What you need to know

Russia-Ukraine air war intensifies

The war between Russia and Ukraine is increasingly confined to the skies, as trench warfare and drones render ground offensives largely impossible. Russia continues to strike civilian targets and infrastructure, while Ukraine, which has steadily improved its long-range strike capabilities, is now focused on Russia’s oil industry, the backbone of the Russian economy.

Background: Beginning in January 2024 Ukrainian drones struck oil depots and refineries in Bryansk, Krasnodar, Kursk, Belgorod and St. Petersburg. In April of that year attacks reached Tatarstan, hitting the Tatneft refinery and a drone factory, with modified light aircraft sometimes employed as kamikaze drones. From June to July HIMARS rockets and drones hit facilities in Novoshakhtinsk and Volgograd. In August and September more than 100 drones targeted Moscow’s refinery and other depots, prompting Russia to reinforce its air defenses. In November and December 2024 Storm Shadow cruise missiles and drones were used against facilities in Kaluga, Oryol and Novoshakhtinsk.

By January 2025 the campaign had expanded to Kazan’s chemical plants, Engels air base fuel storage and the Kstovo and Volgograd refineries, employing both drones and long-range missiles.

Currently: Since early July 2025 Ukraine has further intensified drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and depots, causing serious supply disruptions. Russia suspended petrol exports on 28 July to stabilize domestic supply, yet wholesale prices of Euro 95 have risen by more than 50%, with retail up nearly 10% year-on-year. Fuel rationing has begun in remote areas such as Crimea and eastern Zabaykalsky.

August this year has represented the most intense phase so far of the Ukrainian aerial war on Russia’s oil industry.

On 2 August the Novokuibyshevsk and Ryazan refineries were hit, followed on 7 August by an attack on the Afipsky refinery. On the night of 9–10 August 2025 more than 120 drones struck the Saratov refinery, sparking fires and killing at least one person. And on 14 August the Volgograd refinery came under fire. The next day, 15 August, the Syzran refinery was attacked. The campaign continues today with a strike on the Novoshakhtinsk refinery.

Domestic petrol supply has been disrupted, with wholesale prices rising more than 50% and retail nearly 10% compared with last year. Regions such as Crimea and eastern Siberia are experiencing rationing, and analysts warn that shortages may persist through September.

Ukrainian drone strikes have also recently disrupted flows through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia, highlighting the vulnerability of cross-border energy routes.

Russia has responded by raising oil exports through its western ports to around 2m barrels a day to compensate for lost refining capacity.

By targeting refineries rather than crude production alone, Ukraine has limited Russia’s ability to supply its domestic market and constrained its export revenues. This has weakened Moscow’s capacity to finance the war and increased volatility in global energy markets.

In return, Russian forces last night launched 574 Shahed-type strike drones along with 40 missiles against Ukraine in one of the largest aerial assaults of the war.

Last night, Ukrainian air defenses neutralized 577 air targets in total, including 546 drones, one Kinzhal missile, 18 Kh-101 cruise missiles and 12 Kalibr cruise missiles.

At least one person was killed and 15 injured. One missile struck an American-owned electronics plant in western Ukraine, causing serious damage and civilian casualties. Explosions were reported in Lviv, Mukachevo, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy, Lutsk, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne.

The scale of the assault suggests a deliberate attempt to saturate Ukrainian defenses and make interception more difficult. Russia combined mass-produced drones with high-end systems such as Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles and long-range cruise missiles. The strikes hit both residential areas and industrial facilities, including foreign-owned civilian infrastructure.

Despite the scale of the barrage, Ukraine intercepted the vast majority of incoming threats, demonstrating its high quality air-defense coordination and effectiveness.

On the diplomatic front: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yeserterday described suggestions of a Zelenskyy–Putin summit as premature, indicating that Russia is not ruling anything out but sees no readiness for immediate talks.

It’s now the U.S. vs China, everyone else needs to pick a side

Myanmar junta presses offensive as elections near

Myanmar’s military has recaptured the strategic town of Demoso in Kayah State after nearly two years under resistance control, following a 16-day offensive. The seizure demonstrates the junta’s determination to reclaim territory ahead of planned elections. Elsewhere, airstrikes have inflicted heavy civilian casualties. In Mawchi a hospital was bombed, killing at least 32 people. In Mogok another strike killed at least 21, including a pregnant woman, when a Buddhist monastery and nearby homes were hit.

Myanmar’s general election is scheduled to begin on 28 December 2025, the first since the coup of 2021. Voting will take place in phases across December and January to account for the continuing conflict. Nearly 60 political parties have registered, among them the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Background: On 1 February 2021 Myanmar’s armed forces, the Tatmadaw, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, seized power in a coup d’état, detaining State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other leaders of the National League for Democracy, which had won the November 2020 election by a landslide.

The generals justified their move by alleging electoral fraud, claims dismissed by independent observers, and the takeover provoked widespread public outrage.

