Russia

the one that Russia gave him

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In modern warfare, see before the enemy can be more decisive than shooting first, hence some military systems current ones are capable of monitoring areas the size of an entire country from the air. We are talking about devices whose cost can exceed 500 million dollars per unit. The problem is that even these key pieces depend on something much more fragile than it seems: information. Without “eyes” in the war. In the last 48 hours, Iran has achieved something much more relevant than destroying a plane: has rendered useless one of the few key systems that allow the United States to see the battlefield from hundreds of kilometers, the E-3 Sentrya true aerial nerve center that coordinates fighters, detects threats and maintains superiority in the air. Its destruction is not symbolic (it barely keeps a fraction of the 16 it had operational), It is functionalbecause it eliminates real capacity surveillance and command at a critical moment, forcing the few remaining aircraft to take on more load and increasing blind spots in the theater of operations. In a conflict where every second of detection makes a difference, losing one of these assets is equivalent to fighting with your eyes partially bandaged. 500 million. They counted in the Telegraph that satellite images showed a few hours ago the destroyed fuselage of the four-engine United States Air Force plane on the runway of the air base in Saudi Arabia. Among the twisted metal remains, what looked like a large flying saucer lay face down. It is, or was, the crotating radar dome which typically sits atop E-3, the $500 million air operations nerve center that allows commanders to track everything in the air over hundreds of miles. Images of the destroyed E-3 Invisible help. The attack, furthermore, not only reveals precision, but also high-level prior intelligence, and that is where a decisive factor comes in: Russia. According to various sources, including his own president of UkraineMoscow provided images satellites from the base days before the attack, allowing Iran to know the exact location of the planes and choose the most vulnerable point, right where the E-3 radar is located. This support transformed a conventional attack into a surgical operation, demonstrating that war is no longer decided only by who shoots, but by who sees first and best. The Russian-Iranian collaboration turns each strike into more than just a tactical impact: it is a demonstration of network warfare against the American military architecture. Aging fleet. The severity of the blow is multiplied because the United States barely has these systems and its fleet is aging. As we said, only It had 16 units in total and many of them not operational at all times. Therefore, although the loss of one may be replaceable, since there is no immediate active production and replacement programs accumulate delays and political doubts. This leaves Washington in an awkward position, where each casualty is not just a material cost, but a structural reduction of capabilities in the middle of war, just when it is most necessary to maintain constant coverage over the airspace. The bombed base Bases exposed to missiles and drones. The attack also exposes an increasingly obvious weakness: America’s most valuable assets remain parked. in poorly protected bases against long range weapons. Although an attempt was made to disperse the planes to make them difficult to locate, the combination of satellite intelligence, drones and missiles has shown that this strategy is insufficient. Without hardened shelters and adequate protection, even key systems can be destroyed on the ground without the need for direct confrontationconfirming that technological superiority is of little use if critical assets are vulnerable before takeoff. War of attrition. Meanwhile, Iran has adapted its strategy toward a sustained pace of attacks. smaller but constantseeking not so much to saturate the defenses as to wear them down over time. With a still significant arsenal and the ability to coordinate still complex strikes, Tehran maintains continuous pressure while forcing the United States and its allies to expend interceptors and critical resources. This attrition logic, combined with selective attacks on key nodes such as radars or aircraft of command, multiplies the impact of each action and reinforces the central idea: it is not about launching more missiles, but about hitting where it hurts most. Silent shifting. Be that as it may, the episode points to a deeper transformation: modern war no longer revolves only around destroying forces, but to blind systems. Iran has not only attacked infrastructure or troops, but the information layer that supports the entire US military operation, and it has done so relying in external intelligence. The result is a clear signal, another onefor future conflicts: that whoever manages to disable the adversary’s sensors and command networks will have a decisive advantageeven against technologically superior powers. Image | USF In Xataka | Iran has achieved something unprecedented in the Middle East: that the US has to abandon its military bases In Xataka | While the US bombs Iran, something unusual has happened: drones attacking the nuclear bases in North Dakota

