war

For 150 aircraft to bomb Venezuela, the US used one of the most lethal tactics of the war: gunboat diplomacy

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Long before the hundreds of aircraft, missiles, drones and special forces came into play, the United States had already begun to move pieces throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. While international attention was focused on Venezuela, Washington was weaving an accelerated network of military agreements with Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and other countries in the region, expanding access to airports, deploying troops “temporary” and authorizing operations armed under the umbrella of a renewed “war on drugs.” The tactic, in fact, was born in the 19th century. An escalation announced. It we count before the end of last year: the timing and magnitude of these pacts they did not go unnoticed for analysts, who interpreted them as the deliberate creation of a regional logistics infrastructure capable of sustaining a prolonged military operation against Caracas. Under a rhetoric that mixed drug trafficking, hemispheric security and regional stability, the real objective seemed much more classic: to surround Venezuela, isolate it diplomatically and make it clear that US military power was not only willing, but physically prepared to intervene. In this context, Caracas’ warnings to its neighbors and the growing concern in Latin American capitals reflected a familiar feeling: that of once again being the “backyard” of a power that did not ask for permission. The qualitative leap. The point of no return has arrived with the military operation which culminated in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas. From Mar-a-Lago, Trump not only celebrated the audacity and violence of the operation, but also verbalized something even more significant: the United States was not simply overthrowing a leader, but was arrogating to itself the right to “direct” Venezuela for an indefinite period, dictating key political and economic decisions and recovering, according to his own storythe control of oil resources that he considered “stolen” from American companies. The rhetoric carefully avoided words like occupation, but while the word “democracy” has not once left Washington, “oil” has been repeated dozens of times, so the substance was hard to hide: a tutelage imposed under threat of a military “second wave” if the new power did not obey. The image of an armada off the coast, ready to intimidate both Caracas and other governments in the region, marked the explicit return to a logic that many believed buried after Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump oversaw US military operations in Venezuela, from the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026 Gunboat diplomacy. Also called gunboat diplomacywas born in the 19th century as a brutally direct form of foreign policy: sending warships off the coasts of weaker countries to force political concessionscommercial or territorial without the need for a formal war. Powers such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States used it systematically in Asia, Africa and Latin America, turning the mere naval presence into an instrument of coercion. In the American case, this doctrine was intertwined with the Monroe Doctrine and his later reinterpretationlegitimizing military interventions, temporary occupations and regime changes under the premise of protecting national interests in the Western Hemisphere. If you want and from that perspective, the attack on Venezuela is not a historical anomaly, but a technological update of that same pattern: where before there were gunboats, today there are aircraft carriersdrones, special forces and economic sanctions, but the logic is identical. Military force does not act as a last resort, but as a political message itself, designed to discipline a particular government and warn all others. Map of US attacks against Venezuela An echo of interventions and their consequences. Latin American history is full of examples that help contextualize this movement. From the war with Mexico in the 19th century until the Banana Wars of the 20th, passing through the supported coups d’état During the Cold War, the United States has intervened dozens of times to shape like-minded governments or curb rival influences. Trump himself has claimed figures as William McKinleya symbol of an era in which territorial expansion and access to resources were considered legitimate expressions of national power. But they remembered yesterday in the New York Times that these interventions rarely produced lasting stability. They often left fractured societies, legitimized dictatorships and deeply damaged the American reputation, a legacy that strategic rivals today exploit. like china to present themselves as less intrusive (although not necessarily more benign) alternatives. The perfect operation and the subsequent vacuum. From a military point of view, Maduro’s capture was a demonstration extreme precision: months of surveillance, an exact replica of the target to rehearse the assault, selective blackoutscoordinated airstrikes and special forces breaking into the heart of Caracas in the middle of the night. But the tactical success contrasts with the strategic uncertainty which opens later. Who will really govern Venezuela? How will your armed forces react? What happens if a future election contradicts Washington’s interests? There is no doubt, these questions evoke familiar ghosts of “eternal wars” and covert occupationsexactly what Trump had promised to fight against. Hence that “gunboat diplomacy”no matter how modernized it is, continues to suffer from the same problem as it did more than a century ago: it is effective at imposing fait accompli, but terrible at managing long term consequences. The past with weapons of the future. Thus, the attack on Venezuela does not represent a doctrinal innovation, but rather a conscious return to an ancient way to exercise powercovered with 21st century technology. Instead of multilateral negotiations or classic diplomatic pressure, the United States has opted for a direct show of force, combining capture of leaders, control of resources and an intimidating military presence throughout the region above any international law. It is, in essence, the gunboat diplomacy elevated to an industrial scale: faster, more precise and media-intensive, but equally fraught with risks. History suggests that its effects will not be measured in days or weeks, but in decadesand that Latin America, once again, will be the stage where it is tested if the past can really be reused … Read more

Migingo is a tin rock where 500 people live. It is also the center of the world’s smallest war

