Sixteen months into a presidency that promised to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, Donald Trump now rarely mentions the conflict. Meanwhile, Moscow has quietly signalled it is tired of periodic visits from special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Russia recalled its ambassador to Armenia for consultations in Moscow amid growing tensions with the South Caucasus country over its tilt toward Europe www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Ursula von der Leyen says Russia “has crossed yet another line.” But there’s a square in Moscow called Red Square, and you can fit an infinite number of red lines inside it. Putin keeps probing for soft tissue on NATO and EU territory - and he keeps finding it. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

A Russian drone crashing into an apartment building in Romania should have set off alarm bells across NATO. Instead, it barely registered beyond expressions of concern and a diplomatic protest. That should worry Europeans far more than the drone itself. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Read more about how the math just doesn’t add up when it comes to @FIFAWorldCup in Canada 🇨🇦 www.michaelbociurkiw.com/p/fifas-jack...

As visitor numbers slowly recover, "dark tours" in #Ukraine are becoming part of a new tourism landscape shaped by memory, resilience, and war. www.mysavvytraveller.co/stories/ukra...

Russian drones have breached Romania’s airspace 28 times since Moscow began attacking Kyiv’s ports across Danube, Romania’s defence ministry said on Friday. And yet @NATO & @EU_Commission only have empty rhetoric as a response More here in World Briefing: open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

⚽️ Who is really paying for the 2026 World Cup? While FIFA retains all broadcast, ticket, and sponsorship revenue, Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for over $1 BILLION. www.michaelbociurkiw.com/p/fifas-jack...

The Philippines ranks among hardest-hit countries from the spillover effects of the Middle East conflict: GDP growth forecast for the year to 3.9%, a downgrade of around 1.3 points - the largest downward revision for any economy outside the Middle East open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

From the Philippines and Bangladesh to food bank lines in the United States, the widening Middle East conflict is exposing how fragile the global economy has become for ordinary people. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Ukraine’s closest allies - incl UK 🇬🇧 Canada 🇨🇦 & France 🇫🇷 - block @NATO proposal to triple military aid to Ukraine 🇺🇦 “This is the West being weak-kneed…This sends a bad signal to Russia. Rather than tightening the noose, they’re loosening it,” I told BBC World

Taiwan facing pressure on two fronts - one diplomatic, one maritime. In US, a $14bn arms package remains in limbo amid explanations that defence experts say don't hold up, while in the South China Sea, a Chinese coast guard vessel spent 33 hours in restricted waters open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Heartfelt thanks to our readers and subscribers! open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

@who has raised the alarm over the speed of the current Ebola outbreak in central Africa, which has so far claimed at least 220 lives. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

World Briefing Subscribe now - it’s free open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

As Russia launches its biggest aerial assault of the war - deploying a nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile & striking at the heart of Kyiv - UK, France, Canada and other key NATO allies quietly killed a plan to triple military aid to Ukraine. A clip from my live interview on @cnn.com

Canada and France are among the weakest performers on both defence spending and aid delivered - despite positioning themselves as frontline allies of Ukraine 🇺🇦. Friends of Kyiv, it seems, have plenty of words - and increasingly careful cheques. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

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#BREAKING: UK, France, Spain, Italy & Canada - all staunch allies of #Ukraine - scupper a proposal for NATO allies to spend 0.25 per cent of GDP on military aid for Kyiv. More reporting and commentary on this to come on World Briefing. Subscribe at: open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

#BREAKING: Horrific Russian missile attack on Kyiv: 21 injured, including 15-year-old boy - Mayor. 15 people hospitalized, 3 of them in critical condition. Another 8 injured received assistance on the spot. Maidan Sq in center also hit, damaging main post office

Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian energy infrastructure enters a new, more dangerous phase. The strikes hitting Novorossiysk this weekend weren’t random - but calculated, systematic & aimed squarely at the economic arteries feeding Moscow & St. Petersburg open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Ukraine struck Novorossiysk’s Grushovaya oil depot overnight — a facility feeding Russia’s largest Black Sea export terminal. Analysts say it’s a new phase: systematic, deep, and targeting gear that sanctions make hard to replace. Kyiv wants a deal before winter. Putin’s call.

