Russia

The big winner of the Hormuz blockade is the country that the West has tried to suffocate for years: Russia

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The script was written and the West was already celebrating the definitive economic strangulation of Russia. However, geopolitics has a bad habit of blowing up office plans. Today, the world is witnessing a historical paradox: the United States has just opened the back door to Vladimir Putin’s oil to try to stop a global energy collapse. The war between the United States and Israel against Iran has set the markets on fire, pushing up barrel prices above 100 dollars. Faced with the abyss of an unprecedented crisis, diplomacy has had to surrender to the stubborn reality of infrastructure. The “digital fog” and an emergency rescue. To understand the magnitude of the paralysis you have to look at the maritime traffic monitors. As detailed Bloombergthe Strait of Hormuz has become a “digital fog.” The few ships that dare to sail do so by turning off their location transponders (AIS) and suffering constant interference and GPS spoofing (spoofing) fruit of electronic warfare. In this scenario of physical suffocation, India was on the brink of collapse. The Asian giant is heavily dependent on imports from the Middle East, and the closure of Hormuz has cut off its rennet supplies. Reuters reported last week that state refineries like MRPL (Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.) have been forced to close entire processing units due to the simple and simple shortage of crude oil. The unexpected lifesaver? In a turn of events, the US administration has had to swallow its own sanctions. As confirmed The Moscow Times and it is observed in the official OFAC document (the Treasury Department’s General License 133), the United States has issued a temporary 30-day waiver, valid until April 4, 2026, allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil loaded on vessels by March 5. Paradoxically, how to explain BloombergIndia had drastically reduced its purchases from Moscow at the beginning of the year after facing the threat of punitive 50% tariffs from Trump himself. Now, cornered by the crisis, dozens of Russian oil tankers that were wandering aimlessly are changing their coordinates on the high seas to come to the rescue of Indian ports. The political story versus the reality of the market. Officially, Washington tries to minimize the impact of this capitulation. In statements collected by The Kyiv Independentthe US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, assured that “there is no change in policy towards Russia” and that the exemption is only a “pragmatic decision.” For his part, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended that this measure “will not provide significant financial benefits to the Russian government” as it is applied only to crude oil stranded at sea. But the reality of the markets tells a very different story. According to CNBCRussian crude oil of the Ural variety has gone from being sold with humiliating discounts of between 10 and 20 dollars, to being traded at a historical premium of between 2 and 4 dollars above the barrel of Brent in its deliveries to India. This injection of capital to Moscow has unleashed an internal political storm. The Democrats They have demanded Trump to immediately reverse the exemption, accusing him of strengthening an adversary. From the humanitarian field, the NGO Global Witness, cited by Guardian, has been blunt, accusing the White House of “feeding Putin’s war machine” to cover up a price crisis that the United States itself has unleashed. Putin rubs his hands. To understand the magnitude of the Russian victory, you have to look at where they were just a month ago. Bloomberg, in your market analysishighlights that Russian exports were under unprecedented pressure. The Kremlin had nearly 140 million barrels stuck in the sea (65% more than usual), and was forced into a suicidal price war against Iran to try to place its surpluses in the limited Chinese refineries. Overnight, the Hormuz blockade removed all of its Middle Eastern competition from the equation. The crisis has been a gift from heaven. From Moscow they don’t even hide. How to collect CNBCKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov publicly boasted to the press: “We are seeing a significant increase in demand for Russian energy resources in connection with the war in Iran,” reminding the world that Russia “remains a reliable supplier.” Hurt pride and a sea of ​​uncertainty. As Russian ships sail south, the battle of public perception rages in India. Although in the BBC estimates that the country It barely has crude oil reserves for about 25 days, the Indian government is trying to project absolute calm. As reported Mashable Indiaauthorities insist that “there is no shortage in the world.” However, on social networks the narrative is one of deep sovereignist indignation. Politicians like Rajiv Shukla cried out on social network X against American paternalism: “Who is the United States to dictate to us that we can only buy oil from Russia for a month?” Added to this is the harsh reality that there are no easy alternatives. Although Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates They have pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, its maximum capacity barely covers a fraction of the 20 million barrels per day that the world has just lost. The laws of thermodynamics do not understand sanctions. This whole scenario returns us to a conclusion that We already analyzed in the recent crisis of the Druzhba pipeline in Europe. The West has spent years writing laws, imposing price caps and signing embargoes on elegant offices to isolate Russia. But geopolitics always ends up submitting to mathematics and thermodynamics. While China watches the crisis calmly, with its reserves filled to the brim after years of silent strategic purchases, the European Union and the United States have had to swallow their own sanctions in record time to avoid collapse. The energy embargo on Russia has proven to be a gigantic house of cards; It only took someone to cut off the passage through the Strait of Hormuz for everything to collapse. Image | Coded and kremlin.ru Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The … Read more

