Ukraine

• Ahead of a NATO summit that starts tomorrow, Pres. Biden told an interviewer that it would be "premature" for NATO to admit Ukraine before Ukraine meets "other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization."
• Biden didn't have to mention that Ukraine's accession to NATO would create a conundrum by inducting a member already fighting a war with a non-member into an alliance sworn to defend any member that comes into conflict with a non-member.
• NATO will nonetheless use this week's summit to showcase its solidarity with - and ongoing support for - Ukraine, though it will continue to ensure that support is limited to sending trainers and supplies to Ukraine rather than joining the conflict directly.
• Separately, Meduza estimated that about 47,000 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine in the first 500 days of the war. Russia hasn't released official casualty statistics since mid-September 2022, when it estimated that 5,937 of its troops had been killed in action. That figure is certainly an underestimate.

• Treasury Secretary Yellen spent 10 hours meeting with Chinese officials during her trip to Beijing last week.
• While she acknowledged the "significant disagreements" between the U.S. and China, her goal was to help rebuild frayed trust and ensure clear communication between the two rival superpowers with a message of hope that they can coexist: "the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive."

• Three U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones assassinated senior Islamic State commander Usamah al-Muhajir on Friday in northwestern Syria.
• According to CentCom officials, Russian fighter jets spotted the drones and "harassed" them in an "unsafe and unprofessional manner, distracting them from their mission for almost two hours.
• The U.S. and Russia have a deconfliction line that should prevent this sort of meddling in each other's operations, but U.S. officials say Russia hasn't been using the line regularly lately.

• Prime Minister Dbeibah announced that flights between Italy and Libya - presumably Dbeibah's Tripoli - will resume in September after a 10-year hiatus.
• The European Union still has an air embargo in place on Libya and still blacklists all Libyan air carriers, so I'm not clear on how Italy can resume flights. Malta already relaunched air links with Libya, though, so perhaps Italy will follow the same roadmap Malta did.

• Venezuela's opposition is preparing a proposal to divert 200,000 barrels per day of oil to a trust account to pay creditors.
• There are elements of the plan that could appeal to Pres. Maduro's socialist government: oil sold to benefit a trust could potentially be exported to the U.S. at higher prices than Venezuela currently charges China, and a deal with the opposition would lessen the risk that Maduro's most valuable asset, Citgo, is forced to break up.