Two Wars Resist Diplomacy as Costs Hit US Wallets, Ukraine Reactors

The world's two largest wars both resisted diplomacy on June 7, even as the economic and physical costs of each pushed outward. In the Ukraine conflict, the Financial Times reported that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had used the sanctioned billionaire Roman Abramovich to pass Vladimir Putin a message signalling readiness for a direct meeting; Putin dismissed it on June 5 at the St Petersburg economic forum, saying he saw "no point" and that the only purpose would be "for the Ukrainians to stop the advance of our armed forces." With the overture rejected, Zelenskyy flew to London, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a "coalition of the willing" summit with Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz; Starmer committed Britain to raising defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027 and reaffirmed a willingness to send troops as part of future security guarantees. Over the weekend Ukraine also struck St Petersburg with a large drone raid, after which Zelenskyy declared "it is time to end this war."

The war's nuclear edge sharpened. A Russian strike overnight on June 6-7 hit the Centralised Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility in Kyiv Oblast, about nine miles from Chernobyl -- the site was empty and partially destroyed, with a roughly 40-square-metre fire put out within an hour and radiation reported safe -- drawing condemnation from Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna. The same weekend the Zaporizhzhia plant was reconnected after a 15-hour total blackout, its 18th since 2022, which IAEA chief Rafael Grossi called a sign of the grid's fragility. Russia carried out 967 attacks on the Zaporizhzhia region in a day, killing one and injuring 25, while Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces claimed 26 targets and more than 2,000 Russian casualties in six days and hit fuel depots in occupied Crimea.

In the Middle East, the US-Israeli war on Iran reached its 100th day with no resolution, the US shooting down two more Iranian drones. The toll is increasingly domestic for Americans: a Moody's analysis put the average household's added cost at $750, with regular gasoline at $4.22 a gallon, inflation at a three-year-high 3.8 percent, and the Pentagon spending an estimated $2 billion a day. The fighting widened, too: Israel struck Beirut's southern suburbs, killing at least two in a Hezbollah stronghold, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a hit on "terrorist headquarters," while Iran's parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned of "direct confrontation" and said US bases had become "legitimate targets." With the Strait of Hormuz still throttled, global airlines face roughly $100 billion in added jet-fuel costs, and Washington pressed the IAEA to demand Iran account for its bombed nuclear sites.

Europe's own defences and politics were strained. Britain found its entire five-boat Astute-class attack-submarine fleet tied up in port at once -- a readiness gap that sat awkwardly beneath Starmer's London pledges -- after a maintenance crisis the First Sea Lord has tried to fix with a recovery plan centred on Devonport. France was consumed by the murder of 11-year-old Lyhanna, whose suspect had faced six unactioned abuse complaints since 2017; Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin gave prosecutors until July 14 to review every pending child-abuse complaint, a white march in Fleurance drew about 6,000 people, and Jean-Luc Melenchon opened his 2027 presidential campaign before some 26,000 in Saint-Denis. In Germany, the far-right AfD contested district races across the east and a Free Saxons candidate neared the country's first directly elected far-right mayor since 1945, prompting Merz to warn of a possible "big bang" before September's state elections.

The wars reshaped institutions and alliances elsewhere. In Washington, the Supreme Court entered a decisive final month, weighing President Donald Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship -- after April arguments in which a majority appeared poised to strike it down -- and a series of appeals over his power to fire officials Congress had insulated from removal. Across the Gulf, governments hit by damage to airports and energy facilities from the Iran war responded with a wave of new defence agreements and tighter internal crackdowns, even as Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, toured India and Turkey seeking oil buyers amid the Hormuz disruption.

Beyond the two wars, other regions carried their own pressures. In the Caribbean, the United States deployed the USS Nimitz carrier strike group, raising expectations of a possible operation against Cuba as talks stalled, while in Colombia clashes between FARC-dissident factions near San Jose del Guaviare left at least 48 fighters dead in late May -- the deadliest month there since 2018 -- ahead of presidential elections, and fuel shortages drove a surge of unrest in Bolivia. In Africa, Ethiopia prepared for its first general election since 2021 amid continuing conflict, with Sudan, the Sahel and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo still in turmoil even as the African Development Bank projected the continent would be the world's fastest-growing region at about 4.2 percent. And in Turkey, a released Global Sumud Flotilla activist published a detailed account of alleged abuse in Israeli detention as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pressed his crackdown on the jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and the wider opposition.