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Jamaat Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) has intensified the rate and scale of attacks against government-controlled population centers across the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso and Mali, since the beginning of May.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei categorically rejected the recent US nuclear proposal because the proposal would require Iran to eventually halt all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. Iran’s continued rejection of the US demand for zero uranium enrichment could cause the US-Iran nuclear negotiations to collapse. Axios reported on June 2 that the US proposal would allow Iran to enrich uranium at three percent on Iranian soil during the establishment of a regional nuclear consortium.
The Kremlin is fixating on recent train derailments in Russia in order to further long-standing Kremlin narratives claiming that Ukraine is an illegitimate negotiating partner that is uninterested in peace, likely to distract the broader information space from recent Kremlin officials' statements about Russia's own disinterest in a negotiated settlement. Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with members of the Russian government on June 4 and discussed the May 31 collapse of two railway bridges in Kursk and Bryansk oblasts.
Russian occupation officials continue to articulate plans for the forced removal and deportation of Ukrainian children over the course of Summer 2025.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi likely discussed the Lebanese government’s efforts to prevent Hezbollah’s reconstitution during a visit to Beirut on June 3.
Kremlin officials publicly acknowledged that Russia seeks the “complete destruction” of Ukraine, indicating Moscow’s disinterest in good faith peace negotiations and a near-term resolution to the war.
Iran increased its stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium by 133.8 kilograms, or 3.2 significant quantities, since February 2025, according to an unreleased International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report. Iran has enough 60 percent enriched uranium, if enriched further, to produce nearly 10 nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations met in Istanbul on June 2 and only reached agreements about prisoner of war (POW) exchanges. Russia's refusal to give Ukraine its memorandum with its terms for a peace settlement before the meeting ensured that the meeting was largely unproductive and further protracted the negotiation process.
Russia and Ukraine are engaged in an active technological race to develop and deploy drones with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Russia and Ukraine are competing to advance these AI/ML-powered drones to automate drone interoperability, targeting, and battlefield analysis. The successful integration of AI/ML drones could enable Russian and Ukrainian forces to reduce their reliance on human drone operators and defenders, bypass electronic warfare (EW), including jamming, reduce human limitations in target identification, and speed up decision-making processes involved in drone warfare.
Ukraine conducted a large-scale and simultaneous series of drone strikes against multiple air bases in Russia on June 1. Sources within Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) told various media outlets that the SBU conducted widespread first-person view (FPV) drone strikes that struck four air bases in Russia. The SBU sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk Oblast; Olenya Air Base in Murmansk Oblast; Dyagilevo Air Base in Ryazan Oblast; and Ivanovo Air Base in Ivanovo Oblast. The SBU sources confirmed that Ukrainian drone operators struck 41 Russian strategic bombers, including A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers – fixed-wing aircraft that Russia uses to detect Ukrainian air defenses and launch cruise missiles against Ukraine.