Ukraine's Supreme Court refused to lift the sanctions imposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the opposition leader who ran against him. The Cassation Administrative Court rejected Petro Poroshenko's lawsuit on 10 July, per Interfax Ukraine. Two of the five judges on the panel filed dissenting opinions.

The decision drew condemnation from the International Democrat Union, the global alliance of center-right parties, which called it a politically motivated attempt to suppress the opposition. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned that persecuting opposition leaders could threaten Ukrainian democracy.

Poroshenko has opposed Moscow consistently since 2014, and his foundation has delivered tens of thousands of drones to the army, including 500 FPV drones to an air defense regiment on the day the sanctions were announced.

Poroshenko says judges were blackmailed

The ruling was the result of pressure on the court, Poroshenko said on the day of the decision.

"The judges of this panel of five were blackmailed, including their relatives, with the opening of criminal cases if the wrong decision was taken," he said.

Poroshenko claimed he had plans to file a statement with law enforcement and provide journalists with materials for a journalistic investigation.

"Society has the right to know how Ukraine is being cut off from membership in the European Union," said Poroshenko.

His lawyer, Illia Novikov, said the pressure came from the Security Service on the instructions of Bankova, the seat of the President's Office.

"I will release new information that we have not published before... We had information that pressure was being applied to the court ... Now the time has come to name these people. According to our information, they are SBU officers Eduard Rudiuk and Vitalii Solodzhuk," Novikov said.

Novikov said he would ask their leadership to check whether the two men tried to pressure the court. He said four hearings had been disrupted since 5 January 2026, each of which could have been the last in the case, and argued the disruptions bought time to lean on the panel. The two dissenting opinions, he said, show two judges did not yield.

Poroshenko says the clusters will not open in July

Poroshenko said the ruling is blocking Ukraine's EU accession.

"Those who are trying to build authoritarianism in Ukraine instead of democracy have got what they wanted. Seven clusters will not be opened for us," he stressed.

He added that "the reason is today's decision."

"And apart from the foreign policy cluster, unfortunately, with high probability the clusters will not be opened in July," Poroshenko claimed.

He said four foundational documents had been adopted in the past week, including a European Parliament resolution stating that applying sanctions to the opposition leader is illegal, extrajudicial, and unconstitutional, and an OSCE Parliamentary Assembly decision recognizing extrajudicial sanctions against Ukrainian citizens as unlawful.

Poroshenko will appeal to the Supreme Court's Grand Chamber and then to the European Court of Human Rights, which accepted his case in May 2026. His lawyers have filed a second complaint in Strasbourg over the length of the proceedings, as Ukraine's administrative code allows two months for such a case. This one took eighteen.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) said on July 8 that it had issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity and gender-based persecution following the group's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.

The move follows Russia's recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government on July 3. Russia, which had previously designated the Taliban as a banned terrorist group, became the first country in the world to recognize it.

In a statement, the ICC named Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Afghanistan's top judge Abdul Hakim Haqqani as suspects in a campaign of systematic oppression targeting women, girls, and others who do not conform to the group's rigid gender ideology.

The court said the alleged crimes took place across Afghanistan from the Taliban's return to power on August 15, 2021, and continued at least until Jan. 20, 2025. The suspects are believed to have played key roles in the enforcement of Taliban policies that led to "murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and enforced disappearance."

The persecution was not limited to women and girls, according to the ICC. The court said that men perceived as allies of women or opponents of Taliban ideology were also targeted.

The ICC emphasized that the Taliban implemented a state-led policy of repression that violated fundamental human rights and freedoms across the country.

Most of the international community has refused to formally recognize the Taliban regime due to its human rights abuses and failure to meet international standards.

Meanwhile, since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the Kremlin has deepened relationships with authoritarian regimes, including North Korea, Iran, and now the Taliban. Russia has expanded trade with Afghanistan and allowed Taliban officials to participate in Russian forums.

In December 2024, the Russian State Duma passed a law allowing certain groups, including the Taliban, to be removed from the country's list of banned terrorist organizations. The move paved the way for official recognition.

Putin has referred to the Taliban as "allies," and Lavrov has called them "sane people," despite the group's ongoing enforcement of strict Islamic law, including gender apartheid, public executions, and bans on women's education.

Seeing war through the lens of narcissism

We usually think of narcissism as a personal flaw — a grandiose ego, a craving for attention, a lack of empathy. But what if narcissism is not just a diagnosis, but a lens? A way of understanding how individuals — and even entire nations — cope with wounds too painful to face directly?

The Kyiv IndependentDr. Gary E Myers

Russian President Vladimir Putin has received an official invitation to attend the G20 summit in South Africa, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Marat Berdyev said in an interview with state-owned media outlet RIA Novosti on June 19.

South Africa is a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a signatory to the Rome Statute, meaning it is obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country.

The ICC issued a warrant for the Russian leader's arrest in March 2023 over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"Last week, we received an official invitation. This is an appeal from the head of state, the president of South Africa (Cyril Ramaphosa), to his colleagues," Berdyev said.

The summit is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg from Nov. 22 to 23. Berdyev noted that Russia's final decision on Putin's participation will be made closer to the date. In recent years, Russia has been represented at G20 summits by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Despite the warrant, South Africa continues to deepen political and military ties with Moscow. In 2023, the country conducted joint naval drills with Russia and China, and maintains its membership in the BRICS bloc alongside both nations.

In November 2024, Putin skipped the G20 summit in Brazil, another ICC member state, and sent Lavrov instead. Russia's G20 participation has continued uninterrupted despite its war against Ukraine.

In September 2024, Putin made a rare visit to Mongolia, which is also a signatory of the ICC, prompting criticism over the non-enforcement of the warrant.

Putin-Trump meeting currently not on the table, Kremlin says

“Until the necessary ‘homework’ is done to remove the irritants in our relations with the United States, it makes no sense to organize a meeting,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The Kyiv IndependentAnna Fratsyvir