Category: 2. World

More than 130 charities and other NGOs are calling for the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to be shut down.

Over 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since the GHF started operating in late May, following Israel’s three-month blockade of Gaza, the organisations said. Almost 4,000 have been injured.

The organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, say Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on Palestinians seeking aid.

Israel denies its soldiers deliberately shoot at aid recipients, and has defended the GHF system, saying it provides direct assistance to people who need it, bypassing Hamas interference.

Tuesday’s joint statement from some of the world’s biggest charities says the foundation is violating all norms of humanitarian work, including by forcing two million people into overcrowded and militarized zones where they face daily gunfire.

Since the GHF started operating in Gaza, there have been almost daily reports of Israeli forces killing people seeking aid at these sites, from medics, eyewitnesses and the Hamas-run health ministry.

The GHF aid distribution system replaced 400 aid distribution points that were operating during the temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire with just four military-controlled distribution sites, three in the far south-west of Gaza and one in central Gaza.

“Today, Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the statement says.

“Orphaned children and caregivers are among the dead, with children harmed in over half of the attacks on civilians at these sites.”

The GHF aid system has been condemned by UN agencies. On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “inherently unsafe”.

From the start the UN condemned the plan, saying it would “militarise” aid, bypass the existing distribution network and force Gazans to make long journeys through dangerous territory to get food.

The Israeli military has said it is examining reports of civilians being “harmed” while approaching GHF aid distribution centres.

According to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday, unnamed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians near aid distribution sites to drive them away or disperse them.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the report, calling the allegations “malicious falsehoods”.

The Israeli military also denied allegations of deliberately firing at Palestinians waiting to collect humanitarian aid.

In a statement on Monday, the IDF said it was reorganising access to the sites and this would include new “fencing” and signposting, including directional and warning signs in order to improve the operational response.

But the 130-plus aid organisations said GHF “is not a humanitarian response” for the Gazans.

“Amidst severe hunger and famine-like conditions, many families tell us they are now too weak to compete for food rations,” the groups said.

Israeli forces have bombed a cafe, a school and food distribution sites in Gaza, killing at least 95 Palestinians, and attacked a hospital, wounding several more people.

At least 62 of the victims of Monday’s attacks were in Gaza City and the north of the territory.

The figure includes 39 people who were killed in an Israeli strike on a seaside cafe, Al-Baqa cafeteria, in northern Gaza City. Dozens more were wounded.

Among the dead was journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, as well as women and children who had gathered at the cafe.

One witness said that Israeli fighter jets carried out the strike.

“We found people torn apart,” said Yahya Sharif. “This place wasn’t affiliated with anyone – no politics and no military association whatsoever. It was packed with people including children for a birthday party.”

The bombing flattened the cafe and left a huge crater in the ground.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the attack on the cafe occurred “without any warning”.

“This area serves as a refuge for many traumatised and displaced people, offering some relief from the oppressive heat of the tents. The bloodstains are still everywhere given the intensity of the explosion. Some of the bodies and pieces of flesh were collected from the flood of this place,” he added.

Also on Monday, Israeli forces carried out an air strike on a food distribution warehouse in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing at least 13 people who were trying to get rations.

The Israeli military also bombed the Yafa school in Gaza City, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians.

Hamada Abu Jaradeh, who fled before the attack, said that displaced Palestinians received a five-minute threat to evacuate. “We don’t know what to do and where to go. We have been let down by the entire world for more than 630 days. Death is with us and around us every day,” Abu Jaradeh said.

In central Gaza, Israeli forces attacked the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, where thousands of families had sought shelter.

Videos circulating online and verified by Al Jazeera showed chaos at the hospital, with people fleeing for safety as tents sheltering displaced families appeared damaged by the attack.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from the scene of the hospital attack, said the army did not issue “any warnings” before the “huge explosion”.

“The site of the attack is about 10 metres [33 ft] from our broadcast point. This is not the first time the hospital’s courtyard has been attacked. At least 10 times, this facility has been squarely targeted by Israeli forces,” Abu Azzoum said. “It’s a staggering concentration of attacks on medical facilities, adding further burden on barely functioning hospitals.”

