What's next for oil as OPEC+ and Trump shake the market?
OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, has agreed to another large production hike in September.
That's despite a warning by the International Energy Agency, the extra barrels could tip the market into oversupply later this year.
US President Donald Trump's tariffs have targeted Russian crude buyers.
But whether those tariffs are imposed depends on the outcome of trade negotiations with India and China.
And even more so on talks over a peace deal in Ukraine between Washington and Moscow.
Can the US and Europe break China's grip on rare earths?
Plus, why is China's Labubu toy so popular?
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Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump-Putin meeting: How much territory does Russia control in Ukraine?
Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump will meet on Friday in Alaska to discuss ending Moscow's three-year-long war in Ukraine. The leaders are expected to discuss 'land swapping', suggesting that Trump may support an agreement where Russia will maintain control of some of the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies, but not all. In a news conference at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said, 'Russia's occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We're going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine.' But the idea of a swap also suggests that Ukraine might need to give up some land that it currently controls. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that any deal involving the ceding of Ukrainian land to Russia would be unsuccessful. What does Putin want? Last month, Trump warned that tougher sanctions would be put in place unless Russia halted fighting with Ukraine within 50 days. That deadline has now passed, and no new measures have hit Moscow, but the US has imposed 50 percent tariffs on India to punish it for its continued purchase of Russian oil. Trump has demanded that Putin agree to a ceasefire on Friday to avoid the US imposing further tariffs on other countries buying Russian energy assets. Putin has stated that he wants full control of Ukraine's eastern regions, including Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, parts of which Russia annexed in 2022, along with Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. If Kyiv were to agree, it would mean withdrawing troops from parts of Luhansk and Donetsk, where much of the recent fighting has been concentrated. Bloomberg reported on August 8 that US and Russian officials were working towards an agreement that would 'freeze the war', and allow Moscow to keep the territory it has taken. In addition, Putin has consistently demanded that Ukraine remain a neutral state, abandoning its ambitions to join NATO. Can Ukraine even cede territory? Ukraine giving up land it has lost during this war and previously, in 2014, is not a welcome option. On Saturday, Zelenskyy said that he would not 'gift' land to Russia, and that Ukrainians would not give up their land to Russian occupiers. More than this, ceding any territory would be illegal under the Ukrainian constitution. How much of Ukraine does Russia control? Russia occupies about one-fifth – 114,500 square km (44,600 square miles) – of Ukraine's land. The active front line stretches some 1,000km (620 miles) through the regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. Russia controls about three-quarters of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Additionally, small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine are under Russian occupation. Across the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Russia controls about 400 sq km (154 sq miles) of territory. In Dnipropetrovsk, Russia has taken a tiny area near the border. Russia controls about 46,570 sq km (17,981 sq miles), or 88 percent, of the territory known as Donbas, made up of the Luhansk and Donbas regions. Russia occupies almost all of Luhansk and three-quarters of Donetsk. Ukraine still holds about 6,600 sq km (2,550 sq miles) of Donbas, although Russia has been focusing most of its energy along the front in Donetsk, pushing towards the last remaining major cities not in its control. This has been part of its efforts to secure what is known as the 'fortress belt'. What is the fortress belt? The 'fortress belt' stretches some 50km (31 miles) along a strategic highway between the towns of Kostiantynivka and Sloviansk. The fortress belt includes key towns — Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka – which have remained under the control of Ukrainian troops since 2014 and are of significant strategic importance as logistical and administrative centre. Attempts by Russian troops to capture Sloviansk and the cities of the fortress belt in 2022-2023 were unsuccessful, and Ukrainian counteroffensives drove the Russian forces far from key positions. 'Ukraine's fortress belt has served as a major obstacle to the Kremlin's territorial ambitions in Ukraine over the last 11 years,' the Washington, DC-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on August 8. Russian advances: What's the situation on the ground now? In August, Russian forces made significant gains, advancing about 10km (6 miles) beyond the front lines as they intensified efforts to seize the fortress belt from the southwest, concentrating forces in the Toretsk and eastern Pokrovsk directions. Al Jazeera military expert Alex Gatapoulous said, 'I'm not sure what Ukraine has to offer in terms of territory. Russia has it all and is slowly winning this conflict, albeit at a great cost. 'There is already movement around Pokrovsk in the east, and Konstantinivka is also in danger of encirclement. If Ukraine hasn't built defensive positions in-depth, Russian forces will have the ability to break out into open country. This is a really dangerous time for Ukraine. They've lost all the Russian territory they had taken in Kursk and have little to trade with.' How has the war progressed over the past three years? In the war's early weeks, Russia advanced from the north, east and south, rapidly seizing vast areas of Ukrainian territory, with fierce battles in Irpin, Bucha and Mariupol – the latter of which fell to Russian forces in May 2022. The siege of Mariupol was one of the deadliest and most destructive battles of the war. Ukrainian officials estimated tens of thousands of civilian deaths. By March 2022, Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe, and by April of that year, Russia controlled 27 percent of Ukraine. By late 2022, Ukraine had turned the tide with major counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson, with Kyiv reclaiming 54 percent of the land Russia had captured since the beginning of the war, according to ISW data, reducing Russian-occupied land to just 18 percent of the country. In August 2024, Ukraine launched a significant incursion into Russia's Kursk region, marking a notable escalation in the conflict. This offensive saw Ukrainian forces advancing approximately 10km (6 miles) into Russian territory, seizing control over an estimated 250 sq km (96.5 sq miles), all of which has since been retaken by Russia. By late 2024 and into 2025, the war had settled into a grinding impasse, with both sides suffering heavy losses. However, Russia's recent incursions, pushing towards Sloviansk, allude to the potential for another offensive to take land it has historically struggled to capture. What was the pre-war situation? Prior to Russia's full-scale 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia had held Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Moscow also supported separatists in the Donbas region, leading to the creation of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Russia officially recognised these entities on February 21, 2022, and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine three days later. The war in Ukraine has resulted in one of the largest and fastest-growing displacement crises in Europe since World War II. According to the UN, approximately 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced, which is about 21 percent of the country's pre-war population. Of these, 3.7 million remain internally displaced within Ukraine, while 6.9 million have fled abroad as refugees.
Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Starmer hosts Ukraine's Zelenskyy ahead of high-stakes Trump-Putin meeting
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer will welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Downing Street as Europe braces for the outcome of a summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin later this week. The talks in London on Thursday come after Starmer said Britain was ready to 'increase pressure' on Moscow if necessary, signalling new sanctions should the Kremlin reject a ceasefire in its war on Ukraine. Trump, meanwhile, warned Russia of 'severe consequences' if it refuses to halt its military campaign. Speaking after a call with Trump and European allies on Wednesday, Starmer praised the United States leader for helping to create what he described as a 'viable' opening to end the war. 'This meeting on Friday that President Trump is attending is hugely important,' Starmer told reporters. 'As I've said personally to President Trump for the three and a bit years this conflict has been going on, we haven't got anywhere near a prospect of actually a viable solution, a viable way of bringing it to a ceasefire. And now we do have that chance, because of the work that the president has put in,' added Starmer. Zelenskyy is due to meet Starmer at 9:30am local time (08:30 GMT) at the British prime minister's official residence, 10 Downing Street. The Trump-Putin meeting, due to take place in Alaska on Friday, has stirred unease in Kyiv over Zelenskyy's exclusion. Starmer and other European leaders have repeatedly insisted that Ukraine must be part of any talks on its future. Asked if he had deliberately left Zelenskyy out of the Alaska meeting, Trump replied: 'No, just the opposite,' adding that a second meeting with the Ukrainian leader could follow. 'We had a very good call, he was on the call, President Zelenskyy was on the call. I would rate it a 10, you know, very, very friendly,' Trump said. 'There's a very good chance that we're going to have a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first.' The US president has previously floated the idea of a territorial 'swap' as part of a truce. It is believed Putin is demanding Ukraine hand over the remaining parts of the Donbas region it still holds, a proposal Zelenskyy has already rejected, stressing that Ukraine's constitution forbids surrendering territory. In a joint statement, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, co-chaired by Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, warned that 'international borders must not be changed by force'. The group also said sanctions on Russia's war economy should be strengthened if Moscow refuses a ceasefire in Alaska.
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia restricts calls on WhatsApp, Telegram as internet control tightens
Russia has announced restrictions on voice calls made on the WhatsApp and Telegram messaging apps, the latest moves by Moscow to tighten its control over the internet. The curb on calls is set to impact WhatsApp's estimated 96 million monthly users in Russia and Telegram's more than 89 million users, according to Russian media monitoring service Mediascope. In a statement on Wednesday, Russia's media and internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, justified the measure as necessary for fighting crime. 'According to law enforcement agencies and numerous appeals from citizens, foreign messengers Telegram and WhatsApp have become the main voice services used to deceive and extort money, and to involve Russian citizens in sabotage and terrorist activities,' the regulator said. 'Repeated requests to take countermeasures have been ignored by the owners of the messengers,' it said. Moscow wants the online messaging services to provide access to user data upon request from law enforcement. 'Access to calls in foreign messengers will be restored after they start complying with Russian legislation,' Roskomnadzor said. While authorities said only voice calls on the platforms were restricted, users in Russia also reported that video calls were also affected. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has been expanding control over the Russian part of the internet. Security services have frequently claimed that Ukraine was using Telegram to recruit people or commit acts of sabotage in Russia. The Russian government adopted a law last month punishing online users for searching content deemed illicit by authorities. Plans are also in place for popular messaging services to be replaced by a domestic Russian app called Max, which critics fear will allow authorities access to the data. A WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement that the encrypted messaging app 'defies government attempts to violate people's right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people'. In a statement sent to the AFP news agency, Telegram said that it 'actively combats misuse of its platform, including calls for sabotage or violence, as well as fraud', and removes 'millions of pieces of harmful content every day'. Telegram, which was developed by Russian tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov, faces longstanding accusations in several countries, including Russia, of not doing enough against criminal users.