The Iran war has thrown a rug over Russia

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In almost every modern war there is an unexpected object that ends up symbolizing the conflict. In the First World War were the trenchesin the Second the tanksand in Ukraine many thought that this role would be filled the drones. However, another much less sophisticated tool has appeared on the front that has become just as essential: a construction machine capable of moving tons of earth in a few hours and completely changing the way of surviving on the battlefield. Also a sign of the emergency situation. The shield that supports Ukraine. Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s military survival has largely depended on an outer shield: the constant flow of weapons, technology and financing from from the United States and Europe. Patriot anti-aircraft systems, interceptor missiles, advanced drones and Western munitions allowed kyiv to resist to a much larger enemy and regain territory in the early stages of the war. Over time, this cooperation even evolved into a new industrial model in which European companies began manufacturing weapons based on Ukrainian technology, creating a production network that combined battlefield innovation with the industrial capacity of Western allies. Iran threatens the shield. That support system is now beginning to show cracks for an unexpected reason: open war between the United States, Israel and Iran. The new front in the Middle East has forced Washington to concentrate resources military, missiles and strategic attention in another crisis, generating fear in Europe and kyiv that Ukraine will be left in the background. They remembered in the Wall Street Journal that the same interceptors, munitions and systems that Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian bombing are now being used in operations against Iran, and if the conflict drags on, the United States could be forced to prioritize replacement of their own arsenals rather than continue supplying kyiv. Change of priorities. The risk is not only military, but political. With the White House focused on the Middle East, European diplomats they fear that the momentum to maintain pressure on Russia will be diluted in a conflict that has already entered its fifth year. In fact, Washington had long reducing your involvement directly and pressing to find a negotiated solution, but a prolonged conflict with Iran could absorb even more resourcesattention and industrial capacity. For Ukraine, that scenario would mean confronting Russia with fewer defensive missiles, fewer components for its military industry, and a flow of aid. increasingly uncertain. Ukrainian soldier operating an excavator near the front Objective: dig. On the battlefield, this potential shortage is translating into increasingly rudimentary decisions. Drones dominate modern combat, but their effectiveness depends on something much older: the excavated ground. Defensive positions have become underground networks of trenches, shelters and tunnels designed to survive constant surveillance by drones, artillery and guided bombs. In an open field where any movement can be detected within minutes, survival depends on staying hidden underground and operate from fortified positions that withstand constant attacks. Excavators in front. In this regard, they had in a Forbes report that the arrival of the bulldozers is also the most fearsome signal for Ukraine, because the war in Iran is destroying the shield that prevented the invasion to Russia. In a conflict dominated by advanced technology, the most urgent element in many brigades is not a new weapons system, but construction machinery Able to dig through defenses quickly. Each battalion tries to achieve at least one excavator to build deep trenches, covered shelters and obstacle networks that channel Russian attacks into controlled fire zones. These machines replace weeks of manual work and allow us to build defenses that can save dozens of lives. Modern warfare underground. If you will also, the evolution of combat has turned fortifications into a complex infrastructure that integrates technology, electrical cables, charging stations and shelters for drones and ground robots. However, it all starts with the same basic task: move earth before the next attack comes. On a front where Russia launches hundreds of drones and missiles in a single night and where gliding bombs seek to breach defensive lines, it turns out that the speed of digging can decide whether a position survives or disappears. and that reality sums up the moment that Ukraine is experiencing: a modern war sustained by drones and algorithms, but whose last line of defense depends on what happens in another conflict…and in a yellow machine digging mud in the middle of the front. Image | Tonya Levchuk In Xataka | Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution and the price to pay has a name In Xataka | The Russian military is so desperate for Internet access that Ukraine has used it to spring a death trap.

The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The problem is that now it needs its oil to survive

