Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. sanctions against China for fentanyl trafficking, new border controls in Central Europe, and Ukraine’s largest drone strike on Russia yet.

The U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions against 25 Chinese individuals and entities on Tuesday to combat global trafficking of fentanyl-laced drugs. One person and two companies in Canada were also targeted for allegedly importing drugmaking chemicals from China. Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate, is 50 times more potent than heroin and has caused the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, killing a record 109,680 people in 2022 alone.

The Treasury Department’s decision came after the U.S. Justice Department charged eight Chinese companies and 12 executives on Tuesday with supplying precursor chemicals used to illicitly manufacture drugs, including fentanyl. According to top U.S. officials, Chinese individuals have provided such chemicals to Mexican drug cartels and helped them avoid U.S. border patrols by using fake shipping labels and other deceptive transportation methods. In fiscal year 2023, U.S. border authorities seized more than 27,000 pounds of fentanyl, almost double the amount in that same period last year.

“We know who is responsible for poisoning the American people with fentanyl,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a speech on Tuesday. “And we know that this global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China.”

This is the Biden administration’s second major indictment of Chinese entities for fentanyl-related crimes since June, when Washington accused four Chinese companies and eight people of fentanyl production, distribution, and sales. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has also called on Beijing to help stop the flow of fentanyl into his country.

China has previously rejected Washington’s accusations, placing responsibility for the drug crisis on the United States and arguing that the allegations and sanctions are aimed at tarnishing China’s public image rather than genuine attempts to address a public health emergency. “Imposing pressure and sanctions cannot solve the United States’ own problems,” China’s foreign ministry said Wednesday. “It will only create obstacles in the China-U.S. cooperation on drug control.”

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• China’s Foreign Minister Is Headed to Washington by Robbie Gramer and Christina Lu

Restricting movement. Austria became the latest nation to suspend Europe’s Schengen free movement area on Wednesday. For the next 10 days, Austria as well as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland will impose hard border controls to counter illegal immigration, human trafficking, and smuggling operations. Slovak Prime Minister Ludovit Odor called on other nations to brainstorm a Europe-wide solution to the continent’s migrant crisis.

In recent weeks, Germany and France also authorized ad hoc border checks to crack down on smuggling efforts. The latest move means almost a quarter of Schengen states have enacted border controls, thereby reversing the policy’s primary purpose of providing a visa-free zone among the 27 states.

Strike and seize. Russian forces shot down 31 Ukrainian drones on Tuesday, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. No causalities or damage was reported. The strike was Ukraine’s largest cross-border drone attack since Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and it came amid global criticism of Kyiv’s slower-than-expected counteroffensive.

Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command announced on Wednesday that Washington will continue to gift Ukraine thousands of seized Iranian weapons and ammunition. More than 1 million rounds of Iranian ammunition, secured in July, were already transferred to Ukraine on Monday. The delivery of such weapons will supplement U.S. aid to Ukraine while President Joe Biden continues to battle conservative lawmakers over passing another Ukraine military aid package through Congress.

PKK under fire. In another blow against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish authorities convened a national security meeting on Wednesday in response to two PKK members carrying out a bombing near a government building in Turkey’s capital on Sunday. At the meeting, officials announced that all infrastructure and energy facilities in Iraq and Syria that belong to the PKK or the People’s Protection Units (YPG)—a Kurdish-led militia in Syria—are valid military targets.

The meeting follows the arrests of more than 900 people for allegedly possessing illegal weapons and 90 others for suspected links to the PKK. The mass arrests were part of police raids across 64 Turkish provinces in a security crackdown against the group, which Ankara deems a terrorist organization.

First, Japanese sumo wrestlers turned to brawling on bullet trains to boost interest in the sport. Now, the Japan Sumo Association has announced that men hoping to become rikishi, as professional sumo wrestlers are known in Japan, no longer have to meet the 5-foot-5-inch height and 147-pound weight requirements. New regulations dictate that aspiring athletes need only to pass a physical fitness test to hop in the dohyo ring, all in an effort to improve declining levels of interest in training for the sport. Let the fight begin!