In a statement, Gaza’s Government Media Office decried the attack by Israel, calling it a “systematic crime” against the Palestinian enclave’s health system.

“Its warplanes bombed a tent for the displaced inside the walls of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, resulting in injuries at the site of the bombing, material damage and directly threatening the lives of dozens of patients,” it said.

Israel has repeatedly targeted dozens of hospitals during its 22-month war on Gaza. Human rights groups and United Nations-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying the enclave’s healthcare system.

‘It felt like earthquakes’

In southern Gaza, an Israel air attack killed at least 15 Palestinians waiting for food at aid distribution hubs run by the controversial United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in Khan Younis, according to sources at Nasser Medical Complex.

Fifty people were also wounded in the attack.

They are the latest victims in a wave of daily carnage at these sites, which have killed nearly 600 Palestinians since GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a crippling Israeli blockade.

The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians were harmed at the aid distribution centres, saying that instructions had been issued to forces following “lessons learned”, and that firing incidents were under review.

This follows the Israeli news outlet Haaretz report that soldiers operating near the aid sites in Gaza have been deliberately firing on Palestinians. According to the Haaretz report, which quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers, troops were told to fire at the crowds of Palestinians and use unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.

Israeli forces are also carrying out home demolitions in Khan Younis, raising fears of a new ground invasion.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, has issued more forced evacuation threats to Palestinians in large districts in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind wide-scale destruction, forcing a new wave of displacement.

“Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news, we hear a ceasefire is near. On the ground, we see death and we hear explosions.”

Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of the Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.

Gaza’s health authorities said that at least 10 people were killed in attacks on Zeitoun and at least 13 were killed southwest of Gaza City.

More than 80 percent of Gaza is now an Israeli-militarised zone or under forced displacement threats, according to the United Nations.

The attacks come as Israeli officials, including Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, were due in Washington, DC for a new ceasefire push by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Key mediator Qatar has confirmed that there are serious US intentions to push for a return to negotiations, but there are complications, according to a Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman.

“The main obstacle over here is that both parties aren’t coming back to the table. But as I have said, there’s a momentum that’s been created by the ceasefire between Iran and Israel,” Majed Al Ansari told reporters in the Qatari capital Doha.

“We won’t hold out breath for this to happen today or tomorrow. But we believe that the elements are in place to push forward towards restarting the talks,” he added.

The talks in the White House are also expected to cover Iran and possible wider regional diplomatic deals.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.

On Friday, Israel’s military chief said that the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu claimed new opportunities had opened up for recovering the captives taken by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups from Israel, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts also said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.

Meanwhile, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in a statement on Monday that there has been no news from Israel regarding a ceasefire for four weeks.

“We are determined to seek a ceasefire that will save our people, and we are working with mediators to open the crossings,” Hamdan said.

U.S. President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

PARIS: Paris was on red alert for high temperatures on Tuesday, with the top of the Eiffel Tower shut, polluting traffic banned and speed restrictions in place as a searing heatwave gripped Europe.

Mediterranean countries from the Iberian peninsula through France and Italy to the Balkans and Greece have been sweltering in a heatwave for several days, prompting health warnings and alerts about increased risk of wildfires.

Scientists say human-induced climate change is making such heatwave events more intense, frequent and widespread.

Temperatures in France were expected to hit a peak on Tuesday, according to the Meteo France weather agency, with the highest extreme heat warning in place in 16 departments across the country.

A total of 68 others were on the second-highest level.

Meteo France forecast very high minimums ranging from 20-24 degrees Celsius “or slightly higher in some localised areas, and maximums reaching 36 to 40C with some peaks at 41C”.

Operators of the Eiffel Tower shut the summit of the 330 metre (1,083-feet) high landmark at 1100GMT on Monday and said it would remain closed on Tuesday and Wednesday “due to the current heatwave”.

Access to the first and second floors remained open but operators still urged caution.