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In December 2025, we said goodbye to the year by telling Vladimir Putin a resounding da svidániya (До свида́ния). The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, pompously announced a political agreement to end Russian gas imports (both by pipeline and liquefied) by 2027. The political message was crystal clear: Europe wanted to show that it was no longer dependent on Moscow. The blackmail was over. But in its eagerness to celebrate the blackout of Russian gas, Brussels forgot a small detail: Putin’s oil still runs through the veins of Eastern Europe. And the embargo, in reality, has lasted very little. Barely three months later, physical reality has imposed itself on diplomacy. Today we find ourselves with a brutal paradox: the same European Union that designed an unprecedented economic war architecture against Moscow, and that asked its citizens to make sacrifices in the name of collective security, is now pressuring invaded Ukraine to open the tap on Russian crude oil. Deep down in the Kremlin, Putin always knew that the laws of politics rarely win against dependence on infrastructure. The epicenter of this crisis has its own name: the Druzhba pipeline (Interestingly, “friendship” in Russian). As revealed by an exclusive from Financial Timesthe EU is pressuring kyiv to allow inspection and repair of this infrastructure that transports Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. The problem lies in a Russian attack that occurred on January 27. As detailed ReutersUkrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that a bombing severely damaged the sensors and internal equipment of the infrastructure. The story is expanded by the CEO of Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi, in statements to Financial Times: The attack caused a storage tank with 75,000 cubic meters of oil to catch fire, unleashing a fire the size of a football field that took 10 days to extinguish. Ukraine claims that repairing this in the middle of war is slow and dangerous. However, Hungary and Slovakia do not buy this version. According to EuronewsPrime Ministers Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico have created a joint investigative committee, demanding immediate access to the area. Orbán has gone further, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of lying and orchestrating “state terrorism” and, together with Fico, demands that an independent investigation mission be deployed on the ground to verify the damage, something that kyiv refuses for security reasons in the middle of the war. The perfect storm in the Middle East Europe is not asking Ukraine for this favor on a whim, but out of pure survival. And to understand it you have to look to the Middle East. The recent coordinated attack by the US and Israel against Iran, which culminated in the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has unleashed chaos. The Iranian response has caused a blockage de facto of the Strait of Hormuz, 20% of the world’s daily oil supply passes through this maritime funnel. The impact has been devastating: hundreds of ships are paralyzed, insurance premiums have shot up by up to 50% and the daily cost of renting a supertanker has risen by 600%. This has destroyed European plans.As analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera emphasizesEuropean sanctions have collided head-on with thermodynamics, and thermodynamics has won. With the EU’s gas reserves at 30% in mid-February, Qatar’s LNG trapped after the Hormuz blockade and the alternatives of Norway, Algeria and the US at the limit of their capacity, Europe has been left without a plan B. “The EU does not return to Russian oil because it wants to, it returns because it has no other option,” says Perera. So, are we once again dependent on Russia? For some EU countries, dependency was never cut. According to The Moscow TimesHungary and Slovakia continued to enjoy legal exemptions from European sanctions and were almost 100% dependent on the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, receiving some 150,000 barrels per day in January. The reason is purely economic, since Russian crude oil is between 13% and 20% cheaper. Although Croatia has offered its Adria pipeline (JANAF) to ship non-Russian oil to these countries, Euronews explains that Budapest resists. Orbán considers that it is not commercially viable, demands that Croatia allow the passage of sanctioned Russian oil and defends that its energy security cannot be an “ideological” issue. Curiously, while Europe suffers from its dependence, Russia observes the crisis of its allies from afar. According to an analysis of the cnnFollowing Khamenei’s death, the Kremlin has issued strong verbal condemnations but has refused to provide real military aid to Iran. Ukrainian military analysts note that Russia even refused to “blind” Israeli radars using its bases in Syria. Moscow, bogged down in Ukraine, does not have the resources to open new fronts, demonstrating that its alliances are more transactional than strategic. The pipeline crisis has mutated into lethal financial blackmail for kyiv. As noted Financial TimesHungary has vetoed the approval of an EU aid package for Ukraine worth €90 billion (scheduled for 2026-2027). Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó made it clear: there will be no money until oil flows through the Druzhba again. In Brussels, the European Commission is looking for shortcuts. Euronews points out that complex legal options are being consideredsuch as invoking Article 327 (which prevents countries excluded from an agreement from blocking the rest) or using the withholding of defense funds (the SAFE program) to pressure Orbán, who is in the midst of an election campaign. In the midst of the crossfire, diplomacy tries to survive. Deutsche Welle reports that Zelensky remains open to negotiating an end to the war with Russia. Although the talks were scheduled for March in Abu Dhabi, the instability in the Middle East due to Iranian missiles has led the Ukrainian leader to propose moving the dialogue table to Switzerland or Turkey. The great silent winner and European weakness While the West hyperventilates, calm reigns in Asia. China foresaw this scenario and he has been shielding himself for years. During 2025, $10 billion was spent … Read more

Iran is going to need much more from China and Russia. The US has landed its fighter planes loaded with a weapon that changes everything: angry kittens

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For most of the 20th century, air superiority has been decided by who flew higher, faster, or with more missiles. Today, the decisive factor does not have to be seen or heard, and sometimes even fits in a container under the fuselage. In modern conflicts, confuse the enemy for a few seconds it can be worth more than destroying it, and those seconds are usually start much earlier for the first plane to appear on the radar. Therefore, Iran may need much more than “aid” and agreements with China either Russia. A deployment that anticipates. While Washington and Tehran keep the diplomatic channel open, we have been counting that the Pentagon has been strengthening its presence in the Middle East for weeks with a movement of forces that includes fighters, bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers and land systems. The transfer of F-16CJ fighters specialized in air defense suppression is not a symbolic gesture. It is an operational signal that, if the negotiation ends up failing, the United States wants have the key ready to open the Iranian sky from the first minute. Wild Weasel: Enter first, shoot later. The F-16CJ are designed to an uncomfortable mission and certainly dangerous– Locate enemy radars, force them to turn on, and neutralize them before they can guide missiles against the attacking force. These aircraft are equipped with the system AN/ASQ-213 and anti-radiation missiles AGM-88 HARMand can physically destroy detection and command nodes. That said, its true advantage isn’t always in explosion. It is in the ability to disorganize the entire anti-aircraft architecture before it understands what is happening through a secret weapon. The “angry kittens”. Yes, because under the fuselage of these fighters travels the Angry Kitten podan advanced electronic warfare system that began as a tool to simulate threats in exercises and ended up evolving into a real operational capability. Let it be known, at least since 2017 It has been tested on multiple platforms and has become a test bed for cognitive electronic warfare, approaching the ideal of systems capable of quickly adapting to changing threat environments. Turning radar into a mirage. Thanks to technology from radio frequency digital memorythe Angry Kitten can detect, capture and manipulate enemy radar emissions to return altered signals. In other words, they don’t just block. What it does is create false targetsdistorts trajectories and sows doubts on the operator’s screen, thus reducing thereliability of information that supports the launch of interceptor missiles. Additionally, it can update jamming techniques very quickly and even adjust them during the mission, while the pilot concentrates on flying and fighting. They will face the invisible challenge. Tehran has reinforced its anti-aircraft batteries and seeks external support, trusting in missiles of chinese origin and in strategic alliances with Russia as a deterrent. However, that network relies on radars, data links and command centers that can be confused before a single interceptor leaves the launcher. Hence, Iran is going to need much more than Beijing’s missiles and the Moscow submarines. Because Washington has just landed in the East with fighter planes loaded with those angry kittens capable of disorganizing the defense from within and converting the apparent solidity of the shield into an electronic illusion. The war before the first impact. In short, everything indicates that, if a prolonged air campaignthe breakdown of the Iranian defensive overlap will not fall solely on stealth platforms. Most likely it will require methodical work of these F-16CJ opening corridors, degrading sensors and keeping pressure on the anti-aircraft network. In that scenario, the first phase would not be so much a rain of bombs. It would be more of an invisible battle for control of the spectrum, one where whoever dominates the signal dominates the sky. Image | John QuineUSAF In Xataka | As the US approached, the satellites have captured a shadow: Iran has resurrected a Russian Frankenstein for what is to come In Xataka | To sink a US aircraft carrier required a weapon that Iran did not have. The arrival of China has just changed everything