With the arrival of good weather in Ukraine, Russia thought it was a good idea to bring out its hidden tanks. It wasn’t at all

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In 2022, many analysts assumed that tanks would remain the undisputed symbol of land power, but four years later the battlefield has evolved to the point where multi-ton vehicles can be neutralized for systems that fit in a backpack and cost thousands of times less. A return at the worst time. Winter is giving way to spring in Ukraine, and Russia has decided it was time to bring out its armored vehicles again after almost one year of limited useconvinced that she could regain initiative on the front. However, this movement has collided head-on with the current reality of the battlefield: an environment saturated with drones, remote mines and sensors where any concentration of vehicles becomes an almost immediate target. What on paper should have been an offensive reactivation has translated, in its first stages, in massive losses of material, with mechanized attacks that have ended in authentic “massacres” in a matter of minutes. From hiding to exposing yourself. For much of the last year, Russia had chosen to reduce the use of vehicles and advance with small groups of infantry to minimize their exposure. That tactic, although costly in lives, was more difficult to neutralize in a battlefield dominated by drones. But the enormous human wear and tear (with hundreds of thousands of casualties) has forced Moscow to rethink its approach. The return to mechanized attacks is not so much a choice as a necessity: replacing men with machines, even if that means assuming a new type of vulnerability. The Soviet heritage. It we have counted on other occasions. To sustain this change, Russia has begun to turn to its deeper reservesreactivating T-72 tanks from the 1970s and 1980s that remained in storage for years. This movement reveals an important turn in the contest, because it is no longer about deploying the best available, but rather to maintain volume at any price. The Russian military industry is still capable of regenerating units, but increasingly with older materialmore heterogeneous and less adapted to an environment where threats come from above and not from the front. A battlefield that does not forgive armor. The problem from the Moscow sidewalk is that the context has radically changed. Drones, capable of detecting, tracking and attacking vehicles with great precision, have turned mechanized advances into operations andxtremely risky. Added to this are remotely deployed mines and coordinated attacks that turn any movement in a trap. What was once the spearhead of offensives now behaves like a slow, visible and predictable target, especially when deployed in a group. Hit logistics to wear out. In addition, a parallel strategy is added to this direct pressure on the vehicles: the continuous attack to the rear. The Ukrainian coups against fuel tankslogistics nodes and supply centers seek to make any accumulation of armored vehicles on the front meaningless. And without fuel and maintenance, even a large number of vehicles lose operational value. Thus, the Russian problem is not only how many tanks you can deploy, but how long you can keep them functioning in real combat conditions. Accelerate burnout. In short, Russia appears to be trading a depleting resource (the labor) for another that is also beginning to become scarce: his armored legacy of the Cold War. In the short term it may be able to sustain the pressure on the front, but if current losses continue, the material cost can quickly grow to become unsustainable. In that scenario, the return of the tanks It does not seem to represent a return to conventional warfare, but rather a risky bet on a battlefield that has already evolved. faster than them. Image | Telegram In Xataka | Iran is winning the war with “Ukrainian mathematics”: there is no need to shoot down US fighters, it is enough to force them to take off In Xataka | Europe’s fear of an unprecedented situation in the Mediterranean: a Ukrainian drone has left a ticking bomb floating