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Curious islands in the world there are several. Like Migingo… not so many, because we are talking about a geographical anomaly. It is a tiny rock formation that emerges in the lake victoria and in which it is difficult to find a millimeter that is not covered by a uralite shanty. There are about 500 people living in this space smaller than a football field, but apart from this situation, Migingo It is something much more. It is the scene of Africa’s smallest war. Kowloon 2. Okay, that’s an exaggeration because In Kowloon there were 1.9 million inhabitants per square kilometerbut in Migingo there is not much privacy either. The island is rocky and has an area of ​​about 2,000 m². It is estimated that the population density is about 65,000 people per km², but it is really difficult to make calculations because it depends a lot on the sources. In 2009 it was said that the island had a population of 131 people, but it has also been lying at 500 people (creating a much higher density of 250,000 per km²), and up to more than 1,000 people. There are no basic services, but there is a casino, four bars, several brothels and a pharmacy. Something is something and the question is… how did it get to this situation. two fishermen. It all started in 1991, when two Kenyan fishermen landed on the island. It is very close to a larger island, called Usingo, and at that time everything was covered by weeds. The receding of the lake’s waters left more of the land visible, and fishermen began to arrive and settle. The reason is that it was easier to operate directly from the island than to go to its vicinity every day in search of prey. In the 1950s, the Nile Perch was introduced to the lake. It is an invasive and predatory species that destroyed the local fauna, but transformed the region’s economy. An estimated one million metric tons were exported annually in 2006 and, by then, the industry had a commercial value of $250 million to Uganda. That is to say: this fish was the second economic engine of the country, only behind coffee. And Migingo is located in a strategic point as it is very close to some of the most important deep water points of the lake, and where there are the most fish. Pirates. Something I haven’t said is that Migingo belongs to Kenya. It is located within what the country considers its territory according to the colonial boundaries of 1926. But there is a problem: those banks rich in Nile perch are in Ugandan territory. The fishermen of Migingo go a few meters into the fishing territory of the neighboring country every morning, and we already know what happens when one country steps on another’s resources. There is reports which indicate that the boats unloaded more than 100 kilos of fish a day, generating profits in one day between three or four times more than what a Kenyan or Ugandan generates in a good month. Word spread and attracted the most undesirable: pirates who landed with assault rifles, threatening the few who lived on the island, stealing the fish, the gear or the menhaden motors. The locals called for help, and Uganda was the first to respond. Uganda comes into play. The logical thing would have been for Kenya to respond, since the island is theirs, but in 2004, those who arrived were Ugandan authorities and police. They saw that money was moving there and the maritime police planted two flags: theirs and that of Uganda. The reports of 2009 indicate that the authorities were not much better than the pirates. Fees for Kenyan fishermen to get to the island, taxes, fines, kidnappings, torture and claims of people disappearing and never returning. The island’s population (mostly Kenyans, but also Ugandans) asked Kenya for help. And, now, Kenya responded. The smallest war in the world. Following popular pressure, politicians were forced to act. In April 2009, a Kenyan official arrived, accompanied by a dozen police officers, and declared that the land belonged to his country. He brought down the Ugandan flag and raised the Kenyan flag. One day later, Uganda shipment 60 marines and the region was on the brink of armed conflict. Since then, the situation has eased somewhat, but the flags continue to fly in a disputed territory that has nothing to do with land, but with fish. There is nothing around Migingo, while in nearby Ugandan waters the production is extraordinary. Complicated. This conflict has been studied as if it were an example, or a test, of the resolution of postcolonial conflicts, when Europe divided up Africa with square and bevel. The problem is that it’s not getting anywhere. Kenya and Uganda formed a committee to sort things out, but it was abruptly dissolved after failing to reach an agreement on the mound. And most recently, in November 2025, the residents of Minigno they asked both governments to give some response. Meanwhile, human rights associations continue alerting regarding acts of slavery to which Kenyan citizens are supposedly subjected by the Ugandan authorities, the island still lacks basic services such as a sewage treatment plant or proper waste management and everything is dumped directly into the lake. And, although it has suggested a form of government based on a condominium scheme in which both exercise joint sovereignty, nothing has been achieved. Images | Google Earth In Xataka | This is life on the most remote inhabited island on Earth: the improbable story of Tristan da Cunha

Europe believes it has won the gas war against Russia, but it has forgotten one small detail: infrastructure