Russia set up a secret network to sell 90 billion in oil. It has fallen due to using the same mail server

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In the geopolitical chess of international sanctions, where Western governments design complex legislation to suffocate Vladimir Putin’s war machine, sometimes checkmate comes not from a brilliant diplomatic maneuver, but from corporate stinginess. An entire global smuggling network, designed to the millimeter to be invisible to the eyes of Washington and Brussels, has fallen like a house of cards for not wanting to pay separate email bills. A simple saving in computer infrastructure has exposed a monumental flow of black money. a colossal IT blunder (a huge computer error) has brought to light a smuggling network that has moved at least $90 billion worth of Russian oil. As revealed by extensive research of the Finance Timesthis plot is mainly responsible for financing the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine. The British media has identified a network of 48 companies which, on paper, operated completely independently from different physical addresses. However, in practice, they acted in unison to disguise the origin of the crude oil, especially that of Rosneft, the Russian state-controlled oil company. The need to hide these exports became life or death for the Kremlin in October 2025, when the United States imposed direct sanctions to Rosneft and Lukoil. From that moment on, a previously unknown company called Redwood Global Supply was suddenly crowned as the largest exporter of Russian crude oil in the world. This firm, along with the rest of the network, is linked to a group of businessmen of Azerbaijani origin with privileged access to the leadership of Rosneft, led by figures such as Tahir Garayev and Etibar Eyyub. The independent Russian media The Moscow Times has been echoed of this discovery, highlighting a devastating fact: in November 2024, more than 80% of Rosneft’s maritime exports They moved through this network. Sergey Vakulenko, former head of strategy at Gazprom Neft and current researcher at the Carnegie Center, explained to this medium that using fifty shell companies is “an old trick from the 90s” to evade taxes, but he confesses his surprise at the fact that a single network has become so immensely crucial for a giant like Rosneft. The triumph of shadow intermediaries The existence of this network means, quite simply, that the Western sanctions system is full of holes and that Russia has managed to industrialize evasion. According to the investigationthe success of this $90 billion network was based on strict separation of roles to erase the money trail. The network used a group of shell companies exclusively to buy crude oil shipments in Russia, and another group of companies, totally different on paper, to sell them in key markets such as India or China. In this way, the initial buyer and the final seller almost never coincided in customs documents. Furthermore, in most cases, the crude oil was labeled under generic names such as “export mix”, which destroyed any possibility of tracing its origin or checking whether the price cap imposed by the G7 was being respected. As we already explained at the time in Xatakathis modus operandi It is not new and it relies on an architecture of evasion that has been brewing for years in places like the United Arab Emirates. Something very similar happened with the case of Christopher Eppinger, a young trader German that perfectly illustrates how this underworld works. As we detailed in our report, while Europe boasted of energy sovereignty, an army of new intermediaries moved to Dubai—a jurisdiction that does not apply sanctions to Moscow—to make gold. The network now discovered by the British media uses exactly the same tools that we already analyzed: the express creation of opaque companies, the use of the “ghost fleet” (aging ships that turn off their transponders when approaching to load Russian crude oil) and transfers of oil on the high seas to mix it and falsify its origin. The only difference is that the Rosneft network uncovered by the FT was operating on an unprecedented industrial scale… Until they made a rookie mistake on the internet. The rookie mistake This entire sophisticated international network collapsed due to an absurd detail that borders on comedy. He Finance Times discovered that these 48 multi-billion dollar companies shared a single private server for their emails: mx.phoenixtrading.ltd By pulling this digital thread, the journalists of the FT they managed to identify 442 web domains who shared administrative functions of back office on that same server. The next step was pure data mining: they compared the names of those domains with the customs records of Russia and India. Thus, they discovered that the domain foxton-fzco.com It corresponded to Foxton FZCO (based in Dubai), buyer of $5.6 billion in oil; and? advanalliance.ltd It was Advan Alliance, which sold 1.5 billion to India. The desire to create and destroy companies quickly to mislead sanctioners—according to The Moscow Timesthe average lifespan of these signatures is only six months—led the network to centralize your IT infrastructure to reduce costs. A saving that has cost them their anonymity. The show must go on In the short term, the strategy of those involved is denial and adaptation. How to collect Finance Timesboth Tahir Garayev and Etibar Eyyub have categorically denied their involvement in sanctions evasion, calling the accusations “baseless” (curiously, Eyyub sent his denial from an email address hosted on the compromised server). The original company that founded the network, Coral Energy (now 2Rivers), has also disengaged from operations. However, behind the scenes, the machinery is already looking for new avenues. A senior Russian energy executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up the situation in the investigation starkly: “It creates additional costs and inconveniences. But at the end of the day, the show must go on.” The United Kingdom has already reacted to the investigation of the British media, sanctioning nearly 300 entities linked to this “dark web”, blocking Russian ships and banks. The fall of this immense $90 billion network shows that, in the 21st century, bank secrecy and flags of convenience are useless if the system administrator decides … Read more

