Russian President Vladmir Putin’s new nuclear doctrine shifted significantly from the country’s previous nuclear policy. The new amendments, announced in late September 2024, lowered the threshold for the usage of nuclear weapons.

On Oct. 1, Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was sworn into office. Ishiba is a member of the ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), the same party as previous Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida and the late Shinzo Abe.

Mark Rutte officially took office as Secretary General of NATO on Oct. 1, 2024, succeeding Jens Stoltenberg at the organization’s headquarters in Brussels.

On Sept. 8, a Russian-operated Shahed-type drone crashed in Latvia's Rezekne region. The drone had entered Latvian airspace from Belarus and was tracked by air defense systems. While there was no immediate harm, Latvian Minister of Defense Andris Sprūds emphasised this incursion's seriousness, as any violation of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member's airspace could have broad security ramifications.

The trial of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who has led the partially recognized republic since 2016 and resigned in November 2020, began on Monday, April 3, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Last week on Friday, March 17, Slovakia announced that it would be providing 13 MiG-29 jet fighters to Ukraine; this came only a day after Poland had pledged four.