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Europe has made a historic decision: 2027 will be the year in which the last trace of Russian gas disappear from the energy system of the continent. However, between the offices in Brussels and the reality of homes there is a chasm that is not measured in cubic meters, but in months of construction. The continent’s security no longer depends on diplomacy with the Kremlin, but on the speed at which terminals can be erected, tubes connected and ships deployed. The new European sovereignty is in the hands of the engineers. A system to build. As analyst Giacomo Prandelli explainsthe focus of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market has been on the price, but the real crisis is infrastructure. Europe is in a frantic race to replace Russian gas, but much of the necessary capacity is still under construction or in the planning phase. This has created a golden opportunity for a very select group of companies that own the physical assets. According to Prandelli, there are vital European companies that still go unnoticed. He gives as an example a firm valued at 662 million euros that operates “at a bargain price”: Their profits are very high compared to their stock market value and, most importantly, they already have government contracts secured until 2030. They are, basically, the owners of the “plugs” that Europe is forced to go through. The reasons for structural change. The reason for this urgency is an irreversible “divorce”. According to data collected by OilPriceRussian exports by gas pipeline to Europe have fallen by 44% in 2025, reaching lows in the 1970s. The definitive closure of the Ukrainian route this December leaves the continent without its historic arteries. The reasons for this new reality are three: US dependence: US gas It already represents 56% of LNG imports in Europe. The July 2025 agreementby which the EU will buy 750 billion dollars in energy from the US, has reconfigured the global board. The physical rigidity of the system: Although there is plenty of gas in the global market, European regasification plants (especially in the Netherlands) have operated at the limit of their technical capacity. Spain has the gas, but cannot send it to the rest of Europe: its pipelines with France they only allow export 8,500 million m³ per year. The problem is not the lack of fuel, it is the “funnel” of the pipes. Gas as an eternal backup: A report from McKinsey & Company issues an uncomfortable warning: Gas demand will grow by 26% until 2050. Europe needs gas to stabilize its electricity grid when renewables fail. The energy transition, far from eliminating gas, has turned it into a “permanent strategic pillar.” The Black Sea axis and the ghost fleet. However, the European wall has cracks. Hungary and Slovakia they keep injecting money to the Kremlin via the Druzhba pipeline and the TurkStream route. While Brussels asks for disconnection, Budapest and Bratislava build new connections towards the Black Sea, claiming that the cut would be “economic suicide.” Added to this is the fear of the “ghost fleet.” Brussels fears that Russian gas will repeat the oil scriptan opaque market of ships that change flag and documentation to hide the origin of the gas. To avoid this, the EU has imposed fines of up to 3.5% of global turnover and certificate of origin systems, but the crude oil precedent shows that, when Europe closes a door, the market usually opens a clandestine window. Europe’s floating lifebuoy. Given the slowness of concrete, a technical solution arises. According to Professor Alexandre Munspoints towards FSRUs (Floating Storage and Regasification Units). These ships are mobile regasification plants that use the heat of the sea to process the gas. According to Muns, their advantages are the speed of deployment and the cost since they can be rented for about $155,000 per day. Giants such as Excelerate Energy or Höegh LNG are those that today allow the EU to keep the pulse. Without these ships, the gas crossing the Atlantic simply would have nowhere to enter the continent. The tyranny of the calendar. Europe closes 2025 with deceptive calm. As reported by El Economistaprices have fallen to four-year lows (€27/MWh) thanks to a mild winter and the constant flow of ships. But, as the president of Sedigas, Joan Batalla, warns, this stability is “conditional.” Any extreme cold snap or technical failure in a saturated terminal could skyrocket prices again, because the network operates without margin for error. Europe’s autonomy is no longer negotiated in Moscow; It is built in the ports of Germany, in the interconnections of the Pyrenees and in the FSRU shipyards. The success of the 2027 plan will not depend on politicians’ promises, but on cranes and welders finishing their work before the climate changes the rules of the game. Image | freepik Xataka | The European Union has finally made the decision that has terrified it for so many years: stop importing Russian gas

We believed that drones would dominate any war. The Arctic is proving just the opposite

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For decades, drones occupied a secondary place in armed conflicts. They existed, they were used in very specific operations and almost always under centralized control, but they did not define the rhythm of a war. That changed with Ukraine. There, unmanned systems became an everyday, cheap and ubiquitous tool.integrated into the way of fighting. That experience has reinforced the idea that modern warfare will inevitably be a drone war. The problem is that this conclusion only works in certain scenarios. And the Arctic is beginning to demonstrate, quite forcefully, that not all battlefields accept the same technological rules. The growing interest in the Arctic does not respond to a technological fad, but to a profound change in the geopolitical situation. The melting ice is opening sea routesfacilitating access to resources and altering natural barriers that for decades made it difficult to operate in that region. In that context, NATO military forces have intensified exercises and deployments in the High North, aware that Russia has a clear advantage in the region. Cold that changes everything. The extreme temperatures of the Arctic impose different rules than other military scenarios. Components designed to function normally fail when the cold changes their physical properties. Rubber loses elasticity, aluminum and other metals become more brittle, and lubricants thicken to compromise the movement of key parts. It only takes one system freeze to knock out an entire platform or immobilize a convoy. It is not a specific problem, but a chain of effects that begins with the thermometer and ends with operation. The sky also gets in the way. Added to the problems on land is another less visible, but equally decisive, factor. At extreme latitudes, magnetic storms and auroras interfere with radio signals and satellite navigation systems. It is not just about losing precision, but about seeing the positioning and synchronization data that support communications, sensors and modern weapons altered. In an environment where visual orientation is already complicated by snow and lack of landmarks, any additional distortion makes navigation an unstable task and, in some cases, directly impracticable. When they are also bothering your signal. Added to this natural degradation is an additional problem: jamming and other interferences that are not always directed at the target that ends up suffering them. In the Arctic, the planet’s own geometry works against it, since from high latitudes there are fewer satellites available as part of them are hidden by the curvature of the Earth. That makes any interference have a greater impact. In northern Norway, regulator Nkom registered six GPS failures in 2019 and 122 in 2022, and since the end of 2024 it has stopped counting them due to their frequency. These limitations are not theoretical. On a polar exercise in CanadaUS Army Arctic off-road vehicles broke down after 30 minutes because the hydraulic fluids had solidified in the cold. Under these same conditions, Swedish soldiers received night vision devices valued at $20,000 that failed because they could not withstand temperatures of -40°C. The lesson for planners is an uncomfortable one. Operating in the High North requires assuming sudden failures and that logistics, more than technology on paper, ends up setting the real pace of any deployment. Rethink technology and procedures. Faced with this scenario, the response is not only to manufacture more resistant equipment, but to distinguish between technological limits and operational limits, a common separation in analyzes of the use of UAS in Arctic environments. Some problems can be mitigated with redesigns, from materials and power sources to more robust navigation alternatives. Others require changes in the way we operate: planning missions assuming signal losses, reducing external dependencies and training to work with incomplete information. All of this explains why the Arctic does not support simple translations from other recent war theaters. In Ukraine, small and cheap drones, supported by constant digital linkshave shown their usefulness in an environment with infrastructure, human density and many more references. In the High North, that ecosystem does not exist. According to the approach included in the tests described, the drones there would have to incorporate de-icing systems, a more robust propulsion for the wind and operate with another type of fuel. Far from being a perfect laboratory for digital warfare, the Arctic is forcing us to rediscover physical limits that are not negotiated. Images | Xataka with Gemini 3 Pro | US Navy In Xataka | Satellite images have revealed that China has gathered its most important aircraft carriers. And that can only mean one thing

