No End to the Pandemic-Origins Debate | AI “Should Be Subject to Nuclear-Level Regulation” | Chinese Labs Are Selling Fentanyl, and more

Ukraine-Backed Sabotage Group Gains Ground in “Liberation” of Russia  (Maxim Tucker and George Grylls, The Times)
Fighting inside Russia went on for a second day after a partisan force entered from Ukraine and seized at least four villages, having pounded border checkpoints with tank fire.
Troops, calling themselves the Freedom of Russia Legion, said they had spent the night in newly “liberated” territories in the Belgorod region and planned to push on, despite a Kremlin “anti-terror” operation to force them out.

Will Russia Use Nuclear Weapons? Putin’s Options Explained  (Michael Evans, The Times)
The destruction and enormous casualty toll suffered during the long battle for the city of Bakhmut has underlined for President Putin that however this particular battle ends he will never be able to declare victory.
Bakhmut will always be remembered as the city that proved Putin’s so-called special military operation was bound to fail. First, because the Russian leader underestimated the commitment of the Ukrainian military forces to defend their country; and second because of the West’s united support for the government in Kyiv.
Under such circumstances, is the nuclear option still the single most devastating card Putin has to play? Or would the launching of tactical nuclear weapons be the final acknowledgment by the Kremlin that the war to take control of Ukraine has irrevocably failed?

Chinese Malware Hits Systems on Guam. Is Taiwan the Real Target?  (David E. Sanger, New York Times)
The code, which Microsoft said was installed by a Chinese government hacking group, set off alarms because Guam would be a centerpiece of any U.S. military response to a move against Taiwan.

Chinese Labs Are Selling Fentanyl Ingredients for Millions in Crypto  (Andy Greenberg, Wired)
Fentanyl has long been one of the most dangerous wares of the underworld cryptocurrency economy—so dangerous, in fact, that even many dark-web markets have banned it. But new research shows that cryptocurrency is playing a different role in that deadly opioid’s supply chain: Chinese chemical producers are accepting cryptocurrency as payment for fentanyl ingredients they’re selling to drug operations that mass-produce the narcotic in countries around the world. And they’re offering it not on the dark web, but in full public view.
Cryptocurrency-tracing firms Elliptic and Chainalysis this week both released new findings that offer a glimpse of an underreported role of cryptocurrency in the global fentanyl trade: the wholesale supply of ingredients to fentanyl producers around the world. Researchers at Elliptic found more than 90 Chinese chemical companies that sold fentanyl “precursor” chemicals and advertised their products on the open web, fully 90 percent of which offered to accept payment in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Tether.

Leaked Government Document Shows Spain Wants to Ban End-to-End Encryption  (Lily Hay Newman, Morgan Meaker, and Matt Burgess, Wired)

In response to an EU proposal to scan private messages for illegal material, the country’s officials said it is “imperative that we have access to the data.”