In the weeks that followed, huge crowds poured into the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other cities, joined by the Civil Disobedience Movement of striking teachers, doctors and civil servants. Initially peaceful, the demonstrations were met by lethal force by March 2021, killing hundreds and driving many activists underground. Out of this repression an armed resistance emerged.

In May 2021 the shadow National Unity Government, formed by ousted MPs and activists, sought to rally opposition at home and abroad. On 7 September 2021 it declared a “people’s defensive war” against the regime, transforming scattered unrest into an organized rebellion.

Loosely coordinated militias known as People’s Defense Forces sprang up across the country and soon forged alliances with long-standing ethnic armed organizations such as the Karen National Union, the Kachin Independence Army and the Arakan Army, which provided training, weapons and safe havens. By 2022 fighting had spread across Sagaing, Chin, Kayah and Karen States, eroding the military’s grip on large swathes of the countryside.

The government responded with an increasing reliance on airstrikes, which have often hit civilian areas and deepened resentment.

By September 2023, two years after the declaration of “people’s defensive war,” the conflict had become a nationwide rebellion, with the army still controlling key cities and transport hubs but struggling to assert authority beyond its garrisons.

Myanmar, along with Russia and North Korea, remains one of China’s few allies. Yet Beijing’s relationship with the junta is strained by its sponsorship of criminal enterprises that disproportionately affect Chinese citizens in the borderlands. The rebellion has tested China’s diplomacy, as it seeks to prevent instability in Myanmar while managing an uneasy partnership with the current rulers.

Move fast and break things

President Donald Trump is weighing the dismissal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook following allegations of mortgage fraud. He has demanded her resignation, casting the move as part of his broader effort to reshape the central bank’s leadership.

On Wednesday morning Trump repeated his call for Cook to step down, urging her to resign voluntarily before formal action is taken to remove her.

Shortly afterward the Department of Justice confirmed it had received a criminal investigation referral concerning Cook from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The referral has heightened both legal and political pressure on Cook as the White House considers its next steps.

Instability from Sahel to Horn of Africa amid state fragility, Russian interference, & Islamist insurgencies

Islamic State exploits instability in Africa and beyond

At a U.N. Security Council session on the evolving threat posed by the Islamic State yesterday, Vladimir Voronkov, head of the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, and Natalia Gherman, executive director of the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee, alongside senior officials from the U.N. Secretariat warned that the Islamic State is exploiting instability across Africa and Syria, with the Sahel emerging as one of its most active theaters.

As we’ve been warning for over a year, their presentation illustrated well the extent to which Islamic State, though weakened in Iraq and Syria, has entrenched itself in Africa’s most fragile regions while continuing to pose risks in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe.

According to the U.N., in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger militants are intensifying propaganda efforts and attracting new recruits from disaffected communities. Arrests in Libya have uncovered financial and logistical networks feeding the insurgency, linking North African supply chains directly to Sahel operations.

In Somalia security forces recently disrupted what officials described as a large-scale Islamic State offensive, killing several hundred fighters and detaining more than 150. Yet the group remains resilient, drawing on regional alliances and foreign assistance. In the Lake Chad Basin its affiliates continue to receive funding, drones and bomb-making expertise, allowing them to maintain pressure on local militaries despite battlefield setbacks.

The U.N. experts also highlighted the group’s technological adaptation. Islamic State has increasingly turned to artificial intelligence and digital platforms for recruitment, propaganda and financing, broadening its reach and complicating counterterrorism efforts.

The planet will be fine, it’s the humans who should be worried

Syria and Türkiye face mounting drought crises

Syria is on the brink of a food crisis after suffering its worst drought in 36 years, which has reduced wheat production by about 40%.

The government in Damascus, already short of cash and constrained by sanctions, has been unable to secure large-scale imports to offset the shortfall. Bread, the country’s staple, is rationed through a subsidy system, and the collapse in domestic output threatens to push millions deeper into food insecurity.

International agencies warn that the drought coincides with a broader economic breakdown, making it harder for Syria both to purchase grain abroad and to distribute it domestically. Rural communities in the northeast, the country’s traditional breadbasket, are hardest hit, with many farmers abandoning their fields after crop failures.

In Türkiye the crisis is most acute in the northwestern province of Tekirdag, where a sharp decline in rainfall this year has left the region’s main dams dry. Authorities report that potable water supplies have run out in some districts, forcing restrictions and leaving households without running water for weeks.

The drought reflects a nationwide drop in precipitation in 2025, compounding pressure on both agricultural output and urban water systems.

In Istanbul, Ankara and other large cities, officials are racing to secure emergency supplies and to accelerate desalination and conservation projects. The strain is particularly severe in Tekirdag, which serves both as an agricultural hub and as an industrial corridor feeding Istanbul, making the shortage a blow not only to farmers but also to manufacturers and residents.

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