A Russian family lived isolated in Siberia for more than 40 years. He didn’t know about World War II or the space race.

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In the cold, vast and desolate siberian taiga one would expect to find spruce trees, maples, streams and acres covered in frozen silt. Maybe (hopefully) some lone pso or wolf. What no one would include on that list is what he discovered around mid 1978 an expedition that flew over a mountain located more than 240 km from any human trace. There, in the middle of the Abakan mountain rangea group of geologists came across a family that had been isolated for 42 years. Its story still fascinates today. And that cabin? Such a question must have been asked 47 years ago by a group of Soviet geologists flying over the Siberian taiga, an area rich in oil, gas and mineral reserves. He ran summer of 1978 and the team, led by Galina Pismenskaya, was traveling by helicopter in a region of Siberia located 160 km from the border with Mongolia when the pilot saw something between the trees. Something unexpected. A rudimentary cabin with a small garden. In most parts of the planet, such an image would be of little interest, but Pismenskaya’s team was supposedly in an unpopulated area. In fact, the Soviet authorities were not aware that anyone lived there. The nearest houses were supposed to be more than 200 kilometers away, so the question was obvious… What the hell was that shack doing there, built next to a stream, among trees? They were so intrigued that geologists decided to land. “We come to visit”. The impressions of Pismenskaya and her colleagues when approaching the hut we know them thanks to Vasily Peskova Russian journalist and traveler who would later interview the protagonists of that story to collect it in a book. Upon landing, the researchers found a hut made with the little that the taiga offered: bark, branches, trunks and pieces of wood blackened by humidity. On one side there was a tiny window. On the other side there was a door through which an old man appeared. “Like something out of a fairy tale”, would relate some time later Pismenskaya, who recalled that the man was barefoot, was wearing a patched shirt and pants and sported a scraggly beard. “He seemed scared. We had to say something, so I started: ‘Greetings, Grandpa! We’ve come to see you.’” The fact is that that old man was not alone. When they entered the hut with him, the geologists discovered that he lived with his four children. They all shared that wooden construction without rooms, blackened by smoke, cold and with the floor covered in shells. Upon seeing the new arrivals, one of the young women began to pray, scared. Another, hidden behind a post, ended up collapsing from suffocation. Logical. The family had not seen another human for four decades. Dating back to 1936. The old man in question was called Karp Osipovich Lykov and the fact that he lived there, in conditions almost medieval people, hundreds of kilometers from any hint of civilization and surrounded only by his children, is explained in light of what happened in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Just like his Karp family was an old believera member of a church split from Orthodox Christianity that embraced the ancient liturgy and ecclesiastical canons. The path of Karp’s coreligionists had diverged from the Russian Orthodox already in the 17th century, after Nikon’s reformwhich made them outcasts. This had happened in times of Peter I…and with the Bolsheviks. This harassment affected the Lykov family directly. Around 1936, a patrol shot his brother on the outskirts of the village where they lived, so Karp made a radical decision: he gathered his wife Akulina and the two children they had at the time (Savin, nine years old, and Natalia, two) and escaped into the forest. Literally. He walked away as far as he could. Without looking back and with light luggage that included just a handful of seeds, a rudimentary spinning wheel, a couple of jugs to boil water and the clothes they were wearing. Once in the taiga, the family built a cabin with what they had on hand, set up a garden and continued with a life marked by isolation, their beliefs and deprivation. In 1940 the couple had their third son, Dmitry; and four years later the fourth and last daughter, Agafia, was born. Back to history. The Lykovs continued with that life until Osipovich’s helicopter located them in the summer of 1978. It may sound strange, but the family had settled in a particularly inhospitable place. No one saw them before because no one looked there. The marriage moved as he encountered difficulties, moving further and further away from the villages and towns, until settling at a point located more than 240 km of the nearest settlement. Not even the Soviet authorities were aware of the existence of that family. The consequences of that isolation are obvious. For the Lykovs, time, politics, science… stopped dead in 1936. The family did not know that Europe had been shaken by World War II, nor that man had stepped on the Moon in 1969, nor was it aware of the space race, the name Kennedy or the Beatles did not ring a bell… Some family members marveled at seeing a television or items as seemingly simple as matches or a roll of transparent cellophane. Fascinating yes, bucolic no. The Lykovs’ 42 years of isolation were, however, hardly bucolic. Their cabin was built next to a stream and the forest offered them wood, fruit and even game, but the harsh conditions of the taiga subjected them to a constant test. Especially the first years. Agafia even told how towards the end of the 1950s the family faced their peculiar “years of hunger”, during which they had to decide whether to eat the little they harvested or save some of the seeds to grow them the following year. “We were hungry all the time,” he admits. Years later the family suffered a frost … Read more

