🌍 Mutiny in Russia

Hi there Intriguer. Greetings to those who’ve been smashing that ‘refresh’ button all weekend like it’s a piñata. We feel you.

Today’s briefing is a 4 min read:

• 🇷🇺 What’s coming next for Russia.

• 🇪🇺 The EU looks to GMO for climate adaptation.

• ➕ Plus: Remittances around the world, how the papers are covering a defiant Russian diplomat in Australia, and the future is finally here (in the form of jetpack-delivered pizza).

P.S. We only need 150 more folks to share the Intrigue with a friend before we release our special edition, How the World is Changing. Use your unique referral link below!

1. 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will meet in Washington this week to negotiate a settlement over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan currently controls the region, which is home to 120,000 ethnic Armenians.

2. 🇩🇰 Denmark: Prosecutors have approved the extradition to India of a Danish citizen accused of smugglings arms to an Indian revolutionary group in 1995. He has admitted to dropping rocket launchers and missiles from a cargo plane in eastern India.

3. 🇦🇺 Australia: A presumed Russian diplomat, squatting for days at the prospective site of Russia’s new embassy in Canberra, has left the property after Australia’s highest court ruled against Moscow. Australian lawmakers blocked Russian development of the site earlier this month over concerns it was too close to parliament.

4. 🇧🇿 Belize: The World Health Organisation has declared Belize as only the fourth country in the Americas (after El Salvador, Paraguay, and Argentina) to eradicate malaria.

5. 🇿🇲 Zambia: The International Monetary Fund has approved a plan from Zambia’s foreign creditors to restructure $6.3B in debt. China, which is owed $4.1B of that debt, also agreed to the plan.

🇷🇺 Russia | Politics

Putin is under pressure at home

The hostile union between the Wagner mercenary group and Moscow finally ruptured over the weekend.

✊ After refusing to integrate with the military, Wagner chief Prigozhin then rejected the entire basis for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and marched to within 200km of Moscow. He only pulled his troops back when President Putin agreed to a deal, after publicly labelling Prigozhin a traitor.

🙍‍♂️ So what does this all mean for Putin? After reportedly retreating to his Valdai bunker and offering major concessions for Prigozhin to back off (new military heads, safety guarantees), Putin’s illusion of invincibility is now gone.

🇷🇺 What does this mean for Russia? Having allowed a warlord to march 800km towards Moscow, and losing valuable military aircraft in the process, whatever remained of Russia’s illusion of invulnerability is now gone, too.

🇺🇦 And what does this all mean for Ukraine? It could now capitalise, as:

• Russia’s key decision-makers become consumed by the turmoil

• Russian troops take fewer risks while they await new direction

• Russian morale on the frontlines plunges even lower, and

• Putin further loses the ability to rally the country behind his war.

Intrigue's take: So, dear Intriguers, we hear you asking what’ll happen next?

Well, there’s now a growing list of Russian factions (across the oligarchs, securo-crats and organised crime) that would be better off without Putin.

There’s also a history of Russian losses abroad accelerating regime collapse at home: think 1905, 1917 and 1989. And systemic cracks there often just get wider: think Gorbachev surviving a 1991 coup, only to be gone months later.

So, one way or another, there’s a chance Putin doesn’t make it to Christmas. It’s hard to see how Prigozhin survives this either.

Also worth noting:

• Wagner fighters reportedly sent farewells to their families and told them to watch the news the day before their march on Moscow.

• The Kremlin says Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia for neighbouring Belarus in a deal brokered by Belarusian President Lukashenko. Prigozhin’s whereabouts are currently unknown.

• Following initial reports that Russian Defence Minister Shoigu was under house arrest, Moscow just released footage purporting to show him visiting a command centre in Ukraine.

📰 How newspapers covered…

A lone Russian diplomat squatting on a vacant lot in Canberra

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🇪🇺 EU | Climate adaptation

The EU may be rethinking its approach to GMO

The EU is reportedly looking to relax its rules on genetically modified (GMO) crops, with a view to its farmers growing more climate-resistant produce.

Last year saw record temperatures across Europe; the mercury there is rising twice as fast as the global average, posing a risk to the continent’s vast agricultural sector.

If the Europeans do end up embracing GMO, they’ll join major exporters like the US, Brazil and Argentina that’ve been banking on GMO for decades.

Intrigue’s take: This all makes sense in a vacuum, but Brussels is the opposite of a vacuum: it’s an absolute whirlwind of agricultural, environmental, industrial, legal, and pro-consumer forces. And next year’s EU parliamentary elections will only see that whirlwind spin harder.

Also worth noting:

• The EU enacted its current GMO regulations in 2001 in response to public debate around GMO’s safety and environmental impacts.

• A 2020 Pew Survey covering 20 countries found around half of respondents believed GMOs to be unsafe.

🎧 Today on Intrigue Outloud

How long does Putin have left?

➕ Extra Intrigue

Your weekly palette cleanser of slightly ridiculous global news.

• Billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have agreed (we can’t believe we’re typing this) to face off in a cage fight.

• Two New York lawyers were sanctioned for citing fake Chat-GPT generated cases in a legal brief.

• A man in India checked-in to a five-star hotel for one night, and ended up remaining for another 600 nights without paying a cent.

• A mayor in Mexico has received backlash after hiring lap dancers for a Father’s Day celebration.

• A Belgian TikToker has faked his own death to see who would show up at his funeral.

• Domino’s latest publicity stunt includes a pizza delivered by jetpack.

🗳️ Poll time!

📊 Chart of the day

Like many other economic indicators, remittances are making a comeback, with global flows hitting $647B last year, up from $599B the year prior. India has been the top beneficiary since 2008.

Thursday’s poll: If you could have dinner with any sitting world leader, who would you choose and why?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇺🇸 Joe Biden (11%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇨🇳 Xi Jinping (12%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇫🇷 Emmanuel Macron (8%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇸🇦 Mohammed Bin Salman (7%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🇺🇦 Volodymyr Zelensky (35%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇹🇼 Tsai Ing-wen (4%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇧🇷 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (7%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇮🇳 Narendra Modi (5%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇮🇩 Joko Widodo (2%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (9%)

Your two cents:

• 🇫🇷 D.K: “He might have an inside track to some tickets for the Tour de France.”

• ✍️ M.D: “Taylor Swift”

• Additional suggestions: 🇸🇻 Nayib Bukele, 🇨🇦 Justin Trudeau, 🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin, 🇮🇪 Michael Higgins, 🇵🇬 James Marape and 🇸🇬 Lee Hsien Loong.