It's Monday, May 11, 2026.

I'm Albert Mowler, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

Coming out of the weekend, so many big developments that demand our attention.

I want us to look at the international level for just a moment because

there are two huge stories and they come with a lot of implications. And if you're thinking about

two big stories on the international scene, it's pretty easy to come up, let's just say two fronts,

Russia, Ukraine, and Iran, Israel, and the United States. And so those are very clear hotspots in the world,

and both of them right now seem to be at a moment of transition. We're just not sure in either

case what that transition might be. So let's start out with Russia, an astounding headline

over the weekend coming from the BBC. Here's the headline, quote, Putin says he thinks

Ukraine conflict coming to an end. Now, it does indeed look like Russia's president, Vladimir Putin,

is sending signals that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and what then became the war with Ukraine

might be coming to an end. And the BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation. It's one of the

biggest standard names just in terms of international news coverage. And so this is not by

accident that this story appears. And it's not by accident we're talking about this. Now, let's put

this in a perspective of just the last several days. So the big event in Russia is the annual

parade, the Victory Day parade, which commemorates the end of World War II, what in Russian

history is considered to be Russia's climactic victory in what's called the Great Patriotic War,

otherwise known as World War II.

Now, for decades, ever since World War II, Russia or the Soviet Union told that story in its own self-serving way. But there is no doubt that Russia paid a greater price just in terms of

the devastation of its territory, paid a greater price in terms of the number of Russian

troops and citizens killed.

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