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Political and military tensions are at an all-time high and also winding down. Earlier last week, Turkey confirmed that the United States requested permission to enter the Black Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, both coastal passages belonging to said nation. The USS Donald Cook and USS Roosevelt are transiting through Turkish territorial waters as we speak in a show of support for Ukraine, a nation whose ever-shrinking borders are continuing to be threatened by its powerful neighbor to the East. In a communiqué on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Ministry Sergei Ryabkov sent a strong warning to America "to stay far away from Crimea and our Black Sea coast. It will be for their own good." In an unprecedented show of aggression, Russia continues to amass a huge numbers of troops and military equipment along Ukraine's border in what many consider be a prelude to a war that could potentially spark a global conflict.
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In the meantime, the Central Asian theater seems to be cooling down as negotiations are under way to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of this year. President Biden is hopeful that diplomatic talks between the Taliban and the current Afghan government will bear fruit and America's military presence will no longer be needed for the stability of the region. A high-ranking official in the Afghan National Security Office, however, is not so sanguine about the US' decision to pull out and predicted that a massive civil war will ensue.