Ukraine

• Following visits to Kyiv by the French and Romanian presidents, the German chancellor, and the Italian PM; it looks all the more likely that the EU is going to endorse Ukraine's application for membership at next week's summit. It will still be a long application process from there.
• While in Kyiv, the EU leaders pledged to send still more weapons to Ukraine. The U.S. also said its first M142 HIMARS will arrive in Ukraine at the end of June, and it's currently training 60 Ukrainian soldiers to operate the system. The U.S. plans to send more HIMARS over once Ukrainian forces demonstrate they can capably operate the first one.
• Two U.S. citizens who volunteered to fight with Ukraine went missing last week near Kharkiv and are feared captured. They would be the first confirmed U.S. citizen POWs of this war.
• Satellite imagery showed Russian-flagged tankers loading Ukrainian grain in Sevastopol - and then unloading it in Syria. Ukraine has accused Russia of stealing its grain, exacerbating global food shortages in the process.

• Dutch authorities in The Hague say an alleged Russian spy posed as a Brazilian intern to try to infiltrate the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is investigating various allegations against Russia - including possible war crimes in both Ukraine and Georgia - and Russia would certainly like to know what those investigations have uncovered.

• Today China launched its third and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian. It's China's first domestically-designed and built catapult carrier, and experts say it comes closer to rivaling U.S. carrier technology (China's first two carriers use a more primitive ski jump-esque launch system).
• Hong Kong's pro-Beijing government is preparing a series of new textbooks that will erase the territory's history as a UK colony on the basis that it was never legal. A proof of the teachers' edition of one of the books asserts: "The British aggression violated the principles of international law so its occupation of Hong Kong region should not have been recognized as lawful."

• The Center for Strategic and International Studies says North Korea is building a new tunnel at its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility ahead of a possible nuclear test. Punggye-ri is where North Korea carried out six underground nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, so it's a good guess for where the next test will take place.

• U.S. and Israeli intelligence think Iran is also working on deep underground tunnels for its nuclear efforts, although it's not clear exactly what purpose the new tunnels will serve - besides being deep enough to be safe from bunker-buster bombs.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. slapped new sanctions on Iranian petrochemical producers and front companies in China and the UAE in an effort to limit Iranian exports of petrochemicals until a new nuclear deal can be reached - which looks a long way away at this point.

• The UK, Switzerland, and Hungary followed the U.S. in raising interest rates to counter inflation, and stock markets fell on concerns of a looming recession. So far, at least 45 countries have raised rates in 2022.

• Customs and Border Protection data for May showed a record number of interceptions at the southern U.S. border - including many nationalities that hadn't previously tried to cross in large numbers (Indian, Turkish, Russian). Meanwhile, Central American migration appears to be down.