If the US attacks Iran with drones, it will be in for a surprise. Russia shielded its sky with an explosive weapon: Verba

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It we count last week. In the Middle East, crises rarely erupt overnight. First pieces move away from the spotlight, discreet commitments are signed and deployments multiply that seem routine. Only later, when everything falls into place, do you understand that the board had been preparing for something bigger for weeks. Now we know that Washington has not been the only one that has prepared. Agreement sealed in the shadows. counted this morning in an exclusive the financial times that Iran and Russia signed a secret contract of almost 500 million euros for delivery of 500 lVerba portable spears and 2,500 9M336 missiles. It would be Tehran’s most significant move to rebuild air defenses devastated after the 12 day war against Israel. The Iranian request came just days after its integrated network was seriously degraded by Israeli and American attacks, which allowed enemy aircraft to operate with superiority over large areas of the country. The agreement provides deliveries until 2029although the media explained that there are indications of early shipments, and it is complemented with night vision devices and other equipment that points to a phased but urgent reconstruction. What are Verba and why do they matter. The Verba system is a portable guided missile infrared designed to shoot down drones, cruise missiles and low-level aircraft such as helicopters, operated by small mobile teams that can deploy dispersed defenses without depending on fixed radars vulnerable to bombing. These are not heavy strategic systems like lthe S-300 or S-400but rather a flexible tactical layer that complicates helicopter operations and low-level flights. Its adoption is rapid, requires less integration and allows Iran to reinforce critical points at a relatively acceptable cost for Moscow, which can supply them without weakening substantially its own defense against Ukraine. Verba missile carrier A military alliance despite sanctions. Apparently the contract was negotiated between Rosoboronexport and the Iranian Ministry of Defense, with intermediaries already sanctioned by Washington, in a context of growing cooperation that includes Iranian drones employed by Russia in Ukraine and a bilateral treaty signed in 2025. Moscow thus demonstrates that it has no intention of abiding by Western sanctions or the arms embargo reactivated by European powers, while Tehran tries rebuild the relationship following the perception that Russia did not come to their aid during the latest conflict with Israel. The flow of cargo flights and the reception of attack helicopters Mi-28 reinforce the image of a active and sustained military association. The largest deployment since 2003. It we count last week. The agreement emerges in parallel to a massive accumulation of American air and naval power in the Middle East, with dozens of F-35, F-15 and A-10 fighters deployed at bases such as Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan and Prince Sultan in Saudi Arabia, in addition to two aircraft carrier groups led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald R. Ford. In total, about 40,000 troops and a fleet comparable to the one before the 2003 invasion of Iraq support Donald Trump’s threats to impose a nuclear ultimatum on Tehran. Iran, for its part, warns that it would respond by attacking US bases in the region if hit. A reinforcement that changes the risk calculation. The new systems They will not turn Iran into a conventional rival comparable to the United States or Israel, of course, nor will they prevent sustained air campaigns if these are executed with technological superiority. However, they can raise cost and risk of specific operations, especially helicopter raids or low-altitude attacks, and prolong a possible conflict by making initial phases of aerial suppression difficult. In an environment where each shootdown would have a disproportionate political and strategic impact, the mere presence of hundreds of mobile launchers introduces a tactical deterrence variable. A preparation race. What does seem quite clear is that the combination Iranian rearmament and American deployment draws a scenario of maximum tension in which diplomacy and force advance in parallel. Tehran seeks to buy time, rebuild defensive layers and negotiate from a less vulnerable position. Washington tries to pressure with a demonstration of power without recent precedents in the region. What happens in the coming weeks will not only determine whether there is an attack or an agreement, but also whether the Russian-Iranian alliance is consolidated as a military axis capable of openly challenging the sanctions regime and reconfiguring the strategic balance of the Middle East. Image | ТАСС In Xataka | It is so small that it can barely be seen from space, but this secret island is the main problem for the US to attack Iran In Xataka | If the most advanced US nuclear aircraft carrier maintains its speed it will reach its destination on Sunday: a bad omen for Iran

Russia has a tank so ugly it seemed like a joke. And the most surprising thing is that Ukrainian drones don’t know what to do

