On my way to Brussels.
Everyone is on the road.
By the time you read this, I will be arriving in Brussels for a reporting trip. French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, is on his way to Greenland to help reinforce “European sovereignty” over the island.
Other world leaders (I’m not implying that I'm a leader of any world other than my own) are headed to Canada today for the G7 Summit, where they will discuss the possibility of lowering the price cap on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to as low as $45. You can read more about that in my article from this week.
The sixth round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks was meant to take place in Oman today. Let’s see if there can be any progress toward a deal now that Israel is striking Tehran and targeting the country’s nuclear facilities. Some sources claim that, like Ukraine’s daring operation inside Russia, Israel’s Mossad spy agency prepared for the attacks by secretly installing explosive drones inside Iran several months ago. I don’t have anything optimistic to say about the state of the world at the moment. I hope everyone is safe.
For the entire month of June, I am offering a significantly discounted rate for anyone who wants to become a paid subscriber of Lazo Letters: $25.50 per year, or just over $2 per month.
Lazo Magazine also has a Buy Me A Coffee Page, which allows you to make easy, one-off payments. ☕ I accept donations to Lazo in lieu of birthday gifts.
What I’m writing:
• Ukrainian officials estimate that Russia would lose approximately $60 billion in oil revenue by the end of the year if Congress were to pass a tough sanctions bill that has attracted over 82 cosponsors. However, lawmakers appear frozen in inaction as they wait for Trump to figure out how—and whether—he plans to pursue peace. This story is unlocked.
What I’m reading:
• Israel launched a series of large-scale strikes on Iran, targeting Tehran’s nuclear program, CNN reports.
• Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei promised a “harsh punishment” for Israel’s attack, with the Israeli Defense Force later stating that Iran had launched about 100 drones toward Israel, the Washington Post reports.
• Israel’s strikes killed the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Gen. Hossein Salami, and the Iranian military’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, Iranian state media confirmed. Axios has the write-up.
• The State and Defense Departments began the departure of non-essential personnel from diplomatic and military locations in Iraq, Bahrain, and Kuwait, CNN reports.
• In an interview with the Financial Times, Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Recean said that Russia hopes to station an additional 10,000 soldiers in the breakaway, pro-Russian territory of Transnistria to put pressure on southwestern Ukraine.
• Ukraine criticized plans by Poland to create a new national holiday commemorating Polish victims of massacres that Ukrainian nationalists carried out during World War II, Notes from Poland reports. Kyiv says the idea “flies in the face of the spirit of good neighborly relations”.
• Officials at Russia’s domestic security agency are deeply suspicious of China and view Beijing as a security threat, according to what appears to be the agency’s internal document obtained by the New York Times.
• Russia is skirting Western sanctions and expanding its military footprint in Africa, using cargo ships to send tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and other high-value equipment to West Africa, according to a review of satellite imagery and radio signals by the Associated Press.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk won a vote of confidence in his pro-EU, centrist government that he called after the loss of the government-backed candidate in Poland’s presidential election, the BBC reports.
• Bulgarian politicians pressured the European Parliament into delaying a report on European Union accession for North Macedonia, accusing a lawmaker in charge of the report of being too close to the candidate country, Politico Europe reports.
• The DIAL has an excellent deep dive into the Kushner family’s plans to develop an island in Albania.
• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez apologized “to the citizens and supporters of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party,” after the Socialist Party’s third-highest ranking member, Santos Cerdán, was implicated in a kickback scandal. The BBC has the story.
• The Local reports that Sanchez is fighting for his job as the blowback from the corruption scandal grows.
• The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway announced they would sanction Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over Ben Gvir and Smotrich “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”
• French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said it received a letter from the Palestinian Authority that contains “concrete and unprecedented commitments” to reform, including a call for Hamas to no longer rule Gaza and hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian security forces, CNN reports. An Élysée source also said that Paris is moving in the direction of recognizing a Palestinian state.
• The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, suggested that the United States no longer endorses an independent state for Palestinians as a policy goal and that “Muslim countries” should give up their land to create a future Palestinian state, Bloomberg reports.
• Ezzedin al-Haddad, a veteran Hamas fighter, has taken over Hamas operations in Gaza after Israel killed Mohammed Sinwar, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• An al-Qaeda affiliate militia, the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), is now the most well-armed militant force in West Africa and among the most powerful in the world, the Washington Post reports.
• Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s senior aides have blocked extraditions of MS-13 leaders to the United States and repeatedly impeded the work of a U.S. task force as it pursued evidence of Bukele diverting U.S. aid funds to the MS-13 gang, ProPublica reports.
• China is expanding its propaganda efforts in the wake of cuts at Radio Free Asia and other news outlets funded by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the Washington Post reports.
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com