When the war in Ukraine ends, Russia has a plan for Europe

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A week ago and in the midst of the peace negotiations that the United States has tried to lead between Russia and Ukraine, the president of Finland issued a warning to the old continent. If peace comes to Eastern Europe, it will be the end of the war, but also, possibly, the beginning of another. Now it has been Washington’s intelligence that seems to be on the same line. The ultimate goal. counted this week Reuters that US intelligence reports have been conveying a less than reassuring message for more than two years: Putin’s objectives in Ukraine have not been moderated or reduced, despite military attrition, economic sanctions and ongoing diplomatic talks. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, the assessment of US agencies has been that the Kremlin aims to subdue all of Ukraine and, beyond that, to restore a sphere of influence over territories that were part of the former Soviet bloc, including countries that today they are part of NATO. This reading is neither punctual nor cyclical, but rather a line of analysis sustained over time that agrees widely with the conclusions of the European intelligence services and with the strategic perception of countries especially exposed as Poland or the Baltic Stateswhich are considered the next potential targets if Moscow manages to consolidate its position in Ukraine. Between intelligence and speech. This diagnosis collides head-on with the narrative promoted by Trump and his negotiating team, who maintain that Putin wants to end the conflict and that a peace agreement would be closer than ever. For intelligence analysts, that view ignores both the Russian leader’s own public statements and the logic of your actions military and political. From Washington it is emphasized that Putin has denied repeatedly be a threat to Europe, but the facts (the annexation of territories, sustained military pressure and the refusal to renounce maximalist demands) contradict that discourse. Even voices within the US Congress, such as that of the Democratic congressman Mike Quigleya member of the House Intelligence Committee, have insisted that the conviction that Russia “wants more” is shared by allies key in Europe and is based on solid information, not assumptions. Territorial control. On the ground, Russia controls approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory. This domain includes almost all of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, the industrial heart of Donbas, large areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and the Crimean peninsula, a strategic enclave in the Black Sea. Putin does not present these conquests as provisional or negotiable: he has formally declared that Crimea and the four occupied provinces belong to Russiaa statement that sets a clear red line for any negotiation. This position turns the territorial debate into the main obstacle of diplomatic contacts, since accepting these demands would mean, de facto, legitimizing a war of annexation and setting a dangerous precedent for the post-Cold War European order. Pressure on kyiv. In this context, Washington’s pressure on kyiv has been increasing. According to sources familiar with the talks, the US proposal would include Ukraine withdraw your forces of the areas of Donetsk that it still controls, as part of a peace agreement. For Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the majority of Ukrainian society, this concession is unacceptable. Not only would it imply ceding sovereign territory under military coercion, but it would call into question future viability of the Ukrainian State and its ability to defend itself from new aggression. kyiv insists that any agreement that does not include real and credible security guarantees would be equivalent to freeze the conflict on terms favorable to Moscow, leaving the door open to a resumption of the war when Russia feels stronger. Security: the great debate. The negotiations led by Trump’s entourage, with figures such as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have advanced in defining a package of security guarantees backed by the United States and generally accepted by Ukraine and several European countries. These guarantees would contemplate the deployment of a security force mainly European in neighboring countries and in areas of Ukraine far from the front, with the aim of deterring and responding to future Russian aggression. The scheme would also include a limit on the size of the Ukrainian army, set at around the 800,000 troopsalthough Moscow is pushing to reduce it further, a demand to which some American negotiators are open. To this would be added intelligence support by the United States, air patrols backed by Washington and the ratification of the agreement by the US Senate, which in theory would give the commitment greater political solidity. Mistrust and Russian mystery. Despite these advances, Zelenskiy has publicly expressed your doubts about the real effectiveness of those guarantees, wondering what would prevent Russia from attacking again in practice. Uncertainty worsens because Putin has rejected the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine, even as part of a peace agreement. In parallel, the Russian leader has not offered signs of flexibility: although he declares himself willing to talk about peace, he insists that his conditions must be met and boasts of the territorial advances achieved by his forces, which he estimates at about 6,000 square kilometers in the last year. The lack of a clear response from Washington to these demands fuels the perception that Moscow could be using the talks as a tactical tool to buy time and consolidate positions. Strategic risk. From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has qualified that Russia, in its current state, lacks the military capacity to conquer all of Ukraine or to launch a full-scale offensive against Europe. However, the reports themselves emphasize that the lack of immediate capacity does not equate to a strategic renunciation. Putin’s political intention, according to US intelligence, remains being expansiveand their calculation seems oriented toward a long war, in which the attrition of Ukraine and the political fatigue of the West work in their favor. That combination of unbroken ambition and strategic patience is what explains the caution (also, if you will, skepticism) of the intelligence services regarding … Read more