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Since the first months of the invasion, the war in Ukraine has become in a laboratory military “tuning” in real time: armored civilian trucks with steel doors, cars with improvised cages against anti-tank missiles, artillery protected with logs or bars welded in haste. As in other long conflicts, when technology does not arrive or is not sufficient, armies resort to bungle creative. From this ecosystem of ugly, urgent and desperate solutions is born the story of the strangest tank of this war… and also one of the most disconcerting for its enemies. Strange but armored. It we have counted other times. On the Ukrainian battlefield, Russia has led improvisation to an extreme almost cartoonish, deploying tanks covered in cagesspikes, cables, rods and metal layers that have earned them nicknames such as “turtle”, “hedgehog”, “furry” or, now, “dandelion”. At first glance they seem like a joke or a symptom of industrial decay, grotesque artifacts closer to scrap than to modern military engineering, but their proliferation responds to a brutal reality: Ukraine’s FPV drones have made classic armor insufficient, forcing Russia to add outer layers whose sole objective is to gain centimeters, time and confusion against attacks that were previously lethal. Origin and evolution. These protective screens, popularly known like “cope cages”began to be seen months ago, when the proliferation of drones transformed land warfare. Initially they were installed only on battle tanks and armored vehicles, but soon they spread to a wide range of systems. Your designs vary greatly: Some structures are crude and heavy, others are better planned, incorporating metal cages, steel plates, chains, spikes, camouflage nets and even reactive armor to reinforce the most vulnerable areas. In the Russian case, some tanks have become completely coveredwhich has earned them the nickname “turtle tanks” due to its resemblance to the shell of these animals. The simple principle that unsettles drones. The logic behind these designs is so rudimentary as effective– If the drone explodes before hitting the main hull, the shock wave loses much of its destructive power. In that sense, the “latest” model, the “dandelion tank”, with branched metal rods and tensioned meshes, works as a three-dimensional barrier that detonates the FPV from a distance, while there are already versions with cables, chains or spikes that seek the same effect from different angles. There has even appeared a sort of brush cutter tank Russian. Every extra centimeter between the explosive charge and the armor increases the chances of survival, and in a front saturated with cheap drones, that minimal advantage can make the difference between a disabled vehicle and one that continues fighting. In fact, this Russian anti-FPV system has migrated to its UGVs. In a video Seen on networks, the Russians claim that this “Courier” UGV survived the attack by a Ukrainian FPV and was recovered, although remembering that the additional weight of the cables will reduce the capacity vehicle loading. From the initial mockery to the silent cup. Yes, because what began as an object of ridicule among Ukrainian soldiers laughing at the welded cages and absurd profiles, has ended in imitation. The Ukrainian forces themselves have begun to equip some of their vehicles with similar protections, and the concept has even spread to NATO armies, with Western French vehicles. testing solutions inspired by these “dandelions”. The implicit message is, above all, uncomfortable: it may be ugly, crude and inelegant, but in real war is working better that many sophisticated solutions that have not yet come to the forefront. Hidden costs and obvious limits. There is no doubt, like so many other extravagant designs in the Ukrainian war, these improvised capes are not a panacea. They add weight, raise the profile of the vehicle, reduce mobility and they offer no real protection facing precise artillery or attacks from below, a tactic increasingly exploited by Ukrainian drones. Furthermore, and here the modus operandi of war, the more time passes, the more operators learn of FPV to identify gaps, adapt trajectories or use new techniques to avoid these metal shields. They are temporary defenses, effective but doomed to lose ground as the adversary figures out how to break them. An absurd race that defines modern warfare. Still, the central fact remains: Russia has created tanks so strange that they seemed like a jokeand for a time they have achieved something unthinkable, leaving enemy drones without a clear answer. In a war of attrition, cheap and experimental, where every day they look for emergency solutionsthese grotesque layers symbolize the current conflict better than any doctrine: a constant race of trial and error, in which even the most absurd can become, even for a moment, the best defense available. Image | Telegram In Xataka | The cold is so savage that Ukraine has activated the most kamikaze option: the “50,000 Russians per month” or giving Moscow what it wants In Xataka | “A human safari”: going outside in a Ukrainian city is now equivalent to being a shooting target for drones