“Remember to protect yourself from the sun and stay hydrated. Water fountains are available in the walkways leading to the esplanade,” they said.

Across the Ile-de-France region which includes Paris, police said all but the least polluting vehicles would be banned from the roads from 0330GMT to 2200GMT because of high ozone pollution levels.

Speed limits of 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) per hour would also remain in some places.

Across the country, the government said it expected nearly 1,350 schools to be partially or completely shut — nearly double the number on Monday — with teachers complaining of overheated and unventilated classrooms making students unwell.

Warnings were issued for young children, older people and those with chronic illnesses.

“Heatwaves are deadly,” said Akshay Deoras, a research scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, west of London.

“We need to treat extreme heat with the same seriousness we give to dangerous storms.”

Roll cloud

Portugal will see some respite on Tuesday after two days on red alert in several regions, including Lisbon, and warnings will be downgraded to orange alert in all but eight areas inland.

But temperatures were still expected to reach 40C in the central city of Castel Branco, Beja and Evora in the south, and 34C in the capital.

The national meteorological agency IPMA said those on the beaches in northern and central Portugal would have seen a rare “roll cloud” blown towards the coast on Monday.

Images shared on social networks showed a huge horizontal cloud heading from the horizon towards the shore, accompanied by a violent gust of wind when it reached land.

“The most frightening thing was the wind and everything becoming dark,” one swimmer told online media outlet ZAP. “It was very strange. We all started packing up our things and running.

“It looked like a tsunami.”

Similar temperatures in the high 30s to mid 40s were forecast in Spain after they soared to 46C in the south — a new record for June, according to the national weather agency.

Red alerts have been issued for 18 Italian cities in the coming days, including Rome, Milan, Verona, Perugia and Palermo, as well as across the Adriatic on the Croatian coast and Montenegro.

Italy also experienced another type of extreme weather event on Monday when a flash flood in the northern region of Piedmont caused by heavy rains killed a 70-year-old man.

“We are increasingly faced with emergency situations due to weather events that we used to call exceptional but are now more and more frequent,” said the president of the region, Alberto Cirio, on social media.

The Mediterranean Sea itself recorded a new June high of 26.01C on Sunday, according to French weather service scientist Thibault Guinaldo, citing data from EU monitor Copernicus.

The risk of forest fires remains high in a number of Portuguese regions. On Monday night, some 250 firefighters were tackling a blaze in the southern Aljustrel area.

In Turkey, rescuers evacuated more than 50,000 people threatened by a string of wildfires, most from the western province of Izmir, where winds of 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour fanned the blazes.

Greece has also been tackling wildfires.

When U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, many in Washington expected a rapid settlement to the war in Ukraine. On the campaign trail, Trump had boasted he could end the conflict in 24 hours. Although few analysts believed that specific promise, many speculated about the possible terms and timeline of an impending deal. The investment bank JPMorgan Chase, for example, claimed an agreement could be reached by June.

Yet as the weeks pass and diplomacy stagnates, it is becoming clear that no such resolution is imminent. As Ukraine’s former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba noted in Foreign Affairs in late May, neither Russia nor Ukraine “has much of an incentive to stop the fighting.” Ukraine refuses to surrender its sovereignty; Russia will not accept anything less than Ukrainian capitulation.

This conclusion, however, does not mean all is lost. Russia is much weaker economically than many analysts realize, and hard-hitting sanctions and export controls can still cripple its war economy. Ukraine is fighting smartly and could turn the tide on the battlefield with more high-end drones, air defense systems, long-range missiles, and munitions. With a change of strategy, Ukraine can still win the war in the near term—if both Europe and the United States decide to give it the assistance it needs.

THE DOSE MAKES THE POISON

Much of the premature optimism about a settlement earlier this year sprang from the prevailing belief that Ukraine was losing and would soon be forced to negotiate out of desperation. Trump stoked this narrative by asserting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had “no cards” left to play. U.S. Vice President JD Vance took it a step further, declaring that Ukraine—and its foreign backers—never had any “pathway to victory.” Citing Russia’s superiority in manpower and weapons, Vance argued that if the United States kept up its security assistance, it would only postpone Ukraine’s inevitable defeat.

