Ukrainian drone strike kills one ahead of Putin-Trump summit, U.S. military police resume joint patrols with South Korea, U.N. nuclear watchdog set to visit Iran.
1. A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded two more in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod, the region’s governor said Monday, as fighting continued ahead of a planned summit meeting in which Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to persuade his U.S. counterpart to back a peace deal locking in Moscow’s gains. Nizhny Novgorod Gov. Gleb Nikitin said in an online statement that drones targeted two “industrial zones” that caused unspecified damage along with the three casualties. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed a total of 39 Ukrainian drones overnight and Monday morning over several Russian regions as well as over the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. The summit, which U.S. President Donald Trump will host in Alaska later this week, sees Putin unwavering on his maximalist demands to keep all the Ukrainian territory his forces now occupy but also to prevent Kyiv from joining NATO with the long-term aim to keep the country under Moscow’s sphere of influence.
2. U.S. military police are teaming up again after two years with South Korean police for joint patrols on the streets of Pyeongtaek, home of the largest U.S. military installation overseas. Ten U.S. military police joined 12 local police officers in Pyeongtaek on July 25 in the first joint patrol since 2023, when the patrols were suspended by personnel shortages after the COVID-19 pandemic, a Pyeongtaek Police Station officer said by phone Thursday. South Korean government officials customarily speak to the media on the condition of anonymity. Pyeongtaek, roughly 40 miles south of Seoul, is home to Camp Humphreys, the headquarters for U.S. Forces Korea, 8th Army and the 2nd Infantry Division as well as the U.N. and Combined Forces Commands. The 3,500-acre base is occupied by roughly 40,000 U.S. and South Korean personnel.
3. The deputy head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog will visit Iran in a bid to rekindle soured ties, the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister said Sunday. There will be no inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities during the visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency scheduled for Monday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. The visit would be the first following Israel and Iran’s 12-day war in June, when some of its key nuclear facilities were struck. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 3 ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the IAEA, after American and Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities. The decision will likely further limit inspectors’ ability to track Tehran’s program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels. “As long as we haven’t reached a new framework for cooperation, there will be no cooperation, and the new framework will definitely be based on the law passed by the Parliament,” Araghchi said.
4. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended a new military offensive in Gaza that’s more sweeping than previously announced, declaring in the face of growing condemnation at home and abroad that Israel “has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas.” Even as more Israelis express concern over the 22-month war, Netanyahu said the security Cabinet last week instructed the dismantling of Hamas strongholds not only in Gaza City but also in the “central camps” and Muwasi. A source familiar with the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, confirmed that Israel plans it in both areas. The camps — sheltering well over a half-million displaced people, according to the U.N. — had not been part of Israel’s announcement Friday. It was not clear why, though Netanyahu faced criticism this weekend within his ruling coalition that targeting Gaza City was not enough. Netanyahu said there would be “safe zones,” but such designated areas have been bombed in the past.
5. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Monday his country would inevitably be drawn “kicking and screaming” into any war over Taiwan due to its proximity to the self-ruled island and the presence of large numbers of Filipino workers there, despite China’s strong protest over such remarks. Marcos also told a news conference that the Philippines' coast guard, navy and other vessels defending its territorial interests in the South China Sea would never back down and would stand their ground in the contested waters after the Chinese coast guard on Monday staged dangerous blocking maneuvers and used a powerful water cannon to try to drive away Philippine vessels from the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal.
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