that the war in Ukraine has reached the Mediterranean

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For months, the so-called “tanker war” between Ukraine and Russia had remained contained in a relatively limited space: the Black Sea and its immediate accesses. There, attacks with naval and aerial drones against ships linked to Moscow had become a logical extension of the conflict, an indirect but effective way to hit Russian energy revenues without directly confronting its war fleet. Until now. An invisible line. Everything has taken a 180 degree turn with the attack against the oil tanker Qendil in the Mediterranean, which represents an unprecedented qualitative leap. Not only because of the distance (more than 2,000 kilometers from Ukrainian territory), but because it shows that kyiv is willing to carry out this campaign much further of the traditional theater of operations, calling into question the idea that European sea routes were safe from war. The fleet in the shadows. He Qendilan Oman-flagged crude oil tanker built in 2006, was not chosen at random. Before heading to India it had departed from the Russian port of Novorossiysk, one of the key outlets for Russian oil to the global market. Both the European Union and the United Kingdom consider it part of the called “shadow fleet”the network of ships that Russia uses to avoid sanctions through flag changes, opaque ownership structures and routes designed to dilute legal responsibilities. For Ukraine, these ships are not simple commercial assets, but a direct extension of the Russian war efforta source of income that fuels the war. Hence, the Security Service of Ukraine has defended the attack as a legitimate objective under the law of armed conflict. A surgical operation. According to SBU sourcesthe attack was an “unprecedented special operation”, carried out by its Alpha Special Group using bomber-type aerial drones. The broadcast images They show munitions falling onto the ship’s deck from a hexacopter, pointing to a short-range attack launched from a nearby platform, probably a ship. Tracking data indicate that the tanker was sailing between Malta and Crete when it made a sharp turn and changed course towards Port Said, Egypt, a move that reinforces the idea that something abnormal happened at that point in the journey. Although the ship was empty at the time of the attack (reducing the environmental risk), the SBU holds which suffered critical damage that leaves it unusable for its original function. The message. Beyond the physical damage, the blow has enormous symbolic and strategic value. It comes on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that it would cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea in retaliation for the attacks on the shadow fleet. kyiv’s response seems clear: if Russia can finance its war by exporting oil along increasingly distant routes, those routes too can become a battlefield. The SBU statement That Ukraine “will strike the enemy anywhere in the world” is not just rhetoric, it is a signal to shipowners, insurers and governments that the conflict is no longer limited to a specific sea. Echoes of other wars. This type of attack is reminiscent of the covert war that for years Iran and Israel have fought against merchant ships in the Middle East, a campaign of targeted sabotage designed to send political messages without escalating into open conflict. Everything indicates that Ukraine has studied that model and it is adapting it to its own war, using relatively cheap drones to impose disproportionate costs on the adversary. The possibility of using drones in the future of greater scopeeven with satellite links like Starlink, suggests that the radius of action could be expanded even further. Maritime consequences. He attack on Qendil introduces a new factor of uncertainty in the Mediterranean. Although the target was directly linked to Russia, the simple fact that armed drones can operate against merchant ships in such busy waters forces the maritime sector to rethink security measures, routes and insurance. For Moscow, the message is disturbing: its floats in the shadowestimated at more than a thousand ships and essential to sustain its crude oil exports, is no longer protected by geographical distance. For Europe, it is an uncomfortable reminder that a war that began on land and in the Black Sea is beginning to cast its shadow over one of the planet’s main trade corridors. A conflict that expands. Plus: the attack against the Qendil is not just a tactical action, but an implicit statement that the maritime war is entering a new phase. Ukraine demonstrates that it can bring economic and military pressure to spaces that until now They were considered peripheralwhile Russia threatens to respond without making clear how. Between them, the Mediterranean appears suddenly as a potential scenario of a confrontation that no one has formally declared, but that is already beginning to be felt in commercial navigation. As so many other times After this war, the border between the military and the civil becomes more blurred, and the feeling that there are no completely safe areas begins to extend far beyond the front. Image | x In Xataka | Baba Yaga is a Slavic mythological witch who devours skulls at night. And Ukraine has decided to make it a reality In Xataka | Ukraine has asked Russia if it is going to stop the war for Christmas. Russia has responded bluntly

Ukraine has asked Russia if they stop for Christmas like in the First World War. The answer could not have been more Russian

