Ukraine reinforces position in Kursk, US offshore drilling ban, Trudeau to resign and Musk doubles-down on Europe’s hard right.
Andrew Sheves Good morning, and welcome to the first full week of 2025. Let’s get after it.
🇺🇦 Ukraine began a new offensive into the Russian territory it holds in the Kursk region. Ukraine has held this since August, and reinforcing its hold on Russian ground will strengthen Kyiv’s hand in any upcoming peace talks. [More - Al Jazera]
🛢️ President Biden signed a last-minute order to prevent further oil and gas exploration in huge areas of the US coastline. [More - BBC]
🇨🇦 Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau is reportedly planning to step down before a party meeting this Wednesday. His Liberal Party will select his successor, but Canada’s parliament may force a vote of no confidence in the spring. This could trigger elections in mid-2025, which the opposition Conservative Party expects to do well. [More - Bloomberg]
🇬🇧 Elon Musk has waded into British politics, falsely accusing Prime Minister Kier Starmer of covering up a years-old child abuse scandal (something Starmer took major steps to crack down on when was the UK’s director of public prosecutions (DPP)), attacking his former favorite Nigel Farage who leads the Reform party, and calling for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right agitator in jail for contempt of court. Musk’s false accusations are being amplified by the British Conservatives as well as his millions of social-media followers and will complicate relations between the UK and US. [More - BBC]
(Note - terms like ‘far-right’ are used broadly but Robinson’s positions are sufficiently extreme that even mainstream Conservatives and Reform party members in the UK disavow him. Musk’s support of him mirrors his promotion of the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, another extreme far-right party.)
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