This defeatism has been supported by a second, equally pernicious assumption: that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to subjugating Ukraine cannot be deterred. The former CIA analyst Peter Schroeder’s assessment in Foreign Affairs last September exemplifies this view, describing Putin as “all in”—personally invested in keeping Ukraine from becoming a European democracy, no matter the cost. Such a narrative holds a kernel of truth, but it also dovetails too neatly with Russian propaganda. By assigning no agency to Ukraine or its foreign partners, it presumes that Ukrainian victory is a fantasy born of Western delusion, and it is a view that risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Both assumptions, meanwhile, rest on an excessively narrow reading of battlefield dynamics and a limited understanding of the policy options available to Ukraine’s backers. Despite significant constraints on the aid that Europe and the United States have offered over the past three and a half years, Ukraine has achieved impressive victories. It repelled Russia’s initial push toward Kyiv in March 2022 with little more than shoulder-fired antitank missiles and grit, defying the predictions of many military analysts. Later that year, in a stunning rout for Russian forces, Ukraine reclaimed nearly a thousand square miles in the Kharkiv region without the benefit of modern armor or air cover. And just weeks ago, Ukraine shocked the world by pulling off Operation Spiderweb, a surprise attack that used cheap, remote-controlled drones to inflict substantial damage on Russia’s long-range aviation.

Indeed, what most consistently hindered Ukraine’s war effort was not Kyiv’s lack of manpower or weak resolve compared with Putin, but rather an insufficient supply of advanced military capabilities. Long after Russia had deployed its most modern tanks, fifth-generation fighter aircraft, long-range air defense systems, and cutting-edge ballistic and cruise missiles, Ukraine was still waiting for deliveries of similar capabilities from its Western partners. When some of these systems finally did arrive, Ukraine was prohibited from using them on targets inside Russia until the United States relaxed its rules of engagement in mid-2024. The truth is precisely the opposite of what the current administration has claimed. Instead of prolonging the war by giving Ukraine too much military assistance, Kyiv’s foreign allies have prolonged it by giving too little, and often with significant delays. 

When it comes to punitive economic measures against Russia, the international response has been similarly half-baked. In the early days of the war, the United States and its G-7 allies crafted sanctions and export controls that were thought to pack a powerful punch but in fact had so many mitigations built in that they were robbed of their full impact. In April 2022, just after Russia’s invasion, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union removed seven Russian banks from SWIFT, the dominant international payments system. Many analysts had previously touted the move as a “nuclear option” that would decimate the Russian economy.

But the delisting was so selective in its application—targeting only seven banks out of hundreds in Russia—that the Russian economy actually grew in 2023 and 2024. The gradual implementation of export controls also gave Russia time to adapt, as did numerous carve-outs for certain types of Russian banks or transactions: civil nuclear energy, aviation servicing and maintenance, and fertilizer sales, for example, could still be processed. As the saying goes, the dose makes the poison—and the insufficient dosing of punitive economic measures produced an underwhelming campaign with limited strategic effect.

TIPPING THE SCALE

Despite these missteps, victory for Ukraine—minimally defined as preserving its sovereignty and continuing to chart a course toward NATO and EU membership—is still squarely within reach. Achieving it, however, requires a fundamental shift in Western strategy, one that combines a large boost in military assistance with more robust economic measures to constrain Russia’s war economy.

The linchpin for this new strategy is the West’s mobilization of the approximately $300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in their jurisdictions—mostly in the EU—to support Ukraine’s current fight. Thus far, the Trump administration has shown no inclination to use congressionally authorized funds to support Ukraine. So, as Wally Adeyemo and David Shimer have written in Foreign Affairs, it makes sense to seize these assets and, in effect, “make Russia pay” for Ukraine’s defense. Some EU leaders have argued that these assets should be saved for reconstruction efforts after the war ends. Others worry about setting a dangerous precedent for the rule of law by seizing a country’s funds—even if that country has violated international laws and is engaged in the mass murder of civilians. If Europe is to help bring this war to an end, it must set these concerns aside and act now.

