EU condemns Russia’s blockade of Ukraine grain; Moscow says captured Americans are mercenaries; and Trump’s Mideast policy pays off

(Originally published June 20 in “What in the World“) Could the architect of the Jan. 6 U.S. coup attempt have also pulled off one of Washington’s greatest foreign policy triumphs since the Camp David Accords?

Israel’s defense minister on Monday confirmed that Israel and an undicslosed number of Arab neighbors have established with the United States a Middle East Air Defense Alliance to combat Iranian missiles and drones. The alliance is the byproduct of a détente brokered in 2020 by the Administration of former President Donald Trump (and son-in-law Jared Kushner) between Tel Aviv and the United Arab Emirates that converted a long-running secret back-chat between the two nations into formal diplomatic relations.

Opening embassies is one thing; military cooperation is something altogether more significant. But credit may be due to Tehran more than Trump. It was Trump, after all, who scuttled the nuclear accord reached under Obama and thus reignited Iran’s nuclear ambitions, prompting Arab nations to reconsider whether it was practical to maintain their principled refusal to work with Israel on issues of shared interest.

Back in Europe, meanwhile, Russia threatened to retaliate against Lithuania for planning to block shipments to Russia’s Baltic enclave Kaliningrad. Lithuania hasn’t blocked anything, however, and said Moscow was responding to false claims out of Kaliningrad.

As evidence mounts that Ukraine will lose Donbas without more help, Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, condemned the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s food exports as a war crime.

The Kremlin says two captured American volunteers from Ukraine’s foreign legion are mercenaries and thus not protected by the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war, a move likely to fuel anger in the U.S.