WORLD BRIEFING: May 7, 2024

Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s military to rehearse the use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons in combat, casting the drills as a response to “threats” from French President Emmanuel Macron. The exercises are the Russian president’s latest salvo in a stand-off with the west over his invasion of Ukraine, during which Putin has repeatedly made veiled threats to use nuclear weapons. Russia said the drills, which cover non-strategic nuclear weapons that can be used in battlefield situations, were a response to “provocative statements” from western officials including Macron. The French president last week reaffirmed that he was leaving open the possibility of sending western troops to Ukraine, as he warned of the threat Russia’s invasion poses to Europe. The Kremlin also signalled its ire with the US Senate, which passed a long-delayed $61bn aid package for Kyiv last month, as well as the UK, whose top diplomat Lord David Cameron said last week that Ukraine could use British-supplied weapons against targets inside Russia. - FT

European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the west. Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies, with little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities, intelligence officials believe. While the Kremlin’s agents have a long history of such operations — and launched attacks sporadically in Europe in recent years — evidence is mounting of a more aggressive and concerted effort, according to assessments from three different European countries shared with the Financial Times. Intelligence officials are becoming increasingly vocal about the threat in an effort to promote vigilance. “We assess the risk of state-controlled acts of sabotage to be significantly increased,” said Thomas Haldenwang, head of German domestic intelligence. Russia now seems comfortable carrying out operations on European soil “[with] a high potential for damage,” he told a security conference last month hosted by his agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.  - FT

Israeli leaders have approved a military operation into the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, and Israeli forces are now striking targets in the area, officials announced Monday. The move came hours after Hamas announced it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, which could end seven months of war in Gaza, reported AP. Separately, Israeli forces are going to take over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in the next few hours, according to a CNN political and global affairs analyst, citing two sources.

French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to ensure more balanced trade with Europe as the three met in Paris on Monday at the start of Xi's two-day visit. Macron also pressed the Chinese leader to use his influence on Russia to end the war in Ukraine, while Xi said France and China should jointly aim to prevent a "new Cold War" between global blocks, on matters including trade. Xi arrived in Europe for the first time in five years, at a time of growing business tensions that include the European Union investigating Chinese industries such as electric vehicle exports, while Beijing probes mostly French-made brandy imports. Macron's official gifts for Xi included cognac by LVMH-owned Hennessey and Remy Cointreau, which are among the French companies affected by China's retaliatory anti-dumping brandy investigation. - France 24

Chinese drug cheats and officials willing to turn a blind eye threaten to make the Paris 2024 Olympics a “train wreck,” the top U.S. anti-doping regulator said. American regulator Travis Tygart accuses the World Anti-Doping Agency of “allowing” Chinese authority to cover up illegal drug-taking by top swimmers. Travis Tygart’s trenchant remarks cast another shadow over Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ongoing visit to France where he is meeting President Emmanuel Macron, less than three months before the Olympics begin. Last month, The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD published a bombshell investigation revealing 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for prohibited drugs before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but were still permitted to take part in the Games, with several winning medals. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the global drugs regulator for sport, accepted an explanation from Beijing’s domestic watchdog, CHINADA, pinning the swimmers’ failed tests on a contaminated hotel kitchen where the banned drug trimetazidine, known as TMZ, was present. Clean athletes and top figures fighting for drug-free sport are incensed at the revelations about the Chinese athletes at the Tokyo Games. Few more so than Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency. “Because of the cover-up that happened by China, and WADA allowing it, now that it’s come to light it’s going to be a train wreck waiting to happen going into Paris,” Tygart said during an exclusive interview with POLITICO.

A U.S. soldier was detained in Russia last week, a U.S. Army spokesperson said in a statement. The soldier, Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, had been stationed in South Korea and traveled to Russia on his own, not on official business, according to four U.S. officials. He had finished his deployment and was heading back to the U.S. when he made a side trip to Vladivostok, Russia, to visit a woman he was romantically involved with, officials said. They added that he had traveled there without permission from his superiors and that he is being held in pretrial confinement. The soldier is accused of stealing from a woman, the officials said. It was not immediately clear whether it was the same woman he was visiting. The soldier was detained Thursday, U.S. Army spokesperson Cynthia O. Smith said in a statement. - NBC

Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests but will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the university announced Monday. “Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15," Columbia officials said in a statement.The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants. The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue. - VOA