imitate Russia in the Arctic

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While millions of tourists enjoy a privileged climate in Gran Canaria, the infrastructure that supports the island operates on the verge of collapse. The island’s electrical system, isolated and without connection to the mainland, operates with minimum safety margins, dangerously approaching what technicians call “energy zero”: a total blackout. The threat is not theoretical. The neighboring island of La Gomera had a blackout a couple of weeks ago due to the destabilization of the El Palmar thermal power plant, but the inhabitants still remember 2023 in which they spent 37 hours in the dark. Faced with a structural power deficit and a demand that is close to 550 megawatts (MW) at peak times, a technical proposal has emerged that breaks all taboos in Spain: bringing floating nuclear reactors to the Port of La Luz to guarantee electricity and water to the island. Urgency and the fossil “patch.” The energy situation of Gran Canaria is critical. It is estimated that the island has a firm power deficit—safe energy that does not depend on whether it is sunny or windy—of between 120 and 140 MW. Current thermal power plants, based on fuel oil and gas, are aging and the network lacks robust support. To avoid the blackout, the Government of the Canary Islands has chosen a solution emergency: hire a powership of 125 MW. It is a thermal power plant installed on a ship (Shark class) that will dock in the port of Las Palmas to burn fossil fuels and cover that gap. The study that supports it. It is in this context where the Peter Huber Center of the University of the Hespérides emerges. Through a study signed by experts Manuel Fernández Ordóñez and Daniel Fernández Méndez, direct criticism is launched at the current management: he powership It is a “patch” that perpetuates pollution, increases CO2 emissions in a dense urban environment and maintains dependence on imported fossil fuels. Their alternative is radically different: betting on floating nuclear reactors. According to the authors“we are not talking about an experimental technology, but rather an evolution of light water reactors that have been operating safely for decades on military ships and icebreakers.” The glass ceiling of renewables. Here lies the technical core of the debate. If the Canary Islands have plenty of sun and wind, why consider nuclear energy? The answer lies in network stability. Despite the efforts, the contribution of renewables to the energy mix of the Canary Islands has been stagnant at around 20% for four years. Although 2024 aimed for a clean production recordthe technical reality is stubborn: the island electrical grid, being small and isolated, needs an “inertia” that wind and solar energy cannot provide on their own. Without a firm power base, when renewables rise a lot, the system becomes unstable and energy must be dumped to avoid failures. Currently, the big bet to solve this It is Chira Falls: a reversible hydroelectric plant that will function as a 200 MW “megabattery.” This pharaonic work, scheduled to be operational by 2027, will pump water to store excess renewable energy and release it when necessary. However, the Hesperides University study argues that, even with storage, the system still needs a constant generating “backbone” that does not emit CO2. They argue that a 100 MW reactor would provide that fixed power and the auxiliary services (frequency and voltage control) necessary so that, paradoxically, more renewables can be installed without the risk of pulling down the grid. As Manuel Fernández explained in an interview: “The only reliable alternative to fossil fuels in the Canary Islands is nuclear.” Much more than electricity. The proposal goes beyond turning on light bulbs; It strikes a chord with survival on the islands: water. The water-energy nexus The Canary Islands are one of the places in the world most dependent on desalination. More than 70% of the water for human consumption comes from the sea, and these desalination plants devour between 10% and 12% of all the electricity generated on the islands. “The water security of Gran Canaria is strongly coupled to its electrical security,” the study says. While experimental pilots are tested like the DesaLIFE projectwhich seeks to desalinate using wave energy to supply some 15,000 people, the nuclear option presents a brute force solution. A reactor generates electricity and an immense amount of waste heat. According to the report1 MW of electricity can desalinate between 4,000 and 6,000 cubic meters of water per day. A single 70 MW nuclear ship, partially dedicated to this task, could cover a gigantic fraction of the water demand of all of Gran Canaria. The Russian mirror in the Arctic. The proposal is not based on futuristic plans, but on a tangible reality that operates today: Akademik Lomonosov. It is the first modern commercial floating nuclear power plant. It has been docked in Pevek (Russia) since 2020, supplying electricity and heating in extreme weather conditions. Its technology is two KLT-40S reactors (derived from icebreakers) that generate 70 MW. In 2024, it reached an operating factor of more than 94%. Russia is already working on the next generation (RITM-200M), which will offer about 100 MW with a useful life of 60 years. Regarding the logistics of powership fossil, which requires the constant docking of tankers with fuel, a floating reactor is recharged every 3 or 4 years. This would shield the island from the volatility of oil prices. The small print. To understand real viability, you have to look at the global context. Although Russia now leads the market and uses it as a geopolitical tool, the US was a pioneer in operating the nuclear ship Sturgis in the Panama Canal between 1968 and 1976. Today, Western companies such as Westinghouse or Seaborg are trying to regain ground against Chinese (ACP100S) and Russian designs. The “B side” is social rejection. Greenpeace has come to qualify these projects like “Chernobyl on ice”. The study defends security through “defense in depth” design (double hull, passive systems). However, analysts warn of specific … Read more

that Russia has been knowing all its steps from space for years

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After the Cold War, space was conceived by Europe more like an extension of scientific cooperation and the civil market than as a domain of strategic confrontation. Thus satellites designed for television, meteorology or navigation were deployed at a time when the main concern was technical reliability and cost, not the deliberate hostility of other States. While Washington and Moscow kept alive military logic inherited and China began to build its own, Europe was establishing a functional, open and trust-dependent spatial architecture. The latest finding reveals a “big” underlying error. Hybrid warfare reaches orbit. Yes, for years, Europe assumed that space was a technical and relatively stable domain, ultimately protected by its civil and cooperative character. It so happens that recent Russian satellite activity has broken that illusion. As? In parallel with sabotage of submarine cables and other covert operations, Moscow appears to have moved its hybrid war to space, taking advantage a critical blind spot: Many European satellites were launched decades ago without modern encryption systems or advanced protection. This vulnerability, ignored for years, has turned the geostationary orbit into a new silent front where missiles are not needed to inflict strategic damage. Luch-1 and Luch-2. There is much more, since the Financial Times discovered exclusively this morning that Western authorities have been monitoring the movements of two Russian space vehicles for some time, Luch-1 and Luch-2which have performed unusual maneuvers, getting dangerously close to key European satellites and staying next to them for weeks. Since its launch in 2023, Luch-2 has approached at least 17 satellites that provide essential services to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, a pattern that, according to analystsleaves no doubt about its purpose. These approaches are not accidental: they seek to position themselves within the narrow cone of data transmission between ground stations and satellites, an ideal position to intercept signals and study their internal workings. The critical failure. The most disturbing revelation is that some of the most sensitive information circulating through these systems, including the command links that allow orbit adjustment, it is not encrypted. Put another way, that means Russia could not only have spied on civil and government communications, but also recorded enough technical data to imitate legitimate operators from land. With that knowledge, for example, a hostile actor could send fake orders to alter the orientation of a satellite, take it out of service, misalign it or even force its fall or uncontrolled drift, without the need to physically destroy it and without leaving a clear attack signature. A strategic Achilles heel. Although the Luch satellites They do not seem to have the direct ability to interfere with or destroy other devices, their value lies in the accumulated knowledge: how European satellites are used, who operates them and from where. This intelligence allows us to prepare more discreet attacks, such as Selective interference or cyber attacks coordinated from the ground, and reinforces the idea that spatial networks are the true Achilles heel of modern societies. As Russia expands its reconnaissance program with new maneuverable satellites and Europe begins to come to terms with the magnitude of the problem, the message is clear: hybrid war It is no longer fought only at sea or on dry land, but also 35,000 kilometers above our heads, the point where Europe has just discovered that had been exposed for years. Image | woodleywonderworks In Xataka | A space war looms over our heads and Europe is the power that invests the least in defense technology In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons

monitor every move of Russia and China in the Arctic

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First World War II and then the Cold War turned Greenland into a magnificent surveillance platform belonging to Denmark but granting the United States a VIP pass that it now wants to switch to annexation. Because that piece of frozen land (less and less) has rare earthsbut the most attractive thing has always been its strategic location. Old radars are not enough. The melting of Greenland has opened new sea routes that Russia and China have welcomed with open arms. the advantages it offers compared to traditional routes. Of the 15 military bases that the US had in Greenland in 1945, now only one remains: the Pituffik Air Base or Thule. And a problem: outdated and insufficient systems to monitor what happens there, such as acknowledged the Pentagon first and the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies after. So they have gotten to work to solve it: the United States Department of Defense agency responsible for the development of cutting-edge technologies for military use (DARPA) has requested a new technology collected in Frosty. This program aims to develop new radars that operate reliably in the harsh Arctic environment. DARPA is seeking proposals capable of detecting aerial targets at least 75 kilometers away with a detection probability greater than 90%. The coveted new polar “silk road”. The launch of this new radar is important because it would mean having a real lookout in the Arctic and on the new route that has appeared so that the great world powers can gain commercial and military advantage. China has already made clear what do you want be a “great polar power”“. The immediate advantage is reduce shipping times to Europe from up to 50 days to less than half (on its route through Suez). This recent academic article In its security report, the United States Coast Guard reviews other possible risks such as the expansion of its fishing grounds, access to natural resources for scientific cooperation and mentions the existence of its advanced fleet of modern icebreakers and Chinese submarines capable of operating under the ice. Spoiler: With current technology, they are difficult to detect from the surface. For Russia, the new passage route that is being opened is a threat to the current North Sea route, which operates under its jurisdiction. Furthermore, Greenland is part of the GIUK bottleneck (shared with the United Kingdom and Iceland) that its northern fleet must pass through to reach the open waters of the Atlantic, at the gates of the United States. We are talking about nuclear submarines as advanced as the Borei-A class and the Yasen-M. Also at stake is the sovereignty of the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range that links it to Greenland, which could eventually give it exclusive rights to vast hydrocarbon reserves. And that’s without talking about the massive rare earth deposits The technical challenge of being so far north. The northern lights are very beautiful, but they generate a huge amount of electromagnetic noise when they occur. Since the Earth’s magnetic field lines also converge at the North Pole, the ionosphere is unstablegenerating scintillation that corrupts the GPS signal and absorption in the polar cap. In short, conventional radars not only fall short, but sometimes also go blind. The DARPA wish list. What the US agency wants It is essentially transforming the electromagnetic chaos of the Arctic into a detection tool with a brain in the form of processing software with advanced algorithms that dynamically “filter” interference from geomagnetic storms to isolate potential threats. Furthermore, it would not be a single giant antenna, but rather a mesh of small mobile nodes that share data to triangulate targets. These are the radars you request: A passive environmental noise radar that does not simply emit a signal and wait for the bounce, but uses natural radio frequency noise from the environment to detect objects. That is, it does not treat noise as an interference, but as a source. If a ship passes through that noise, it generates a disturbance that can be detected. Radars Over-the-Horizon that, unlike line-of-sight ones, which travel in a straight line and collide with the curvature of the Earth, these are capable of bouncing waves off the ionosphere to be able to detect objects beyond the Earth’s curvature. They are indicated to detect maritime vessels or aircraft flying at low altitude, thus evading conventional radars. An externally illuminated radar with high-power transmitters located at great distances as power sources, like Alaska’s HAARPwhich allows objects to be illuminated indirectly. For when. As mark your roadmapthe receipt of industry proposals for the tender ended on January 30 and the next 18 months will focus on algorithm development, offline implementation and laboratory testing. Between 2027 and 2028, the integration of the software into real hardware would take place, with field tests in Point Barrow and Poker Flat, Alaska. Therefore, to see this new and ambitious radar network in action we will have to wait until 2028. In Xataka | Russia and China already had an advantage over the US in the Arctic. After Greenland, it has multiplied In Xataka | Now that Europe has sent its troops to Greenland, a question emerges that no one wants to ask: what happens if the US invades it? Cover | JoAnne Castagna / US Army Corps of Engineers (Public domain)

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