These funds could serve multiple purposes. A portion could be invested in Ukraine’s burgeoning defense industrial base: its drone sector, for instance, has become highly innovative but needs additional investments for industrial-scale production, sensor development, and counter-electronic warfare measures. Another portion could help Ukraine purchase long-range missiles and other weapons systems from Europe, assisting the continent in building up production lines that support both Ukraine’s defense and, once the war is over, NATO deterrence. A third chunk could fund the production of U.S.-made capabilities—such as air defense systems and long-range precision fires—that Ukraine needs but Europe currently lacks in sufficient quantities. And finally, the remainder could go to distributed energy generation, the protection of critical infrastructure such as switchyards and electrical substations, and humanitarian needs.

Yet helping Ukraine win requires more than just transferring arms. Western governments must prioritize co-production agreements, intellectual property sharing, and defense manufacturing partnerships—especially in missile and ammunition manufacturing, armored vehicles, and drone and counterdrone technologies, as well as cyber, command and coordination systems, and electronic warfare systems. Such arrangements would reduce Ukraine’s dependence on foreign supply chains, fortify its domestic capacity, and foster long-term interoperability with NATO forces. Equally important is for these governments to give Ukraine access to maintenance and life-cycle support technologies and software so that Western platforms can be adapted to the evolving battlefield.

Despite being outnumbered, Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to offset its disadvantages with asymmetric tactics, such as sinking parts of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with maritime drones and missiles and denying Russia air superiority by using its limited air defenses creatively. With more sustained military, technological, and economic support, Ukraine could develop new advantages, such as better integrating drones, land mines, and long-range fires to pin down Russian forces and take out their logistics nodes.

EVERY TOOL IN THE TOOLKIT

To buttress Ukraine’s military capabilities, the West must also target the economic foundations of Russia’s war effort. Fortunately for Ukraine, Russia’s economy remains fragile. Although the country’s GDP has increased over the last two years, structural weaknesses abound in its economy: a 20 percent interest rate, a 68 percent decline in Russia’s sovereign wealth fund since February 2022, and persistent inflation of around nine percent. These vulnerabilities present opportunities.

First, the West must go after Russia’s primary revenue stream: energy exports. Currently, Europe is still importing roughly $23.5 billion worth of Russian oil and natural gas. If Europe is to get serious about ending the war, it must decrease Moscow’s energy income and foreign currency flows. Moreover, Russia has systematically evaded the G-7’s oil price cap, significantly weakening its intended impact. Western countries should impose a full embargo or steep tariffs on Russian oil and gas and should tighten regulations, engage in more systematic maritime tracking, and take stronger legal measures to strictly enforce the G-7 price cap. And if third parties flout these restrictions, the G-7 should impose sanctions on them.

The G-7 countries, meanwhile, must further isolate Russia financially. The Kremlin has taken advantage of the sanctions regime’s carve-outs and has the power to direct Russian banks to process whatever payments are needed. To meaningfully disrupt Russia’s trade, devalue the ruble, and increase economic uncertainty, the G-7 should remove all Russian banks from SWIFT and subject them to full blocking sanctions, which prohibit all transactions with the sanctioned entity. If financial institutions in foreign countries enable sanctions evasion, they, too, should be subjected to secondary sanctions. Only by applying the full power of these sanctions tools can Ukraine’s allies succeed in weakening Russia’s war machine.

Western governments can also redouble their efforts regarding export controls on high-tech components, including semiconductors, precision machine tools, optics, aviation components, and industrial software. There have been export controls on Russia for more than a decade, but these are not one-and-done solutions; meaningfully degrading the Kremlin’s capacity to replenish and maintain its military equipment requires continuous enforcement whenever workarounds and third-party cutouts arise. The U.S. Commerce Department should further restrict Russia’s access to “dual use” goods—products valuable in both civilian and military applications—in order to constrain its production of high-tech weapons and undermine its military-industrial complex. Similarly, Western governments can do more to zero in on Russia’s defense industry by sanctioning more Russian firms that manufacture essential defense equipment such as drones, missiles, and armored vehicles.

