Russia

• The Kremlin's press office revealed that Pres. Putin hosted Yevgeny Prigozhin and his senior commanders for a three-hour meeting on June 29 - just six days after they briefly rebelled against the president...and then quickly agreed to stand down.
• The Wagner Group leaders made it out of the meeting alive, which suggests Putin and Prigozhin are back on speaking terms. Putin likely reasoned that his leadership is more secure with Prigozhin and Wagner back on his good side than with them plotting in Belarus.
• Putin also seems to have granted leniency to army general Valery Gerasimov, who disappeared from public view amidst rumors that he helped facilitate the failed Wagner revolt. Gerasimov resurfaced in a new defense ministry video that showed him still actively commanding Russian troops.
• The other Russian general who suspiciously disappeared during the rebellion - Sergei Surovikin - hasn't reemerged yet.

• North Korea complained that U.S. spy planes had violated its airspace and threatened to shoot down any new incursions it spots.

• Chinese inflation data came in lower than analysts expected yesterday: consumer prices were down 0.2% over the past month, resulting in dead flat prices over the past year. That suggests consumers aren't binging on post-COVID spending as centralized policymakers hoped they would.

• Outraged at reports of a Quran burning outside of a mosque in Stockholm, the Taliban banned all things Swedish - like meatballs, flat-packed furniture, and the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (an NGO).

• China's CMOC confirmed yesterday that it has resumed copper and cobalt shipments from its Tenke Fungurume mine in DRC after resolving a dispute with Gecamines over royalties.
• Tenke Fungurume represented 10% of global cobalt production in 2021 and continued to produce as it negotiated with Gecamines. Since it wasn't shipping ore during the dispute, CMOC is sitting on a large stockpile of both copper and cobalt.
• Cobalt prices are already down 40% over the past year, and CMOC's release of stockpiled ore is likely to put further downward pressure on prices (though much of CMOC's cobalt is contractually committed to specific buyers so market prices aren't going to crash drastically).

• Turkey suddenly said it would stop blocking Sweden's application to join NATO, which it has held up for over a year in an effort to bully Sweden into extraditing Kurdish asylees.
• The u-turn likely came about because of pressure from Pres. Biden, who called Pres. Erdogan on Sunday. Erdogan likely reasoned that his efforts to block Sweden's application weren't getting him anywhere.
• Shortly after Turkey's announcement, Biden indicated the U.S. would sell Turkey the F-16s it wants.