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The inevitable reference when talking about a Christmas break in the middle of a conflict is the spontaneous truce December 1914in the first months of the First World War. On several sectors of the Western Front, British and German soldiers left the trenches, exchanged cigarettes, sang Christmas carols and even played football in no man’s land. Ukraine has remembered it, but it is going to be complicated. The first time. On that occasion of the First World War, the truce was not ordered by the commanders nor was it part of a political negotiation: came from belowof human exhaustion in the face of a war that had not yet shown all its industrial brutality. Precisely for this reason it was never repeated. The high command considered it dangerous, subversive and incompatible with a modern total war. Since then, Christmas has been used many times as a rhetorical symbol of peace, but almost never as an actual interruption of fighting. The Ukrainian proposal. In this historical context full of symbolism, Ukraine has raised the possibility of a ceasefire during Christmas, an idea carefully formulated so as not to appear as a disguised surrender. Zelensky has spoken of a specific pauseespecially linked to attacks against energy infrastructure, at a critical time of winter and with the civilian population as the main collateral victim. At the same time, kyiv is preparing a new package of peace proposals backed by European partners and channeled through the United States, with the expectation that Washington will offer top-level security guarantees if Moscow rejects the plan. Zelensky, however, has shown caution and has lowered any expectations of a quick deal, publicly assuming that Russia may choose to continue the war and that, in that case, Ukraine will ask for more sanctions and more weapons. Officers and men of the 26th Division Ammunition Train playing football at Salonica, Greece, on Christmas Day 1915 The Russian response. The Kremlin’s reaction to the “Christmas break” has been immediate and bluntalmost ritual in its formulation. Dmitri Peskov has discarded any temporary ceasefire, including a Christmas truce, with an argument that Moscow has been repeating for months: a pause would only serve for Ukraine to regroup, rearm and prolong the conflict. In official Russian language, the word “truce” is presented like a trapwhile the word “peace” is reserved for a scenario in which Russia has achieved all your strategic objectives. According to Peskov, Moscow is not ready to replace a comprehensive negotiation (in their own terms) for “momentary and non-viable” solutions. The logic is clear and brutal: either the Russian framework of political and territorial victory is accepted, or the war continues without sentimental interruptions. Territory, guarantees and red lines. Behind the exchange of statements lies the real core of the conflict. Russia demands that Ukraine rspread to wide areas of its territory, accept permanent limits on its armed forces and rule out any future accession to NATO. Ukraine, for its part, rejects hand over the Donbaseven under ambiguous formulas such as a supposed demilitarized “free economic zone,” and remembers that it was already betrayed once when it renounced its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees that did not prevent the invasion. Polls show that a clear majority of Ukrainian society opposes withdrawing from the east and is willing to continue fighting, a domestic factor that greatly limits Zelensky’s political margin even as international pressure increases. Christmas without miracles. The proposal for a Christmas break actually exposes the abysmal distance between the war that we evoke in historical memory and the war that is being fought today. In 1914an improvised truce was possible because the soldiers still saw each other as human beings confronted by accident. In 2025, the war in Ukraine is a conflict of objectives strategic, existential red lines and cold calculation of power, where each day of pause is measured in kilometers of front, ammunition reserves and operational advantages. The Russian response dry and distrustfulis not only “very Russian”: it is confirmation that, in this war, Christmas has no capacity to suspend the logic of the conflict. Unlike more than a century agothere is no room for carols between the trenches, only for official statements that remind that, for Moscow, peace does not begin with a truce, but with the political defeat of the adversary. Image | RawPixel, WikiCommons, Ariel Varges In Xataka | 24 hours later, satellite images leave no doubt: a Ukrainian underwater drone has changed the future of wars In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right

The United States has turned Trinidad and Tobago into the war container it was missing. Venezuela has responded like Russia: an invisible fleet

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The conflict between the United States and Venezuela has entered a phase in which the silent accumulation media outweighs official statements. If you will, the Caribbean once again functions as a strategic belt from which Washington projects pressure without the need to declare an open war. Under the formal argument of the fight against drug trafficking, the White House has been weaving a support network logistics, radars, airstrips, ports and resupply spaces in an arc at a time bigger of “allies”. The Venezuela’s response We already saw it in Russia. The map of countries. That “arc” of allies Washington runs from the Dominican Republic to Trinidad and Tobago, passing through Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, Grenada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The deployment includes destroyers, nuclear submarines, amphibious ships, aircraft carriers, state-of-the-art fighters, drones and thousands of troops, not enough for a land invasion, but enough to control air and maritime space, monitor critical routes and sustain missile attacks if it is decided to escalate. It is a prepositioning strategy classic: being everywhere without publicly assuming that something else is in the works. Trinidad and Tobago, the most sensitive link. Within that architecture, Trinidad and Tobago emerges as the most delicate piece of the board. Its extreme proximity to the Venezuelan coast turns any gesture into a political and military message. The new government has authorized the use of its airports by US military aircraft, has received warships and marine units, has allowed joint exercises and has accepted the installation of an AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR radar capable of detecting aircraft, drones and missiles. Everything is presented as logistical and defensive cooperationbut it fits almost literally with the US National Security Strategy of 2025, which calls for a toughened version of the Monroe Doctrine to reaffirm the preeminence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere and prevent external actors from controlling strategic assets. Trinidad and Tobago insist in that it will not be a platform for offensive attacks except direct aggression, but its role as node of surveillance, resupply and intelligence places it at the center of any scenario of sustained pressure on Caracas. A blockage that is not. The announced threat by Trump of a “total and complete” interdiction of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela fits into that model of gradual pressure. It is not about closing ports with a formal declaration of war, but about taking advantage of naval and air superiority, supported by friendly infrastructure, to intercept, seize or deter the ships that support the main source of income for the Nicolás Maduro regime. The recent seizure of an oil tanker loaded with nearly two million barrels and the warning that further action could follow shows the extent to which Washington is willing to take pressure beyond the symbolic, taking the risk of controlled incidents in international waters. The Venezuelan response. Faced with this siege, Caracas has reacted by raising the profile of its challenge. The order to escort ships that transport oil products and derivatives to Asia is a calculated move: it seeks to demonstrate that the Venezuelan State does not renounce its right to free navigation and that it is willing to involve to his Navy to keep exports open. It is also a response that increases the risk of confrontationbut that sends an internal and external message of resistance. Oil continues to be the financial pillar of the regime, and losing it would be equivalent to accepting total economic asphyxiation. The ghost fleets. Beyond the visible escort, the true backbone of the Venezuelan strategy is the ghost fleeta tactic practically copied from the used by Russia after Western sanctions. Old oil tankers, many with more than twenty or thirty years of service, change name and flagsteal the identities of already dismantled ships, sail under flags of convenience, turn off or manipulate their identification systems and carry out crude oil transfers on the high seas to hide the origin of the cargo. The result is an opaque trade that allows you to sell oil with large discounts to buyers willing to take risks, while the traceability required by sanctions is diluted. It is not a marginal phenomenon: a significant part of the world’s oil tanker fleet already operates in this gray ecosystem, transporting Venezuelan, Russian or Iranian crude. Sanctions that do not suffocate, they deform. The BBC reported that the data show that, although far from the historical levels of the end of the 20th century, Venezuelan exports have recovered notably compared to the collapse of 2019. This indicates that the sanctions have not paralyzed the flow, but rather have displaced it towards more opaque and risky circuits. As in the Russian caseeconomic punishment does not eliminate trade, it makes it more expensive, makes it less transparent and reinforces dependence on informal networks and actors willing to move illegally. The Caribbean as a conflict. With US aircraft carriers patrolling the Caribbean, radars deployed in islands near Venezuela and escorted or invisible tankers sailing to Asiathe conflict is located in a dangerous intermediate zone between economic pressure and military confrontation. The United States bets on the ccontrol of space and logistics regional via of discreet allieswhile Venezuela responds with the same manual that has allowed other sanctioned countries to survive: ghost fleets, aggressive discounts and specific shows of force. The Caribbean, for decades associated with tourism and trade, is thus once again a scene of high geopolitical tension where each radar installed and each oil tanker intercepted brings the risk of a clash that no one admits they want, but for which both sides seem to prepare, a little closer. Image: US Navy In Xataka | The situation between the US and Venezuela only needs one incident to escalate into something more: that incident is already here In Xataka | In full tension with the US, Venezuela has presented its drone simulator: it is equal to a three-euro Steam game

