Humanitarian Crisis Deepens Amid Escalating Conflicts

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He has been described as the de facto leader of Russia since 2000.

Zeina Khodr is a Lebanese broadcast journalist for the Al Jazeera English channel.

Operation Desert Storm, the combat phase of the Gulf War, began with an extensive aerial bombing campaign by the air forces of the coalition against targets in Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait from 17 January to 23 February 1991. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs, destroying military and civilian infrastructure. The air campaign was commanded by United States Air Force (USAF) Lieutenant General Chuck Horner, who briefly served as Commander-in-Chief—Forward of U.S. Central Command while General Norman Schwarzkopf was still in the United States. The British air commanders were Air Chief Marshal Andrew Wilson, to 17 November 1990, and Air Vice-Marshal Bill Wratten, from 17 November. The air campaign had largely finished by 23 February 1991 with the beginning of the coalition ground offensive into Kuwait.

Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei is an Iranian politician and Shia cleric who has been the third supreme leader of Iran since 8 March 2026. He is a member of the Khamenei family and the second son of the second supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Ali Ardashir Larijani is an Iranian politician and former military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who has served as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council since 2025. He served as the speaker of the Parliament of Iran from 2008 to 2020. He has been a member of the Expediency Discernment Council since 2020, having previously served from 1997 to 2008. He filed for candidacy in the 2024 presidential election, but was ultimately disqualified. He previously ran in 2005, but finished in sixth place, and was also disqualified from running in 2021.

Esmaeil Khatib is an Iranian cleric and politician who has been the Minister of Intelligence since August 2021. He is the eighth official to hold the post.

Eskandar Momeni is an Iranian military commander and politician who is serving as the Minister of Interior in the Government of Masoud Pezeshkian since August 2024. He belongs to the principlist camp and is described as "a relatively moderate police general".

Abdulhadi Abdulla Hubail al-Khawaja is a Bahraini political activist. On 22 June 2011, al-Khawaja and eight others were sentenced to life imprisonment following the suppression of pro-democracy protests against the Bahraini government. Al-Khawaja has previously gone on a series of hunger strikes while serving his life sentence, in protest of the political conditions in Bahrain.

Mark Swidan is an American designer, artist, photographer and businessman from Houston, Texas. He was detained in China from 2012 to 2024. In 2019, Swidan was charged with drug trafficking in China and sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a court in Guangdong. on April 14, 2023, the Guangdong court upheld the sentence. The U.S. government and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered Swidan wrongfully detained. He was released on November 27, 2024, as part of a prisoner swap with China.

Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.

The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the head of government of Iran. In the Iranian system of government established after the Islamic Revolution, the supreme leader is the de jure head of state of Iran.

The president of Cuba, officially the president of the Republic of Cuba, is the head of state of Cuba. The office in its current form was established under the Constitution of 2019. The President is the second-highest office in Cuba and the highest state office. Miguel Díaz-Canel became President of the Council of State on 19 April 2018, taking over from Raúl Castro, and has been President of Cuba since 10 October 2019.