EU Sanctions Russia Over Ukrainian Children; Hormuz Crisis Grows

The day's centre of gravity was Brussels. After a meeting of EU foreign ministers, foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "in a weaker position than he has been ever before," citing record battlefield losses, Ukrainian deep strikes inside Russia, and growing domestic discontent. She called for all EU-Ukraine accession negotiation clusters to be opened by August and framed accession as "an investment into our own security," not charity. Kallas was dismissive of Putin's latest ceasefire overtures, calling them "very cynical," and rejected former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder as a Ukraine mediator. The ministers adopted new sanctions on 16 individuals and seven entities in Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories for the "systematic unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children," and approved long-stalled measures against violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank and leading Hamas figures after a change of government in Hungary unblocked the package. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar condemned the move as a "completely distorted moral equivalence."

The same sanctions push ran through London and Ottawa. The UK and Canada joined the EU in a coordinated package targeting Russian networks that deport, forcibly assimilate and militarize Ukrainian minors; London sanctioned 85 individuals and entities, including the Warrior Centre and 49 employees of the Social Design Agency. The action was timed to a 47-country International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children meeting that the EU and Canada co-hosted; EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said "stealing the children is really one of the most horrific" faces of the war.

Washington spent the day arguing with itself. Donald Trump used Truth Social to name Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — both his appointees — and accuse them of having "hurt our Country so badly" by joining the 6-3 February ruling that voided his emergency-statute tariffs and triggered $159 billion in refunds. Trump openly framed the rebuke as a loyalty question and warned the Court not to deliver a "negative ruling on Birthright Citizenship, on top of the recent Supreme Court Tariff catastrophe." Customs and Border Protection identified more than 330,000 importers who paid the duties; Trump has said he will "remember" companies that fail to request a refund.

Allied trust in Washington is the structural story. After Trump's 5,000-troop drawdown from Germany, broader threats to thin US forces in Europe, and a muted American response to Iranian strikes on the United Arab Emirates, European capitals are stepping up joint procurement and weapons development, while Gulf and Asian partners diversify their security relationships. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius called the troop withdrawal "foreseeable"; Spain's Margarita Robles said Europe must build resilience of its own.

Iran is the macro variable that won't resolve. The country is assessed to hold more than 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent — material that could be moved to weapons-grade quickly — and the stockpile has been inaccessible since the US bombing campaign in June 2025. Russian President Vladimir Putin said over the weekend that Moscow could not verify the material's location, while Trump's claims continue to conflict with statements from Iranian officials. The economic side of the shock is now globalising. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year, which choked off roughly a fifth of global oil and LNG, has pushed import-dependent economies like India and the Philippines into rationing and currency stress, while Pakistan and Brazil have gained room to manoeuvre; the crisis is accelerating renewables investment in which China — already the dominant producer of solar panels, batteries and EVs — is the chief beneficiary.

Asia spent the day on the Trump-Xi summit. Thursday's meeting in Beijing is driving every other story in Washington this week. Taiwan's Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said the island "hoped for no surprises" on Taiwan-related issues; on the ground, Taiwanese civilians have begun enrolling in mass-attendance self-defence classes in case the talks touch on the island's status. North Korea remains a load-bearing input to the Russian war: South Korean estimates cited by Nikkei Asia value Pyongyang's three-year transfers of artillery shells, rockets, KN-23 ballistic missiles and related equipment to Moscow at $7 billion to $13.8 billion, close to its own GDP, in exchange for foreign currency, energy and military technology.

Europe also tracked a quieter Russian operation. The German government told the Bundestag, in a response to a Greens inquiry, that Russian intelligence services are increasingly outsourcing assassination and sabotage operations to organised-crime networks because the arrangement gives the Kremlin "plausible deniability." Ukrainian drones, meanwhile, hammered the Taganrog–Dzhankoi highway feeding occupied Crimea, with Russian military bloggers including Alexei Zhivov calling the attacks "an extremely alarming signal" — the operational expression of the EU's strategic claim that Putin is now negotiating from weakness.