Ukraine

• Pres. Zelensky turned up in Izium (near Kharkiv) just five days after Ukrainian troops retook it from Russian occupiers, and boosted morale by re-raising the Ukrainian flag. The location is symbolic: Izium was a major logistical hub for the Russian military, so the fact that Ukraine's president can safely show his face there proves the tides of the war have changed.
• Meanwhile in Russian border towns, Pres. Putin's fragile veneer of normalcy is starting to crack as refugees and retreating soldiers stream in. Putin continues to resist calls from Russian hawks to fully mobilize the military.

• A local council in St. Petersburg was ordered to dissolve and its members were fined 47,000 rubles ($780) for "discrediting" the Kremlin by calling for Putin's removal. There are reports of growing - but still quiet - discontent with the war in Russia.
• Today is the day Presidents Putin and Xi will meet in Uzbekistan.

• The EU said it would follow the U.S.'s example and ban all goods produced with forced labor. While the proposal doesn't explicitly mention Xinjiang, it's widely understood that it was designed to target China for forcing minority Uighurs into labor there - without specifically saying so, which would've antagonized Beijing.
• The EU's plan is a notch weaker than the U.S. version, which imposed a blanket ban on all goods produced in Xinjiang. The onus will be on authorities in EU member states to prove goods were made with forced labor before those goods can be removed from the market. Implementation will likely be weak.
• Separately, the U.S. Senate is considering a bipartisan bill that would allocate $4.5 billion in trade and security assistance for Taiwan over the next four years. The Biden administration is quietly cautioning Congress against the bill, which would disrupt fragile relations with Beijing and probably invite retaliation.

• Russia brokered a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan late yesterday, and shelling seems to have stopped. That said, this is the third ceasefire this week: the other two held for less than a day each. The UN Security Council will discuss the situation today, at Armenia's request.

• The U.S. announced a new fund that will hold $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets that will pay for economic stability initiatives in Afghanistan...eventually. The money will sit in the new fund until the U.S. is satisfactorily assured that the Afghan central bank will manage it responsibly and none of it will be diverted to terrorists or criminals. That could take years.

• The European Commission introduced a plan to impose a windfall tax on energy companies to redistribute some of their record profits into a $140 billion fund to relieve consumers paying record prices for their energy.