just bombed the “Uber of shahed drones” between Russia and Iran

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Although more than 90% of world trade travels by sea, there are routes that do not even appear on common trade maps and yet concentrate all types of critical flows of goods and technology. In some of these corridors, it is enough to turn off a simple transponder to disappear from the radar and turn an ordinary journey into something much more difficult to track. And one of them directly “connects” the war in Ukraine with that in Iran. The “Uber of the shahed.” Israel has found and beaten much more than a port: it has attacked the invisible highway that connected two apparently separate wars, that of Ukraine and the Middle East. As? For months, the Caspian Sea functioned as a discreet runner where Russia and Iran exchanged Shahed drones, ammunition and technology far from Western reach, a true “Uber of the Shahed” that moved weapons silently while the ships they turned off their transponders. This logistical system allowed the same drones that fell on kyiv or Kharkiv to also fuel attacks in the Gulf, and its partial destruction It not only aims to disrupt supplies, but also reveals the extent to which both conflicts are intertwined. A key route for two simultaneous wars. Because the Caspian corridor was not a secondary route, but a centerpiece of the Russian and Iranian military equipment, used to transport hundreds of thousands of projectiles and millions of ammunition, in addition to drones that both countries they already produce jointly. They remembered in the Wall Street Journal that Russia depended on this route to sustain its war effort in Ukraine, while Iran used it to project power in the Middle East, turning maritime traffic between Bandar Anzali and Russian ports into a critical logistics artery. Its hybrid nature, mixing civil commerce with military shipments, made its detection and blocking even more difficult. Technological and total war partners. I was counting this morning the financial times that the relationship between Moscow and Tehran has evolved from one-off cooperation to integration ever deeperone in which Russia provides intelligence, satellite images and technological improvements, while Iran provides expertise in cheap drones and mass production. However, that relationship is no longer one-way: Russia has perfected the Shahed in Ukraine (improving navigation, payload and jam resistance) and is now in a position to return Iran vmore advanced versionscapable of increasing the effectiveness of their attacks or serving as a basis for new generations of weapons. The Israeli coup and its effect. Apparently the attack against Bandar Anzali It has destroyed key infrastructure, from ships to command and maintenance centers, with the explicit aim of demonstrating that not even the Caspian is a safe space for Iran. Beyond the physical damage, the operation also seeks to disorganize temporarily the flow of weapons and send a strategic message: Israel can reach critical logistical nodes even in areas considered outside of direct conflict. Plus: By affecting a route that also transports civilian goods such as wheat or energy, the coup places additional pressure on Iranian internal stability. A system also vulnerable. Despite the impact, neither Russia nor Iran depend on a single path, and it is likely that redirect your shipments to other ports or routes, maintaining the flow, although with greater costs and delays. That said, the attack has exposed a structural weaknessThere is no doubt: the need to maintain discreet but concentrated logistics corridors, susceptible to being identified and hit. Put another way, modern war is not only fought on the front lines, but in these invisible networks that sustain production and supply. Strategic message. If you also want, what has happened in the Caspian redefines the map of the conflict, because it shows that wars are no longer a kind of watertight compartments, but rather interconnected systems where a logistics chain can feed multiple fronts. By bombing this route, Israel has not only hit Iran, but also indirectly the russian military machinery in Ukraine, showing that the battle for drones (and the chains that transport them) is a global conflict. From that prism, the “Uber of the Shahed” was not just another route: it was the symbol of a new form of war, one that is now also a priority objective. Image | Alma, Wikimedia, Kyiv City State Administration In Xataka | Drones and ballistic missiles have revolutionized warfare. Iran suspects there is another weapon: rain theft In Xataka | Iran has sent a message with a ballistic missile 4,000 km away: Europe is within reach, including Spain

