Hezbollah

• Citing U.S. and Israeli officials, Axios reported that U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein asked the Lebanese parliament to warn Hezbollah that "the U.S. won't be able to hold Israel back if the situation on the border continues to escalate."
• The U.S. is reluctant to intervene too boldly on Israel's behalf because it fears that if it does, Iran could step in to back Hezbollah on the other side.
• Hochstein instead encouraged Hezbollah (via Lebanese legislators) to negotiate directly with Israel.

Afghanistan

• Following its surprising upset over Australia, Afghanistan's cricket team beat Bangladesh yesterday to reach the T20 World Cup semifinals for the first time ever. The semifinal games will take place tonight (Afghanistan-South Africa) and tomorrow (India-England).

Russia

• Some Russian officials sought to link Sunday's Dagestan attacks to the war in Ukraine, but most are acknowledging that Islamic "sleeper cells" in the majority-Muslim southern region were responsible for the violence.
• That's a more realistic assessment than we saw from Russian officials after the Crocus Hall attacks in March, which even very senior officials - like ex-president Medvedev - initially tried to blame on Ukraine.
• Separately, the EU approved a 14th round of sanctions against Russia that aims to close some loopholes that diluted the effect of previous rounds. This round targets Russia's "ghost fleet" that uses murky ship registrations to launder liquid natural gas (LNG) exports into the EU.
• Some EU technocrats expressed concern that squeezing Russian LNG imports will only make the EU more dependent on LNG imports from other exporters like Norway, the U.S., Algeria, and Egypt.

Ukraine

• Pres. Zelensky removed Gen. Yurii Sodol from his position leading the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces following criticism that Sodol's reckless decisions caused excessive Ukrainian casualties. Brig. Gen. Andrii Hnatov will replace Sodol.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. denied Russia's accusations that it supplied the coordinates Ukraine used to launch the ATACMS missiles that Russia intercepted over Crimea, killing four beachgoers. A Pentagon spokesman said Ukraine "makes its own targeting decisions and conducts its own military operations."
• Russia still blamed the U.S. for supplying the missiles and accused it of stoking a "proxy war" by arming Ukraine. Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. Ambassador to warn that retaliatory measures would "definitely follow."

North Korea

• North Korea floated another 350 trash balloons over the border into South Korea yesterday, and South Korea responded by renewing its threat to retaliate by blasting K-pop and propaganda over loudspeakers at the border (it's still working on its playlist and hasn't started broadcasting yet).

Other News

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange ended his legal exile by agreeing to plead guilty to a felony charge for publishing confidential U.S. military records online. In return, U.S. prosecutors will seek a retroactive sentence equal to the amount of time Assange has already served in a UK jail, allowing him to walk free. He was released yesterday and is en route to his native Australia.