Denys Kapustin, the founder and commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, says his group has become a home for Russians who want to fight in Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading forces. 

Threat Status Special Correspondent Guillaume Ptak sat down with for an exclusive interview in Odesa, Ukraine, with Mr. Kapustin, who argues that Moscow’s war is driven by imperial resentment rather than national interest and warns that Europe is already facing the opening stages of a wider Russian campaign.

“People feel comfortable in Berlin, Bern, Barcelona or wherever. They think: Russian tanks cannot even capture Donbas, so this will never happen here. But your war will look completely different,” Mr. Kapustin says. “Hybrid war is already ongoing. We have Russian spies setting things on fire. We have ammunition factories exploding in Bulgaria. We have drones flying over airports.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday that next month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, will highlight how the alliance’s 32 member nations are “stepping up” toward the goal of spending 5% of GDP each by 2035, showing the world — especially Russia — that NATO is fully prepared “to defend all our citizens and every inch of our territory.”

Sources tell Threat Status there could be behind-the-scenes geopolitical tension at the July 7-8 summit. The global security picture has shifted dramatically since Turkey last hosted in 2004, and one thing to watch is the unease some Western European powers have over Ankara’s complex relationship with Moscow, particularly with regard to Turkish purchases of Russian oil.

The parliaments of Germany and France are currently pushing a joint initiative demanding more aggressive European action to crack down on Russia’s “shadow fleet” of some 500 tankers that Moscow relies upon to smuggle oil exports to buyers such as India, China and even Turkey, which has been a NATO member since 1952.

Iran said Friday it has the right to manage commercial shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, warning international shipping companies not to take alternative routes a day after a cargo ship was struck in the waterway.

The U.S.-Iran ceasefire and memorandum of understanding are anchored on Tehran removing its blockade of the strait and charging no transit fees for at least 60-days. But the memorandum does not outline who has direct authority over the waterway during the current negotiating period. 

Friday’s development came a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrapped a three-day visit with Arab leaders in the Persian Gulf, during which he emphasized that the Strait of Hormuz would be toll-free under any final agreement with Iran. “The reality of it is that no country on earth has a right to charge for the use of international waterways,” Mr. Rubio said. “That will never be an acceptable condition of any deal.”

The Energy Department is urgently working to strengthen U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities in the face of mounting strategic threats from Beijing and Moscow, according to Brandon Williams, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Mr. Williams said in public remarks recently at the Hudson Institute that he favors his agency’s efforts to build low-yield nuclear warheads and is ready to resume underground nuclear tests if President Trump orders the blasts. He also emphasized that the Chinese military is moving rapidly to build up both nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems.

China’s warhead stockpile grew from around 250 warheads several years ago to more than 600 warheads today and is projected to increase to around 1,500 in the coming years, with no plans by Beijing to join arms reduction talks or to disclose when the expansion will end.

Retired CIA Clandestine Services Officer Daniel N. Hoffman writes that if his “relatives who fought in World War II were alive today, they would admonish elected U.S. officials about this century’s Axis of Dictatorships — the alliance of Iran, Russia, China and North Korea.”

Mr. Hoffman, a Washington Times columnist and opinion contributor to Threat Status, examines the military, diplomatic, informational and economic tissue of relations between Tehran, Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang.

“United in their strategic objective to reduce or altogether eliminate U.S. global influence and the strategic partnerships on which the U.S. economy so deeply relies, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran enable one another’s wide-ranging attacks on the U.S. and our allies in Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific,” he writes in a column for The Times.

• June 30 — 2026 Global Security Forum, America at 250: A Defining Moment for American Statecraft and Military Power, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• June 30- July 1 — AWS Summit, Artificial Intelligence Technologies in the Public Sector, Amazon Web Services

• July 2 — The Eurasian Heartland Arrives: Kyrgyzstan’s Seat on the U.N. Security Council, Hudson Institute

• July 7 — Was the Iran War Worth It? Assessing Costs, Benefits and U.S. Interests, Stimson Center

• July 8 — Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Proposers Day: Lightweight Universal Codec Program, DARPA

• July 8-9 — Military Robotics and Autonomous Systems USA Conference, SAE Media Group

• July 10 — Taiwan’s Institutional Defense: Countering the Chinese Communist Party Infiltration and Transnational Repression, Hudson Institute

• July 14-17 — Aspen Security Forum, Aspen Strategy Group