This is how Russia has become the great winner of the Hormuz crisis

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On Thursday evening, March 12, the Swedish Coast Guard boarded the tanker Sea Owl I south of Trelleborg, off the coast of Sweden. The next day, the authorities They arrested their captainof Russian nationality, and on Sunday a court ordered his formal arrest for using allegedly false documents to operate the ship. This 228-meter-long ship sails under suspicion of using a false flag, in this case from Comoros, and is on the European Union sanctions list. As explained The Moscow TimesAlthough the ship, which set sail from Brazil, claimed to be heading to Estonia, the Swedish Coast Guard believes its actual destination was the Russian port of Primorsk. This is one more link in the “shadow fleet” that Moscow uses to evade sanctions. In fact, just a few days before, Sweden had seized another ship, the cargo ship Caffasuspected of transporting stolen Ukrainian grain. A lethal bottleneck. But while the West tightens the noose in the icy Baltic, the true collapse looms in the south. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, turned into an impassable “digital fog” by the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, has suffocated the world energy market. According to The New York TimesIndia—highly dependent on imports from the Middle East—had been in agony for months after Donald Trump’s administration imposed punitive tariffs to force it to stop buying Russian crude. Without quick access to crude oil from the Persian Gulf and with the US ban on Moscow, the Asian giant was looking into the abyss. Indian state refineries were forced to close entire processing units due to the simple physical shortage of oil. Washington’s retreat. Faced with Iran’s direct threat to shoot up the barrel of Brent at 200 dollarsthe United States has had no choice but to give in. The US Treasury Department has issued a temporary emergency waiver. This license, valid for 30 days, allows India and other countries to buy Russian oil stranded at sea. Although Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent justified the measure by stating that it seeks to stabilize world prices and that it will not bring “significant financial benefits” to the Kremlin, the reality of the markets dictates a very different ruling. Russia makes money (and legally). Indeed, the main beneficiary of this crisis is the Kremlin, and it is also doing so completely legally in the eyes of Washington. According to data from Argus Media collected by Bloomberg, Prices for Russian Ural crude oil delivered to India’s west coast have hit a record high of $98.93 per barrel. This historic rebound has occurred precisely after the United States expanded its permission to buy Russian crude oil in the midst of the upward spiral caused by the war in the Middle East. The humiliating discount that Russia was forced to apply has vanished, reducing it to just $4.80 per barrel compared to the global Brent index. At the diplomatic level, Moscow also gains muscle. According to the Anadolu Agencythe foreign ministers of Russia and India are already talking to use alternative forums to the West, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to mediate the de-escalation of the Middle East. The great irony of international sanctions. On the one hand, Sweden spends police resources raiding Russian ghost ships in the frigid Baltic Sea. On the other hand, offices in Washington are forced to urgently legalize the purchase of crude oil from Moscow to avoid the economic collapse of India and a global recession. In the end, geopolitics always ends up surrendering to the laws of thermodynamics and infrastructure: the world needs physical energy and, faced with the closure of Hormuz, the West has had to swallow and pay in gold price for the oil of the same country it was trying to suffocate. Image | Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Xataka | The big winner of the Hormuz blockade is the country that the West has tried to suffocate for years: Russia

Europe has found a hole that has been sending sensitive material to Russia for years: a “Mercadona” from Germany

