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British soldiers with NATO-led Resolute Support Mission arrive at the site of an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 6, 2020.

REUTERS

Hard Numbers: Secret British plan resettles Afghans, More Palestinians die at aid sites, US AIDS relief lives on, robots take the field, & more

19,000: According to a BBC report, the personal details of 19,000 Afghans who had applied to move to the United Kingdom following the 2021 Taliban takeover were leaked in February 2022. The government learned of the data breach in August 2023 and created a secret resettlement scheme for those affected, as it was deemed they were at risk of harm by the Taliban. Under the program, 4,500 Afghans have relocated to the UK.

20: At least 20 Palestinians were killed in a stampede at an aid distribution site operated by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund on Wednesday. The UN says at least 875 people have lost their lives in the past six weeks alone while trying to access aid at these sites, with the majority reportedly gunned down by Israeli security forces. While Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians, it has said it is investigating the incidents.

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Zelensky and Putin in front of flags and war.

Jess Frampton

$300 Ukrainian drones vs. $100 million Russian bombers

On Sunday, Ukraine executed one of the most extraordinary asymmetric operations in modern military history. Using domestically built first-person-view (FPV) drones deployed from deep inside Russian territory, Kyiv launched a coordinated assault against several military airbases as far as eastern Siberia, the border with Mongolia, and the Arctic. Known as ‘Operation Spiderweb,’ the attacks destroyed or severely damaged as many as 20 strategic aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers and early-warning planes; Kyiv claims the true toll could reach 41. Only two days later, on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) struck again – this time detonating underwater explosives and damaging the Kerch Bridge, the critical rail and road artery connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 6, 2025.

REUTERS/Kent Nishimura/File Photo

What We’re Watching: Trump talks peace, Pakistan charms China, Romania, Poland and Portugal go to the polls

Trump seeks peace between Ukraine and Russia - again

US President Donald Trump will speak Monday at 10 am EST to Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss “STOPPING THE 'BLOODBATH'” in Russia’s war with Ukraine, as well as “trade.” After that call, Trump will speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the hopes of brokering a 30-day ceasefire.

But is a deal DOA? Ukrainian sources claim that Moscow insists that Ukrainian troops first withdraw from the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, which doesn’t align with Washington’s proposal. Moscow hasn’t commented, but such demands could torpedo a truce before it begins.

A new eastern axis: Pakistan, China…. and Afghanistan?

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and deputy Prime Minister, Ishaq Dar, is in Beijing Monday to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi "on the evolving regional situation in South Asia and its implications for peace and stability.” The meeting follows April’s violent conflict between Pakistan and India which saw Islamabad deploy Chinese weapons.

Is Kabul now in play? While in China, Dar is reportedly also holding trilateral talks with Afghanistan to discuss "enhanced security cooperation". The three countries all border India, and an alliance could threaten that country’s territorial integrity in the north. Pakistan further claims that its ceasefire with India expired Sunday, raising the possibility of renewed hostilities.

A mixed night for the right in trio of European elections

A centrist takes the crown in Romania, the right makes gains in Portugal, and a run-off awaits in Poland.

In Romania, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, bested hard-right election front-runner George Simion 53.8% to 46.2%. The results won’t please the White House, which had plumped for Simion, but will delight the EU, NATO, and Ukraine, which Romania has supported in its war with Russia.

In Portugal, the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won 32% of the vote, improving on last year’s results by 4 points and boosting its number of seats in the Assembly to 89. They remain short of an outright majority, though. It was a dismal night for the opposition Socialist Party (PS), which scored just 23% and lost 20 seats, leaving it with just 58. This means that Chega, a hard-right party, will be the joint-second-largest party in Portugal, after it also won 58 seats. This is by far Chega’s best result in its six-year history.

In Poland, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski narrowly bested conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, 31.4% to 29.5%, in the first round of the presidential election. Trzaskowski would help Prime Minister Donald Tusk reform laws enacted by the former governing party, Law and Justice, while Nawrocki would align with the far right. The two men will now face off in a second-round runoff on June 1.

A Ukrainian rescue worker sits atop the rubble of a destroyed residential building during rescue operations, following a Russian missile strike on a residential apartment building block in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 24, 2025.

Photo by Justin Yau/ Sipa USA

Kyiv under fire, Trump blasts Putin on Truth Social

At least 12 people were killed and 90 others injured in a large-scale Russian assault on Kyiv early Thursday, prompting Donald Trump to post on Truth Social: “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!”

This strike was among the most lethal of the conflict and marked the worst attack on the Ukrainian capital since July, when Russian missiles hit a children’s hospital. Reports suggest that Thursday’s assault involved missiles provided by North Korea.

The attack occurred just hours after Trump and his senior advisers urged Ukrainian officials to accept a US-backed peace proposal that would effectively legitimize Russian control over all occupied Ukrainian territory.

Despite pushing for a resolution, with his Truth Social post concluding “Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE,” the Trump administration has recently indicated they might pull out of peace negotiations if progress isn’t made soon. While this could just be a threat to force Ukraine to the negotiating table, a round of high-level peace talks originally planned for London on Wednesday was postponed, primarily due to the US opting not to attend.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a briefing, Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 28, 2025.

Ukrinform/ABACA via Reuters Connect

Elections coming in Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin insists that Volodymyr Zelensky is no longer Ukraine’s legitimate president because his government has imposed martial law and delayed elections that were due in 2024. Zelensky, with support from Ukraine’s opposition, has countered that the country can’t hold national elections because Russia invaded Ukraine, displaced millions of people, and illegally occupies 20% of its territory.
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Friedrich Merz, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Alice Weidel

Jess Frampton

Can Friedrich Merz be the leader Germany – and Europe – needs?

As expected, Friedrich Merz is set to become the next German chancellor after his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) won one of the tightest and highest-turnout elections in the country’s postwar history.

But the 28.5% earned by Merz’s CDU/CSU was the party’s second-lowest tally ever – hardly a mandate. Not to be outdone, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) came third with just 16.4% – their worst defeat in 137 years. The moderate Greens led by economy minister Robert Habeck lost ground, too, scoring a disappointing 12.5%.

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A civilian enterprise in Kharkiv, Ukraine, after being struck by a Russian drone, on January 28, 2025.

Yevhen Titov/NurPhoto

Why it matters that Putin won't talk to Zelensky

If it didn’t concern one of the world’s deadliest conflicts, it would read like a bad soap opera: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s ready for peace talks regarding the Ukraine war but that he’ll only talk directly to US President Donald Trump, not Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Meanwhile Zelensky, for his part, says Putin is simply “afraid.”

Putin’s position is that because Zelensky postponed the Ukrainian election that was scheduled for last year, he is not a “legitimate” president. The election was canceled, of course, due to the war that began when Putin invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.

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Paige Fusco

Opinion: After 25 years, has Putin "won"?

An aging, visibly infirm president is about to hand off power to an authoritarian-minded successor with a mandate to restore “order” and “sovereignty.”

Sound familiar? Da. It’s New Year’s Eve 1999, and a bloated, barely intelligible Boris Yeltsin is handing the Kremlin over to a shifty young spook named Vladimir Putin. “Take care of Russia,” he famously said before staggering out of the room.

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