Our daily journey around the world

🇹🇷🇸🇪 Turkey has agreed to back Sweden’s NATO membership, removing the final hurdle for their admission. The news was announced yesterday by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to forward the issue to his country’s parliament “as soon as possible,” and will work to ensure its ratification. Erdogan had previously delayed the move for more than a year, demanding Sweden first crack down on domestic dissidents deemed as terrorists by Turkey. Sweden, along with Finland (which became the 31st member of NATO in April), applied to join the military alliance last spring in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Nearly 50,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war against Ukraine. That’s per a new analysis by two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, with help from a data scientist at Germany’s Tübingen University. Their report, based on excess death totals obtained from government sources within Moscow, represents the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s death total since it first invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

🇳🇱 Dutch PM Mark Rutte is retiring from politics after his government collapsed on Friday due to “irreconcilable” differences over immigration. The previous four-party ruling coalition had tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a deal that reduces the flow of new migrants to the Netherlands, which is experiencing an ongoing housing shortage. Rutte, whose 13-year tenure as PM is the longest in the Netherlands’ history, will remain in office in a caretaker capacity until a new ruling coalition is chosen.