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The Pentagon has raised its counterintelligence threat assessment of Israel to its highest level amid concerns Israeli intelligence is monitoring senior U.S. officials' deliberations on Iran.

This comes as a senior Russian military official was killed in a car bombing near Moscow, and France and Germany scrapped their €100bn joint fighter jet project.

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1️⃣ 🇺🇸🇮🇱 Pentagon raises Israel spy threat to highest level: The Defense Intelligence Agency elevated its counterintelligence threat assessment of Israel to "critical," its highest designation, over concerns that Israeli intelligence is actively surveilling senior U.S. officials to monitor internal White House deliberations on the Iran conflict. Both Israel and the White House denied the report, with an Israeli Embassy spokesperson calling the claims "completely false" and a White House official dismissing the story as sourced to someone without relevant knowledge, per NBC News.

2️⃣ 🇷🇺 Russia builds bases for 100,000+ troops near NATO borders: Scandinavian intelligence officials, citing satellite evidence, say Russia is constructing military infrastructure capable of housing up to 115,000 troops along borders with Finland, Norway, the Baltic states, and in Kaliningrad. Officials describe the current threat level as exceeding Cold War peaks, though a senior NATO commander noted the risk remains non-immediate while Russian forces stay engaged in Ukraine.

3️⃣ ☢️ Global nuclear spending hits record $119bn: The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons reported that the world's nine nuclear-armed states collectively increased arsenal spending by $16.8bn in 2025, with the U.S. alone accounting for $69.2bn, more than all other nuclear powers combined. The figures arrive as a separate Stockholm International Peace Research Institute warning noted nuclear states are actively stepping back from disarmament commitments in favor of modernizing their weapons.

4️⃣ 🇺🇦🇵🇱 Ukraine-Poland relations strain over WWII unit naming: Zelensky's decree naming a special operations unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a force Poland holds responsible for massacring an estimated 100,000 ethnic Poles, has triggered cross-party backlash in Warsaw, with President Nawrocki consulting on whether to strip Zelensky of Poland's highest state honor. Diplomatic efforts have failed, with PM Tusk warning deadlock would shift relations from goodwill to "hard business," while analysts caution a rupture would benefit Moscow.

5️⃣ 🇫🇷🇩🇪 France and Germany scrap joint fighter jet project: The €100bn Future Combat Air System, launched in 2017 to replace both nations' aging fleets by 2040, collapsed after Dassault and Airbus failed to resolve disputes over development leadership, technology transfers, and diverging military requirements. The failure deals a significant blow to European defense cooperation, though Germany indicated the drone and combat data components may still proceed.

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🇷🇺 Senior Russian military official killed in Moscow car bombing

Colonel Damir Davydov, 57, who headed Russia's military artillery and missile ammunition supply directorate, was killed when an explosive device planted under his car detonated around 5:30am on Tuesday in Balashikha, near Moscow. 

Security footage circulated by pro-Kremlin media appeared to show the vehicle catching fire and rolling into a parked car, with bystanders pulling Davydov from the wreckage before he succumbed to his injuries. 

The Kremlin confirmed the explosion and said Putin had been informed, though spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the investigation, citing ongoing proceedings. 

Ukraine has not commented on the incident, though Russian lawmaker and retired general Vladimir Shamanov condemned the attack without directly attributing blame. 

The killing marks the latest in a series of assassinations targeting Russian military figures since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, and occurred less than a mile from where a senior Russian general was killed in a similar car bombing just over a year prior.

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1️⃣ 🇨🇳🇪🇺 China cancels high-level EU talks amid trade friction: Beijing abruptly called off two ministerial-level meetings with EU officials this month, including a digital policy dialogue and a session with the EU diplomatic service's deputy secretary-general, without offering an explanation, according to the Financial Times. The cancellations are widely interpreted as a signal of Chinese displeasure over EU trade policies, particularly the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, which Beijing has warned could discriminate against foreign firms and threatened to counter if it damages Chinese business interests.

2️⃣ 🇨🇳🇰🇵 Xi visits Pyongyang to reinforce China-North Korea ties: In his first trip to North Korea in seven years, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un pledged deeper cooperation across trade, agriculture, and technology, notably without any public mention of Pyongyang's nuclear program, an omission analysts say signals Beijing's tacit acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear state. Experts suggest the visit is partly aimed at reasserting Chinese influence over Kim ahead of anticipated U.S.-North Korea diplomacy, particularly as Xi and Trump are scheduled to meet again in September.

3️⃣ 🇺🇸🇨🇺 US sanctions Cuba's state oil company: The Trump administration blacklisted Union Cuba-Petroleo, freezing U.S.-based assets and barring American-linked entities from doing business with it, a move expected to worsen an energy crisis already marked by island-wide blackouts. The sanctions coincide with increasingly explicit military signals from Hegseth and Trump, who has drawn direct comparisons to the January offensive against Venezuela, though talks reportedly remain ongoing.

4️⃣ 🇺🇸🇮🇷 US and Iran exchange strikes after helicopter downed: The U.S. struck Iranian air defense, radar, and surveillance sites near the Strait of Hormuz after an American Apache helicopter was downed in the Gulf, an incident whose intent remains disputed, with a U.S. official telling CBS News it was unclear whether Iran deliberately targeted the aircraft. Iran's IRGC claimed retaliatory strikes on 21 targets in Bahrain and Jordan, while Tehran warned the escalation was undermining peace talks Trump called the "final throes."

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