Ukraine is being asked to facilitate potash exports that would directly benefit the regime that permitted Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its 2022 invasion…. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

#BREAKING: US asked Lithuania, Poland & Ukraine to allow the transit of Belarusian potash through their territories. For Kyiv the request borders on geopolitical absurdity: facilitating export revenues for very regime that helped launch the war devastating Ukraine open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

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The Kremlin’s recent track record in electoral interference - near-success in Moldova’s 2024 referendum, failure in Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary vote, failure to prevent Péter Magyar’s landslide in Hungary - is mixed at best #Armenia open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Armenia holds national elections June 7, and the race has crystallised a years-long drift between Yerevan & Moscow into a sharp confrontation. PM Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party has progressively moved Armenia out of Russia’s orbit & Russia is now openly alarmed. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

In the U.S., an estimated 145,000 citizen children have lost a parent to immigration detention - and the government is barely keeping count. In Ukraine, 20,000 children have been taken by force across the border to Russia, their identities methodically erased. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

In the United States, an estimated 145,000 American citizen children have lost a parent to immigration detention - and the government, by its own admission, is barely keeping count. In Ukraine, at least 20,000 children have been taken across a border by force, their identities methodically erased.

#BREAKING UK government loosens strict sanctions on Russian oil refined into diesel and jet fuel in third countries as prices rise. Represents huge cash windfall for Russia and its ability to fund its war in #Ukraine www.bbc.com/news/article...

Just past 13:30 in Beijing, where Russian president Putin is holding "large-scale" meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping. And now it’s just emerged that the PLA is training Russian troops in warfare skills useful on the #Ukraine frontline open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

World Briefing: The gap between what China says about Ukraine and what its military has been doing just got a lot harder to ignore. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Manager at Trump’s N.J. Golf Club Helped Plan Reflecting Pool Repairs: The manager, David Schutzenhofer, who has run the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster since 2006, is a private citizen with no known training in engineering or architecture. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/u...

Ukraine’s strikes have shattered a “cornerstone” of the wartime compact between the Russian government & the public…The state is failing Russians “in its basic function: to shield them from a military threat.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/w...

“Putin is very nervous, very paranoid, very anxious right now,” said Michael Bociurkiw, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “He is of the mindset that if he loses the war, he’s finished.” www.nbcnews.com/world/china/...

Putin’s visit to China commences today: learn why Xi Jinping will emerge as the senior partner; the strategic importance of a new gas pipeline; why Washington’s latest sanctions waiver on Russian oil hands it yet another economic lifeline in its war against Ukraine open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Poor preparation, gutted State Department expertise, and a transactional approach to foreign policy combined to produce “a set-piece of how not to do a summit.” China, by contrast, planned every detail. One side knows how to think ahead. The other played by ear open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

#44 Rising in News 🚀 From Odesa to the Strait of Hormuz — independent journalism is climbing! Subscribe here: open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

From the frontlines of the soul to the summit in Beijing: what’s really at stake as the human cost of war mounts and a new global order takes shape #Ukraine open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

President Trump departed Beijing on Friday with almost nothing concrete to show for his two-day summit with Xi Jinping of China open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

24/7 - Connecting the geopolitical dots… so that you don’t have to! We’ve hit the #54 spot on the Substack list ‘Rising in News.’ Subscribe now: open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

President Putin expected to travel to China next week, @scmpnews.bsky.social says, citing sources familiar with the matter, who said the Russian leader’s trip would unlikely feature the same “scale and pomp” seen during the U.S.-China summit in Beijing this week open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Trump warns Taiwan against independence while Putin heads to Beijing next week — as Xi tries to keep both Washington and Moscow inside the same geopolitical tent. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Trump warns Taiwan against independence while Putin heads to Beijing next week — as Xi tries to keep both Washington and Moscow inside the same geopolitical tent. open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

World Briefing: We’re #61 ‘Rising in News’ on Substack! Subscribe now: open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Putin Expected to Visit China Next Week, Reports Say: Russian leader’s trip would unlikely feature the same “scale and pomp” seen during the U.S.-China summit in Beijing this week. www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/05/15/p...

World Briefing Plus: As the Diplomats Smile, the Drones Fy - The numbers coming out of Kyiv & across Ukraine are horrific. Russian missile & drone strikes have left dozens dead & many more injured. This is one of the worst single-day tolls in recent memory open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

Number of dead in Kyiv from that violent Russian attacked has surged 21, including 3 children. Dozens injured. First responders still combing through rubble of a direct strike on a multi-storey apartment building #Ukraine

#BREAKING: Many dead, dozens injured in Ukraine. A large-scale attack saw Russian drones fly across much of the country, with Kyiv and the regions of Kremenchuk, Bila Tserkva, Kharkiv, Sumy, and Odesa coming under fire More here: open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...

U.S. President Donald Trump is making his first visit to China in nearly nine years, as the rival superpowers aim to stabilize their fraught relationship open.substack.com/pub/worldbri...