750 square kilometers and may have gone as far as 35 kilometers from the border.”
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the operation in a post Saturday to X, formerly Twitter, describing a push to drive the war into “the aggressor’s territory.” Zelenskyy thanked international partners for implementing sanctions against Russia and the United States for new defense aid, including Stinger missiles, HIMARS mobile artillery ammunition and 155mm artillery shells.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran is accelerating online activity that appears intended to influence the U.S. election, in one case targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack, Microsoft said Friday.
- Iranian actors also have spent recent months creating fake news sites and impersonating activists, laying the groundwork to stoke division and potentially sway American voters this fall, especially in swing states, the technology giant found.
- The findings in Microsoft’s newest threat intelligence report show how Iran, which has been active in recent U.S. elections, is evolving its tactics for another election that’s likely to have global implications. The report goes a step beyond anything U.S. intelligence officials have disclosed, giving specific examples of Iranian groups and the actions they have taken so far.
- The report also reveals how Russia and China are exploiting U.S. political polarization to advance their own divisive messaging in a consequential election year.
- Iran’s U.N. mission sent The Associated Press an emailed statement: “Iran has been the victim of numerous offensive cyber operations targeting its infrastructure, public service centers, and industries. Iran’s cyber capabilities are defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces. Iran has neither the intention nor plans to launch cyber attacks. The U.S. presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere.”
- Microsoft’s report aligns with recent warnings from U.S. intelligence officials, who say America’s adversaries appear determined to seed the internet with false and incendiary claims ahead of November’s vote.
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Important Takeaways:
- After a historically complex, monthslong negotiation involving more than six countries and two dozen prisoners, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it had secured the release of three American citizens from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all of whom are expected to arrive on American soil by nightfall.
- Under the terms of the agreement, 12 political dissidents held in Russia have been released to Germany
- In return, Russia will receive eight of its nationals, including three that were being held in U.S. prisons: Vadim Konoshchenok, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznyov.
- Two Russians held in Slovenia, one in Poland and another in Norway are also headed home. All have known or suspected ties to Russian intelligence, according to U.S. officials.
- The painstakingly choreographed exchange, apparently one of the most complex in history, finally took place on Thursday on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey.
- Not all Americans currently imprisoned in Russia were involved in the swap. American teacher Marc Fogel, musician Michael Travis Leake, U.S. Army staff sergeant Gordon Black, and Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina remain imprisoned, among others.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia warned Wednesday that the assassination in Iran of visiting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh threatened a full “global conflict” — as the terror group called it “a grave escalation” and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatened “harsh punishment” for Israel.
- “We resolutely condemn the attack that led to Mr. Haniyeh’s death,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said soon after Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike while in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president.
- “We believe that such action is aimed against attempts to establish peace in the region, and could significantly destabilize the already tense situation,” he said.
- Russian Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Andrei Nastasin also said the killing “raise[d] the stakes” in tensions already rife over Israel’s war on the terror group after the Oct. 7 slaughter of more than 1,200.
- “The region is currently balancing on the brink of a global conflict,” Natasin said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Washington continues to throw billions into the fire of the Ukraine conflict despite its ballooning debt, Russia’s ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has said.
- The comments followed Monday’s announcement by the Pentagon that the US will send an additional $1.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
- “Washington continues to burn colossal money in the furnace of the Ukraine conflict, and it does so in the face of record levels of US government debt,” the diplomat told journalists.
- US national debt has reached a new milestone, surpassing the $35 trillion mark for the first time, the Treasury Department stated on Monday
- The Pentagon said on Monday that Washington has allocated a total of $56.1 billion to Kiev since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned the United States that if Washington deployed long-range missiles in Germany, then Russia would station similar missiles in striking distance of the West.
- The United States said on July 10 that it would start deploying long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 in preparation for a longer-term deployment that will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonic weapons.
- In a speech to sailors from Russia, China, Algeria and India to mark Russian navy day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, Putin warned the United States that it risked triggering a Cold War-style missile crisis with the move.
- “The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes,” Putin said.
- “We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”
- Russian and U.S. diplomats say their diplomatic relations are worse even that during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and both Moscow and Washington have urged de-escalation while both have made steps towards escalation.
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Important Takeaways:
- French police have arrested a Russian man suspected of planning to destabilize the Olympics, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday, just days before the Games begin.
- The 40-year-old man was detained on Tuesday after police raided his house at the request of the Interior Ministry, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
- The evidence found at his home raised “fears of his intention to organize events likely to cause destabilization during the Olympic Games,” it said.
- Relations between France and Russia have been deteriorating for months as President Emmanuel Macron is a prominent critic of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and a strong supporter of the Kyiv government.
- The arrested man has been placed in pre-trial detention and could face up to 30 years in prison, the statement said.
- Russia’s embassy in Paris said it had not received official notification of the detention.
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