Even after three and half years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s supporters have not come close to exhausting the sanctions toolkit. If rigorously applied and internationally enforced, the combination of these sanction enhancements would cripple Russia’s economy.

THE CHINA FACTOR

Yet it is also important to recognize that Russia is no longer waging this war alone. It has found steady backing from a coalition of autocratic states—backing that has allowed it to weather the bite of Western sanctions and replenish critical materiel. Only a few months into the war, Western intelligence agencies and military analysts had assessed that Russia had significantly depleted its stockpile of precision-guided munitions. As sanctions took hold and component shortages mounted, the Kremlin was forced to ration these weapons. This rationing had a real effect on the war, gradually turning the battlefield dynamics in Ukraine’s favor. The tempo of Russian precision strikes declined markedly by late 2022, replaced in part by the use of unguided bombs and the repurposing of systems such as the S-300 air defense missile for ground-attack roles.

By the fall of that year, however, Iran began supplying Russia with drones. Then, by 2023, China emerged as Russia’s primary supplier of dual-use technologies, including accounting for over 90 percent of imported microelectronics. North Korea, meanwhile, provided short-range ballistic missiles and, later, troops.

Confronting this axis of aggressors will require a shift in Western strategy. There is probably little Europe or the United States can do to dissuade North Korea, but Iran has been greatly weakened following its war with Israel and has less to offer now that Russia is mass-producing its own drones. That leaves China, whose inputs into the Russian defense industrial base are far more consequential than Iran’s or North Korea’s contributions. To constrain Chinese support for Moscow, a unified transatlantic approach is needed to raise the costs of Beijing’s support. That means leveraging trade and market access—areas in which Europe holds unique influence—to apply pressure. European leaders acknowledge China’s key role in enabling the Russian war effort, but they have not taken serious steps to stop it; mere expressions of disapproval are not enough. If the war in Ukraine is to be contained and ultimately resolved, Europe will have to make clear to Beijing that normal commercial relations cannot coexist with China’s support for a war against the European security order.

TURN THE TIDE

Putin’s ambition to dominate Ukraine is unlikely ever to diminish, even as Russian casualties approach a million. What can change are the battlefield and defense-industrial conditions that make Putin’s ambition feasible. Western countries have the collective resources to create a situation in which trend lines turn negative for Russia. Once the strategic risks accumulate to the extent that the Kremlin has to ask difficult questions about Russia’s ability to defend itself against other hostile actors, it will be compelled to reassess its approach.

Indeed, from a strategic vantage point, Russia has already lost this war. Regardless of how much additional territory changes hands, the Ukrainian nation is lost to Russia forever. No matter how many billions of dollars Moscow spends on propaganda and “reeducation,” filtration camps and torture chambers, it will never convince Ukrainians to accept its rule as legitimate. What Ukraine needs now is the time, tools, and space to prove to the Kremlin that an occupation is not just immoral but incompatible with Russia’s long-term security needs.

Ukraine’s allies have a choice. They can continue the current approach of transatlantic division and stillborn diplomacy, risking an expanded, longer, and far costlier war. Or they can act decisively to help Ukraine turn the tide, throttle the tempo of Russian weapons manufacturing, and empower the leadership in Kyiv to negotiate from a position of strength. A peace agreement may forever remain elusive, but once the cost of continued fighting becomes untenable, Russia can eventually be forced to settle for an armistice similar to the one that effectively ended the Korean War. Once that point is reached and the fighting diminishes, the space will emerge for Ukraine to renew its democratic mandate, resettle refugees, reconstruct infrastructure, and—perhaps most critically—finish its accession process with the EU and NATO. The return of all occupied territories may take longer, but Ukraine will have established the foundations of strategic victory.