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More than 400 billion packages circulate around the world every year, and the international postal system is designed to move them as quickly as possible. To achieve this, many shipments cross borders with simplified controls and risk-based reviews, not full inspections. That logistical efficiency, designed to speed up commerce and everyday correspondence, sometimes generates unexpected cracks in much larger systems. An unexpected hole. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union has lifted one of the sanctions regimes wider of its history with the aim of economically isolating Russia and hindering access to technology that can feed his military machine. Advanced electronics, sensitive components or certain industrial equipment are theoretically blocked to prevent them from reinforcing the Kremlin’s war economy. However, the practical application of these restrictions faces a constant problem: the more complex the sanctions system, the more ingenious They become the routes to avoid it. And in this case the weak point has appeared in a place so everyday that it is difficult to believe. A clandestine channel in the supermarket. The story was told in a report in Politico. Apparently, in several Russian chain supermarkets throughout Germany, among shelves of sweets or freezers, advertisements have appeared that promote a logistics service specialized in sending packages from Germany directly to Russia. What at first glance seems like a postal service for the Russian diaspora has become an unexpected crack within the European sanctions system. Customers may drop off boxes that supposedly contain clothing, books or small personal items. No one inspects the contents and, for a few euros per kilo, the package begins a journey that ends in Moscow or St. Petersburg. In this apparently innocent flow, even sensitive electronic components whose export is prohibited. The inherited logistics network. The middle counted that behind this circuit is LS Logistics Solution GmbH, a German company created by former employees by RusPostthe subsidiary that the Russian state postal service had established in Germany before sanctions forced it to close. After the invasion of Ukraine, that structure did not completely disappear. It was reorganized under a new namekept part of its staff and continued to operate from Germany with a similar system. The result is a kind of parallel postal network that collects packages throughout Europe and concentrates them in a warehouse near the Berlin airport, from where shipments to Russia are organized. The seal trick. The key to the system is an apparently bureaucratic detail. The packages do not have labels from the Russian Post, but from the state postal service of uzbekistan. Since that country is not subject to European sanctions, the shipment can take advantage of special rules that protect international postal traffic. In practice, this means that packets move with lighter controls than traditional commercial shipments. This administrative difference, designed to facilitate mail between citizens, becomes a back door for sensitive goods to cross borders without raising too many suspicions. A kilometer trip through Europe. The route of the packages illustrates chow it works the system. After being picked up from supermarkets or delivery points, they spend a day or two in Germany before moving to a large logistics warehouse near Berlin airport. From there they are loaded onto trucks that cross Poland on the A2 highway and continue to Belarus. Even though this country is also sanctioned for its support to Moscow, the packages continue to advance thanks to your status international postal mail. After traveling more than 2,000 km, they end up arriving at addresses in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. The problem of sanctions. Plus: the episode also reflects a challenge that those who design economic sanctions are well aware of. Officially blocking trade is relatively simple, but preventing alternative routes appear It is much more complicated, and that is already we have told it in the drone war in Ukraine. Each new restriction forces the creation of more complex control systems, while those who try to circumvent them constantly search new legal cracks or logistics. The result is an endless game of adaptation in which authorities try to close holes just as new ones begin to appear. Always one step behind. They finished the report explaining that European authorities are already reviewing the case and have strengthened the rules to pursue sanctions violations. Be that as it may, the discovery of the network itself demonstrates to what extent the system can make fun. As governments design increasingly strict legal frameworks, makeshift logistics networks continue to find ways to move sensitive goods across of unexpected routes. And in this case, the blind spot that allowed this channel to Russia to be kept open was not in an industrial port or a large cargo terminal, but in something as everyday as the check-in counter. a supermarket. Image | flowcomm, RawPixel In Xataka | In 2022, the war in Ukraine sent supermarket prices soaring. Iran threatens to make it child’s play In Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The problem is that now it needs its oil to survive

Faced with the fear of a barrel of oil at $200, the US has made an unprecedented decision: remove sanctions on Russia

