US News

• The Biden administration, reacting to a federal court ruling in Texas, has suspended an order that had focused resources for the arrest and deportation of immigrants on those who are considered a threat to public safety and national security. [Link]
• A record low number of America’s youth are eligible for military service, and fewer are considering the military as a career. Every branch of the Department of Defense is struggling to meet its 2022 recruitment quotas. The military is rolling out new tactics to drive recruitment, including exploiting the new Top Gun movie, utilizing TikTok and removing the requirement that soldiers complete high school. [Link]
• Lockheed Martin won a $2.3 billion contract to build 120 H-60M Black Hawks helicopters. [Link]
• Senior Biden administration officials have quietly traveled to Caracas. [Link]

Russia/Ukraine

• US officials said Monday that the Biden administration is preparing to purchase a Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) for Ukraine as part of a new weapons package that will likely be announced this week. [Link]
• NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the Western military alliance will increase the size of its rapid reaction forces nearly eightfold to 300,000 troops as part of its response to an “era of strategic competition.” [Link]
• Biden reportedly plans to announce the extended presence of American troops in Poland. [Link]
• The Times spoke with an intelligence officer and two sergeants in the Ukrainian special forces elite Shaman battalion who claimed Kiev had conducted covert operations inside Russia. The officers said they successfully carried out raids involving explosions to sow confusion and dissent among Russians. [Link]
• The US is pushing a plan at the G7 summit that will put a “price cap” on Russian oil. [Link]
• The leaders of the G7 nations pledged open-ended support for Ukraine. [Link]
• Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. [Link]
• Putin said Moscow will provide Belarus with nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles in the coming months. [Link]
• Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to participate in this year’s Group of 20 Summit. [Link]
• Any encroachment on the Crimea peninsula by a NATO member-state could amount to a declaration of war on Russia which could lead to “World War Three,” Russia’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev said. [Link]
• France wants to explore talks on lifting sanctions on oil-producing nations Iran and Venezuela to ease global energy prices. [Link]
• French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, had told him two top OPEC oil producers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, can barely increase oil production. [Link]
• Spain will use a NATO summit in Madrid this week to press its case, and is likely to ask for increased intelligence sharing by the alliance including on issues related to migration. [Link]

China

• President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to speak in the next few weeks, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. [Link]

Korea

• North Korea has accused the U.S. of creating an “Asia-style NATO” in an attempt to overthrow Kim Jong-un. [Link]

Middle East 

• It was agreed among officials from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and several affiliated Arab states to make a show of “tight cooperation” for the next couple of weeks, to avoid any dispute that might mar Biden’s visit. [Link]
• Iran and the United States will restart their stalled talks, aimed at restoring a landmark 2015 nuclear accord, in Qatar with mediation by the European Union. The Iranian envoy will arrive in Qatar on Tuesday. [Link]
• Iran has submitted an application to become a member of BRICS. [Link]
• According to CENTCOM, al-Qaeda affiliate leader Abu Hamzah al-Yemeni was killed in an unspecified US strike in the Idlib Province of northern Syria. [Link]
• The United Nations’ World Food Program has said it has further reduced rations in Yemen due to critical funding gaps. [Link]

Sudan

• Ethiopia on Monday denied Sudan’s accusation that its army had captured and executed seven Sudanese soldiers and a civilian, instead blaming the killings on a local militia. [Link]