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Will Ukraine’s seizure of territory inside Russia give Kyiv leverage or spark an escalation in which Moscow retaliates against Ukrainian civilians?
…A massive fire continues to rage at a Russian oil depot that was hit by Ukrainian drones.
…Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the current U.S.-China dynamic is “more dangerous” than the Cold War.
…Former CIA official Joseph R. DeTrani warns that Tehran is on a path to receive nuclear weapons help from North Korea if the current Iran-Israel crisis sparks a major Mideast war.
…Israel just recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, as U.S. and Arab mediators push for a cease-fire.
…And the Chinese Communist Party is now approving fewer new coal-fired power plants, after a surge in approvals during recent years.
Ukrainian forces now control nearly 500 square miles of territory of the Kursk Oblast inside Russia, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who says his country’s operation has become Kyiv’s “largest investment in the process of liberating Ukrainians from Russian captivity.”
“We have already captured the largest number of Russian prisoners in a single operation,” Mr. Zelenskyy said Monday. “Our active defense actions across the border, as well as Putin’s inability to defend his territory from such defensive actions as ours, are very telling,” he said. “Our proactive, preventive defense is the most effective counter to Russian terror.”
The situation is being watched closely by Washington, which provides the bulk of the firepower for Ukraine, but has sought to restrict how Kyiv employs U.S. weaponry. Threat Status is tracking the developments, including the prospect that Ukraine’s move could give Kyiv leverage in potential peace talks, or could trigger an escalation, with Russia potentially seeking to retaliate during the coming weeks and months with attacks on civilian targets inside Ukraine.
A Kamala Harris administration would continue America’s current policy of managing strategic competition with China in order to avoid war, according to a key plank of the Democrats’ 2024 policy platform made public this week.
The party platform calls for avoiding a costly “spiral to conflict” with China while seeking cooperation, though such cooperation so far has been largely rejected by Beijing as part of President Xi Jinping’s push to advance the communist system globally.
Tensions remain high between China and the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific over disputed islands in the South China Sea and over Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy and major target for annexation by Beijing. The foreign policy plank of the Democratic platform was completed July 16, prior to President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and replacement by Ms. Harris atop the Democratic ticket.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have formally blamed Iran for hacking efforts targeting former President Donald Trump’s White House campaign, saying Tehran aims to interfere in the 2024 election.
In a rare public statement Monday, the agencies said efforts to compromise Mr. Trump’s team came from state-sponsored Iranian cyberattackers. “We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns,” the agencies said. “This includes … activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign.”
Intelligence officials said they are working closely with private sector partners to share information, bolster defenses and disrupt threats. Microsoft recently revealed it saw an Iranian group send a spear phishing email aimed at a presidential campaign, though it did not identify the targeted campaign. Google has also said it saw efforts to breach both Mr. Trump’s campaign and that of Mr. Biden, before he stepped aside as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The announcement by the social media platform X that it plans to end its operations in Brazil has put a spotlight on free speech issues in the South American nation, roughly a year and a half after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva swept back to power with a left-leaning government.
The social media company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has cited a censorship order by the Brazilian government that has put pressure on the X employees in Brazil. The company said in a statement that its platform will remain available to the Brazilian people, despite the company’s physical departure from the country.
The development marks the latest clash between Mr. Musk’s view of internet freedom and governments around the world that have bemoaned what they view as the platform’s role in spreading misinformation.
Mr. Musk shared the company’s official statement on his personal X account Monday. “A reminder that free speech in America is special and we need to do everything possible to preserve it,” he said.
As tension in the Middle East increases, with the likelihood that Iran will strike out at Israel for killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a more widespread war in the region has become more likely, writes Mr. DeTrani, a Threat Status opinion contributor and a former member of the Senior Intelligence Service of the CIA.
“This would be a war with an Iran aligned with North Korea, a proliferator of missile and nuclear technologies,” according to Mr. DeTrani. “Indeed,” he writes, “if there is an imperative for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons … having an ally in a nuclear North Korea is a good default option.”
“Iran could acquire nuclear weapons or the fissile material for a dirty bomb directly from North Korea for its use against Israel or any other adversary,” Mr. DeTrani writes. “Or Iran can pass the nuclear weapon or fissile material to one of its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis — for use against Israel or another enemy.”
Noting that “today’s favorite analogy is the Cold War,” Ms. Rice writes that the United States “again faces an adversary that has global reach and insatiable ambition, with China taking the place of the Soviet Union.”
In a thorough analysis published Tuesday by Foreign Affairs, Ms. Rice, who heads the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, writes that “this is a particularly attractive comparison, of course, because the United States and its allies won the Cold War.”
“But,” she writes, “the current period is not a Cold War redux. It is more dangerous.”
• Sept. 9 — The Role of China in Africa’s Just Energy Transition, Wilson Center
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