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After almost two weeks, the Iran war already has a great (and unexpected) beneficiary: the Kremlin. days after giving carte blanche to India to buy million barrels of Russian crude without fear of sanctions, yesterday Washington was one step further by lifting (partially) the sanctions imposed on the Russian oil industry after the invasion of Ukraine. With this, he hopes to alleviate the effects of the Iran war on the energy market and prevent Tehran’s threat from becoming a reality: that the barrel of Brent shoots to $200an all-time high. The question is… What will it mean for the war in Ukraine? What has happened? That the US has decided to pause the sanctions that penalize the purchase of Russian oil, a measure adopted four years ago and which seeks asphyxiate the Kremlin’s ability to finance its troops in Ukraine. The White House just published an order in which it gives the green light to the purchase of crude oil and oil products from Russia. Of course, with small print. The suspension of sanctions is temporary. It will only affect merchandise previously loaded on ships and (a priori) will be limited to one month: from March 12 to April 11. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why do you do it? The task of announcing the measure has been the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bressent, who a few hours ago insisted in the White House’s efforts to “promote stability” in the global energy market and above all “keep prices low” while the Iran war lasts. “To expand global supply reach, Treasury grants temporary authorization for countries to purchase Russian oil stranded at sea,” explains the high office. “This measure, which is limited in scope and short-term, applies only to oil that is already in transit.” In the same messageBressent insists that the rise in crude oil prices this week, coinciding with the escalation of tension in the Persian Gulf, is “temporary” and claims that “in the long term it will greatly benefit” the US economy. In recent days, Trump himself has tried to downplay the fluctuations in the Brent barrel. Recently he even stated that, being “the largest oil producer”, the US makes “a lot of money” when crude oil rises. Does context matter? A lot. In fact, the decision of the Treasury Department cannot be understood without taking into account several factors. The first, the escalation in the value of oil to which Bressent himself refers. The stock charts show that the cost of a barrel of Brent has skyrocketed in recent days: from marking just under 70 dollars in mid-February, it has gone above 90, with peaks that exceeded the barrier of the 100. Those fluctuations already affect to those who need to fill the car tank and threaten to go beyond transportation, infecting the shopping basket. What will happen now? The problem is not just how much oil has risen over the last two weeks. There is (very much) concern that the barrel of Brent will continue to become more expensive and, if so, by how much. The Iranian regime already has shown its ability to condition oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic maritime passage that channels 20% of international oil, and Tehran seems willing to use ‘black gold’ as a weapon of war. On Wednesday the regime of the ayatollahs threatened to the US (and the West) with a scenario in which the Brent barrel doubles its value and shoots up to $200, shattering the all-time high of 2008, when it reached $174.5. How will it affect Russia? That’s the other big question. The order just published by the US Treasury will allow Russia to market oil for a month without its customers risking sanctions, generating a flow of cash for the Kremlin. Bressent questions in any case the scope of that injection of funds. “It will not bring significant financial benefits to the Russian government, which derives most of its energy revenue from taxes levied at the point of extraction,” defend the secretary. Is it an exceptional measure? The truth is that it is not the first ‘balloon of oxygen’ that Trump has granted to the Russian oil industry since he began his military operation in Iran. It’s been a week now temporarily relaxed its sanctions policy so that India can buy Russian oil. The measure was approved with conditions very similar to those that Washington now extends to the rest of the countries: a 30-day suspension limited to crude oil already loaded on ships. It is not the only card that the White House has tried to reduce market tension. Another, adopted hand in hand of the International Energy Agency, has been to release millions of barrels of reserves. How much will it benefit Moscow? The great unknown. The measure approved by the US is temporary and has a limited scope, but it will probably allow the Kremlin to sell its oil without having to apply significant discounts to offset the possible sanctions that its buyers faced. Recently Financial Times I calculated that Russia is already winning up to 150 million of dollars in extra income every day through the sale of oil, a plus directly related to the conflict in Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the turbulence in the Gulf and the growing interest of India and China. But will it help the Kremlin? The situation of the Russian coffers is not particularly buoyant. Its public deficit accumulated during the first two months of the year almost reaches the objective set for the entire year and there are those who question that the extra injection it will receive over the next month thanks to oil will increase its room for maneuver in Ukraine. The reason: hydrocarbons represent only a part of the income (relevant, but not decisive) on which the Kremlin depends, which after four years of war has seen how the country’s military industry is conditioning its economy. Images | … Read more

The US ignored Ukraine’s pleas to Russia, and now Iran has turned the US into Ukraine