that China loses the AI ​​race, but wins the economic war by bleeding them dry

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The AI ​​race has two main players, but their bets are very different. While the United States has already spent $350 billion in AI (and plan to spend much more), China has only invested 100,000 million. Silicon Valley optimists start from the belief that AI will radically change the world and whoever masters AI will dominate the future. And if not? As they say in financial times, The United States could win this battle, but lose the economic war. USA. You have put all your eggs in the same basket. Exorbitant investments are guided by the belief that AI will change the world as we know it, that AGI will make humans finally stop working. It is an epic speech in which AI is presented to us as a kind of messiah that will save the world, one that completely ignores the alternative: that AI is a great technological leap, yes, but neither so revolutionary nor, above all, such a great business. And it’s not just a technology thing, investors are absorbed in the same obsession. China. In 2017, China announced the “Development Plan for a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence” in which they defined AI as a strategic technology. For China, AI is a national priority, but its approach is more pragmatic and much less speculative. You just have to look at their AI models, like DeepSeek, effective but very far from the very expensive ‘frontier models’ in which the US is investing. His vision for AI is not so much to transform the world, but rather to function as a tool to be even more efficient in different processes. a few months ago They announced the “AI+” planwhere they detailed the deployment of AI in six sectors: scientific and technological development, industrial applications, consumer services, public welfare, governance and security, and international collaborations. The AI ​​war. We always hear the idea of ​​this stark battle to dominate AI from the American side. In many cases, the AI ​​war, like AGI, is another point of pressure for Silicon Valley to justify the tremendous expense or achieve its objectives. We have seen it recently with Jensen Huang pushing for the government to let him sell his chips in China and his argument revolved around the idea that China will achieve technological independence and then win the AI ​​war. The paradox for the United States is that its own invention is benefiting its enemy. The AI ​​war also functions as a pressure point for China: forcing the US to mortgage its economy to the technology they consider the future, while they overtake them in everything else. The economic war. The United States is betting everything on a single winning horse, while China has not stopped investing to ensure its dominance in other key sectors, such as electric cars, batteries, robotics and, above all, renewable energy. For China there are many futures, for the US only one. The commitment to diversification is going well. In 2024 China already manufactured 76% of electric cars sold worldwide and 80% of all lithium batteries. They are also the country with more industrial robot installationswhich gives them an advantage to continue being the factory of the world. There is much more, they are also undisputed leaders in other sectors such as the manufacture of drones, solar panels, high-speed trains and graphene. China’s AI is energy. China carries years investing in clean energy. According to Carbon Brief reportIn 2024 alone, China invested $940 billion, and it is not the year it spent the most. The curious thing is that energy is key for many sectors, especially AI. The United States knows this well and has already encountered a wall: They don’t have power for so many chips. Not only is China producing more energy, it is also is subsidizing it. Jensen Huang warned about this situation, ensuring that “China is going to win the AI ​​race” thanks to the government’s energy aid. Trump, for his part, has discouraged renewable energies and the electric car industry. In the end it will turn out that, for the United States, it is AI to win or nothing to win. Image | Gemini In Xataka | China already has an army of 5.8 million engineers. His new plan involves accelerating doctorates

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