Victory may not come quickly, cheaply, or easily. But it is still possible and will likely cost fewer lives and resources than a perpetuation of the status quo. What remains to be seen is whether the West—especially Europe—is willing to summon the political will to secure this brighter future.

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“It’s no longer a question of if we will have a heatwave, but how many are we going to experience this year and how long will they last,” said Marisol Yglesias Gonzalez, technical officer for climate change and health at the WHO in Bonn.

As for how many people could be at risk, Pierre Masselot, a statistician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told POLITICO this heatwave could cause more than 4,500 excess deaths between June 30 and July 3. The countries likely to experience the highest excess death rates are Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and Luxembourg, he said. “The worst days will likely be [Tuesday] and Wednesday.”

Heat claims more than 175,000 lives across the WHO’s Europe region — spanning from Iceland to Russia — each year. A major study co-authored by Masselot and published in January, which covered 854 European cities, warned that deaths from heat would rise sharply if significant climate adaptation is not prioritized.

The WHO on Monday echoed that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, means heatwaves will become more frequent, dangerous and intense, leading to more serious illness and death.

Almost two-thirds of Spanish towns have been slapped with health risk warnings, including 804 at the highest alert level, according to data from the Aemet national weather agency. A spokesperson stated that intense heat is expected across the country until July 3. Meanwhile, heat alerts are also in place in France, Italy, Portugal and Greece.

The Greek government has also issued warnings about air pollution from wildfires that have ripped through coastal towns near Athens. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 people have been evacuated in Turkey, primarily due to a fire near Izmir.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 1:

Fighting

• The Russian-installed governor of the occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, Leonid Pasechnik, said that Russian troops are now in full control of the entire region.
• If confirmed, that would make Luhansk the first Ukrainian region fully occupied by Russia after more than three years of war. Luhansk is one of four regions that Russia now claims as its own.
• Russia’s state media and war bloggers also said that Russian forces have taken control of the first village in the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk.
• This came as Moscow-appointed officials said Ukrainian forces attacked the city of Donetsk in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, killing at least one person, damaging several buildings and setting a market on fire.
• Also in Donetsk, Russian forces have occupied one of Ukraine’s most valuable lithium deposits near the village of Shevchenko, The Kyiv Independent reported, citing Roman Pohorilyi, the founder of the open-source mapping project Deep State Map.
• The Ukrainian Air Force, meanwhile, said it detected 107 Russian Shahed and decoy drones in the country’s airspace overnight, a day after the country experienced the biggest aerial attack from Russian forces since 2022.
• Russian strikes in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region left two civilians dead and eight wounded, including a 6-year-old child, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Outside the immediate region, Bloomberg reported an explosion on an oil tanker near Libya, in the latest unexplained blast on vessels that had previously called at Russian ports.

Politics and diplomacy

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the United States to consider whether new sanctions on Russia would help the Ukraine peace effort after a top Republican senator said he had received US President Donald Trump’s blessing to move forward on a bill introducing punitive measures against Moscow.
• US envoy Keith Kellogg responded to Peskov’s comments, describing them as “Orwellian”. “Russia cannot continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine,” Kellogg said in a post on X.
• German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul, speaking during a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of making “pure mockery” of peace talks.
• “His apparent readiness to negotiate is only a facade so far,” Wadephul said, adding that Germany was trying to help Ukraine get to a point where it could “negotiate more strongly”.
• The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Moscow was introducing “reciprocal measures” restricting access to 15 media outlets from the European Union, in retaliation for the latest round of EU sanctions on Russia.
• In North Korea, images on state television showed leader Kim Jong Un draping coffins with the country’s national flag in what appeared to be the repatriation of soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine, according to the Reuters news agency.
• Norway said it would deploy F-35 fighter jets to Poland to protect Polish airspace and a key logistical hub for aid to Ukraine, a day after Warsaw scrambled aircraft in response to Russian air attacks on western Ukraine, near the border.

Economy

• The International Monetary Fund said it would provide $500m to Ukraine, after completing a routine review of its $15.5bn four-year support programme.