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In recent years, something curious has happened in the military world: the most influential drones on the battlefield are not the most advanced, but some of the cheapest. Small devices with triangular wings and simple engines, inspired by Iranian designs, have ended up starring thousands of attacks in several conflicts and forcing entire armies to rethink how to defend their skies. Paradoxically, stopping them usually costs much more than making them. And the United States has realized it late. The war that changed the battle. we have been counting. The Russian invasion of Ukraine inaugurated a new phase in modern warfare marked by the massive use of cheap drones capable of overwhelm the defenses traditional aerials. Since 2022, Russian forces have launched tens of thousands of Shahed drones (of Iranian origin) against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, forcing kyiv to develop an improvised but increasingly sophisticated defense. This experience, acquired in extreme conditions and under constant bombing, has turned the country into the most advanced laboratory in the world to combat this type of weapons. What began as a desperate fight to protect their airspace ended generating new tacticselectronic warfare systems and interceptor drones specifically designed to destroy these low-cost loitering munitions. The weapon that changes the economy of war. The success of Shahed drones is based on brutally simple logic: its price. Each can cost between $20,000 and $50,000, a paltry figure compared to the systems designed to stop them. For years, Ukraine and other countries have been forced to use anti-aircraft missiles that can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to shoot down a single drone. This asymmetry turns each interception into an economic defeateven when the target is destroyed. To solve the problem, Ukraine began to develop cheaper solutions: interceptor drones that pursue and attack the Shahed, mobile teams with machine guns, electronic jamming systems and surveillance networks adapted to detect these devices before they reach their objectives. The great strategic paradox. Here appears one of the most striking ironies of the current conflict. For years, Ukraine asked for more help to defend against Iranian drone attacks used by Russia and developed specific technology to combat them in view of the fact that no one (or few) paid attention to them. Even now we know who came to offer that experience and those systems to the United States in meetings held at the White House, where he presented proposals to create anti-drone defense networks in the Middle East. That offer was ignored at that time. Ironies of fate, months later, after the start of the war with Iran and the launch of thousands of drones against American bases and allies, Washington has been forced to knock on kyiv’s door and ask for help. In a sense, the conflict has reversed the roles: The most powerful military power in the world is now facing the same dilemma that Ukraine has been trying to solve for years, defending its positions from swarms of cheap drones that force it to spend fortunes to be neutralized. The world calls kyiv. This accumulated experience has turned Ukraine into a unexpectedly valuable partner for countries now suffering similar attacks. Governments in the Middle East, Europe and the United States have begun to request advice, technology and training to defend themselves against Iranian drones. Zelensky himself confirmed that his government has received multiple requests to share knowledge on interceptors, electronic warfare and air defense tactics adapted to this type of threat. kyiv has responded sending experts and systems to some US bases in the region as it tries to balance that aid with its own defensive needs against Russia. From laboratory to export power. The war has also transformed the Ukrainian defense industrial sector. Local companies produce now thousands of interceptor drones every month and have developed models capable of pursuing and destroying Shahed at a fraction of the cost of traditional missiles. Some manufacturers claim to be able manufacture tens of thousands of monthly units, which has aroused enormous international interest. Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabiahave begun negotiations to acquire Ukrainian interceptors and technology, seeking more sustainable solutions than relying exclusively on extremely expensive Western anti-aircraft systems. A new global race: anti-drone defense. The rise of these technologies reflects a change unimaginable until recently in contemporary military logic. The great powers have discovered that systems designed to intercept ballistic missiles or fighter jets are not necessarily effective against swarms of cheap, mass-produced drones. In the Persian Gulf, Israel and the Arab states have had to spend large quantities of missiles Patriot, THAAD or Iron Dome to stop relatively cheap attacks. This dynamic has caused a global career to develop more economical solutions, from interceptor drones to automatic air defense systems capable of confronting massive threats. A global lesson. In short, what began as a regional war in Eastern Europe it’s over redefining the way many countries understand air defense. Ukraine, which for years fought almost alone against massive Iranian drone attacks operated by Russia, has unexpectedly become the world reference to combat this threat. The paradox is simple and obvious, because the technology and tactics developed by a country that was fighting to survive have become essential to protect some of the most advanced military powers on the planet. In the new drone war that extends from Europe to the Middle East, the experience accumulated in the skies over Ukraine has become one of the most valuable strategic assets of the moment. So much so that even has invested the papers with the United States. Image | ArmyInform, Lycksele-Nord, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine In Xataka | The United Kingdom has opened the kamikaze drone that exploded at the European base. The surprise is capital: it is not from Iran, it is “made in Russia” In Xataka | Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution and the price to pay has a name

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

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