Reasons for hope.
We may have averted World War III this week.
A lot happened over the last week that could change the world we share.
Israel conducted an aerial attack on Iran on Thursday night. Iranian state media said explosions were heard around the city of Isfahan — where there’s a large airbase, a missile production complex, and nuclear facilities — and that three drones were destroyed.
Still, no casualties or significant damage were reported, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said no nuclear sites were damaged.
That means Iran and Israel both shot drones in each other’s territory over the last week, but the strikes did limited damage. There’s still an opportunity to de-escalate.
Iran has already tried to downplay the attacks, calling them an “infiltration” and refraining from blaming Israel directly.
A full-scale hot war in this situation would be a choice, not a necessity, and it’s a choice almost everyone is cautioning against (except for John Bolton, but that’s to be expected).
Then, on Saturday, the House of Representatives finally passed a bill with billions of dollars in military assistance for Ukraine. The Senate still needs to vote for final passage, but that should be a comparatively easy lift.
It couldn’t come at a more urgent moment for Ukraine, which was facing significant setbacks on the battlefield due to a lack of supplies.
But don’t worry, there’s still plenty to fret about. This week, the What I’m Reading section has stories about Russian infiltration in Poland and Germany. Georgia is kicking off with massive protests and Croatia held elections. It’s also worth paying attention to the conflict in Myanmar, where armed groups are giving the military junta a run for their money.
Don’t forget to read my recent piece for Lazo on Russian influence and the rule of law in Slovakia.
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What I’m writing:
• I spoke with Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia and a leading member of the Ukrainian-American diaspora. We discussed religious freedom in Ukraine and the history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
• I dug into, once again, the latest on Ukraine aid, what’s in Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s new bill to fund Ukraine’s defense, and how it’s different from the bill the Senate already passed. If you want to understand the parliamentary minutiae and last-minute plays in the House over the last week, there’s a lot of that.
What I’m reading:
• A Polish man was charged over claims he assisted an alleged Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, CNN reports.
• Two men were arrested in Poland over an attack in March on a senior aide to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Lithuania, the BBC reports. Lithuanian intelligence said the attack was likely “Russian-organized.”
• The Insider identified a man who threatened Russian economist and activist Maxim Mironov and attacked his wife in Argentina. The culprit turned out to be Grzegorz Daszkowski, a Polish citizen, who was later arrested. Through Daszkowski, law enforcement apprehended other Polish criminals who attacked the former head of Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, Leonid Volkov, in Lithuania.
• Fears are growing that Germany’s far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), is becoming a tool of Russian influence operations, the New York Times reports. In just the past months, a leading AfD politician was accused of taking money from pro-Kremlin strategists, one of the party’s parliamentary aides was exposed as having ties to a Russian intelligence operative, and some of its lawmakers flew to Moscow to observe Russia’s stage-managed elections.
• Two alleged spies suspected of planning to sabotage German military aid for Ukraine have been arrested in the southern German state of Bavaria, the BBC reports.
• A German far-right lawmaker is on trial for using a Nazi slogan, Reuters reports. Bjoern Hoecke, a leading member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), appeared in court just months before a state election he hopes to win.
• Some 20,000 protesters rallied in Georgia after lawmakers advanced a controversial "foreign influence" law that opponents say will undermine Tbilisi's longstanding European aspirations, France 24 reports.
• Armenia urged the International Court of Justice to hold Azerbaijan responsible for what it said was the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Reuters reports.
• The United States is helping Armenia modernize its military, EurasiaNet reports.
• The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) published a new report arguing that Kyrgyzstan is no longer “an island of democracy” in Central Asia.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s plans to hand a rundown 100-hectare part of the Hungarian capital to a developer from the United Arab Emirates risks creating “a playground for billionaires to build apartments for millionaires,” Balkan Insight reports.
• Voting took place in Croatia in a parliamentary election after a campaign centered on a rivalry between the President and Prime Minister of the country, the Associated Press reports.
• Croatian President Zoran Milanović, who gained international attention for his criticism of the EU and NATO, emerged as a significant force in the country’s general election, Politico Europe reports. Though lacking an outright majority, his party’s second-place spot will make him a consequential voice in remolding Zagreb’s political direction.
• The U.S. Justice Department is under increasing pressure to reach a plea deal for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after Australia asked if a felony plea deal would be accepted, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• U.S. President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a call that Washington will not support any Israeli counterattack against Iran, Axios reports. “You got a win. Take the win,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu during the call.
• Hundreds of Israeli settlers surrounded Palestinian villages and attacked residents across the occupied West Bank after an Israeli boy who had gone missing from a settlement was found dead, eyewitnesses told CNN.
• The Israeli military either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent settler attacks in the West Bank that displaced people from 20 communities and have entirely uprooted at least seven communities since Oct. 7, Human Rights Watch said.
• The commissioner general of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, told the U.N. Security Council that UNRWA staff detained by Israeli security forces had “shared harrowing accounts of mistreatment and torture in detention.”
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not taken action on staff recommendations to sanction Israeli military units linked to killings or rape, ProPublica reports. Axios later reported that Blinken plans to sanction the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank in the coming days.
• Palestine’s president rejected U.S. requests to hold off on an imminent U.N. membership vote, Axios reports.
• The United States vetoed the U.N. Security Council vote on granting Palestine full member status at the United Nations, the Guardian reports.
• A Lebanese money changer under U.S. sanctions over his alleged role as a financial middleman between Hamas and Iran was found shot dead at a villa near Beirut, the New York. Times reports. Lebanon’s interior minister said the initial findings suggest the killing “was carried out by intelligence services” and that he believed Mossad was responsible.
• A senior U.S. Air Force leader deployed in Niger raised concerns over the Biden administration’s reluctance to act on an eviction notice from the military junta, the Washington Post reports.
• Thousands protested in Niger’s capital to call for the withdrawal of the 1,000 U.S. armed forces personnel stationed there, the New York Times reports. It came just days after Russia delivered military equipment and instructors to the country’s military.
• According to Russia’s state-owned news outlet Ria Novosti, the Russian personnel now in Niger are part of Africa Corps, the new paramilitary structure intended to replace the Wagner group.
• A resistance group fighting Myanmar’s military rule said its fighters repelled an attempt by junta troops to advance on the key border town of Myawaddy that was seized by the rebels. Reuters has the story.
• Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was moved by the military junta to an unknown location from a prison in the capital, raising questions about her safety, the New York Times reports.
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com