Overview

• China’s largest parade in years featured more than 10,000 troops and new hardware, including an intercontinental ballistic missile, as Xi warned the world must choose “peace or war.”
• Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un stood alongside Xi in Tiananmen Square, projecting alignment that Chinese and state media framed as resistance to Western pressure.
• President Trump accused the trio of “conspiring” against the United States, a claim the Kremlin rejected outright, with aide Yuri Ushakov saying no conspiracy existed.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he received Trump’s order to begin planning a major restructuring of U.S. forces to rebuild deterrence against China and Russia.
• Putin said he could meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, even in Moscow, and warned Russia could escalate militarily if talks fail, while Kyiv called a Moscow venue unacceptable and pointed to neutral hosts; Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki sought U.S. security backing in Washington despite a policy rift with Prime Minister Donald Tusk.