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Iran says Strait of Hormuz deal with Oman nears final stage, reopening still tied to U.S. conditions

Strait of Hormuz Iran Oman deal

Iran said Sunday that an accord with Oman to establish new shipping lanes via the Strait of Hormuz was in its final stages, but Tehran reiterated the strait will not reopen until the US meets a separate set of requirements it has laid out.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi claimed the country is close to finalizing a deal with Oman, which is across the Strait from Iran. Reopening of the waterway is not only dependant on the shipping-lane deal, he told Iran’s Mehr news agency, a position he had also expressed a day earlier. A U.S. official said Friday a deal between Iran and Oman was close and may soon reopen the strait.

A waterway shut since February

The Strait of Hormuz had transported one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies before Iran sealed it down in retaliation for strikes by the U.S. and Israel. In late February, the United States launched air strikes on Iran on the grounds that they would prevent Tehran from getting nuclear weapons or threatening the area with missiles or proxy forces. A ceasefire between the US and Iran was put in place in June. But Washington reimposed a ban on Iranian commerce in the Gulf in July. Tehran said that blockade was a violation of the truce, which had already broken down by then.

“The agreement which is being finalized with Oman will specify the shipping lines to be used after the strait is reopened,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Mehr. It does not establish a date for reopening on its own. That decision is still related to a separate list of requests Iran has made of Washington.

Iran’s demands are not just about shipping lanes

The reopening of the strait partly relies on U.S. reimbursement to Iran for what Araqchi called extensive attacks. Iran’s top national security body secretary Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr gave a longer list of conditions, including an end to U.S. threats against Iran, a stop to aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Yemen and Iraq, the lifting of the blockade and sanctions and the release of frozen Iranian assets.

Iran and the U.S. are not currently engaged in direct discussions, and Araqchi said Tehran will not initiate such talks as Washington maintains what it deems a breach of the interim agreement agreed in June. Messages were being transferred between the two governments thru intermediaries, he said, but did not name which countries or officials were passing them.

Washington would lift its embargo of Iranian ports when an agreement is announced that restores commercial shipping without hurdles, a U.S. official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity. Any efforts by the U.S. would be tied to steps by Iran, a sequencing that reflects the dispute over verification that has stymied other recent agreements in the region, the official said.

Earlier sources told Reuters the evolving deal appeared bound to give Tehran control of ships going into the Gulf thru the strait, a set-up shipping companies have cautioned would be tough to implement. It’s unclear how that control would function alongside the new lanes Iran and Oman are completing, or how it would align with the U.S. conditions for ending the blockade.

The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday Iran had assaulted a ship linked to its state oil business. Iran has not publicly commented on the claim as of Sunday.

Houthi attacks deepen the regional picture

Iran’s behavior in the Strait of Hormuz has been mirrored by a surge in attacks from the Houthis, the Tehran-aligned organization headquartered in Yemen, who have attacked shipping at another choke point between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Last month the Houthis imposed a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, which they described as retaliation for what they described as a Saudi embargo on Yemen. Saudi Arabia has disputed the claim and continues to support Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

The Houthis stated Sunday they hit Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery. The strike was carried out via drone, the group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed on X. A fire broke out at the refinery but was doused and no casualties were recorded, Saudi Arabia’s oil ministry said. Authorities were still dealing with the aftermath on Sunday and did not provide a cause for the fire, albeit the Houthi allegation points to the drone strike Saree reported.

The Jazan refinery is located in southwest Saudi Arabia and processes 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The Houthis have already targeted Aramco operations there and in Yanbu on the Red Sea. The organization also launched strikes on the Red Sea port of Mocha, three sources in the Yemen-based administration in Aden told Reuters.

A new defense accord in the background

The Sunday incident came two days after Saudi Arabia signed a defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan, both mostly Sunni Muslim governments, in what Riyadh said was a response to escalating instability linked to the US-Israeli war on Shi’ite-led Iran. The new coalition does not target Iran or any other specific country, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said. Rather, he described it as a basic commitment among the three nations to support each other’s security, with the actual scope, method and extent of support to be hammered out in later talks should an assault occur.

It is unclear whether Pakistan or Turkey would join any Saudi reaction to the Jazan attack or any additional Houthi attacks. Neither country mentioned Sunday’s incident precisely in a statement.

Together, the developments suggest an area in which a number of fronts – the discussions over the Strait of Hormuz, the blockade in the Red Sea and the new Saudi defense deal – are on different but linked tracks. Iran’s position toward the U.S. remains conditional on demands much beyond the shipping-lane agreement with Oman. Its proxies in Yemen continue to assault Gulf energy facilities, even as Gulf states strive to codify new security arrangements among themselves. How those tracks connect and in particular whether progress on the Oman deal affects the speed or intensity of Houthi attacks is an open subject that neither Tehran nor Riyadh has publicly addressed.

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George Mensah

George Mensah is a Senior Political & Conflict Correspondent at ClicxPost, covering global politics, international conflict, and economic developments. With five years of experience in breaking news and geopolitical reporting, he delivers fast, accurate analysis on major world events.

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Netanyahu rejects Trump’s 15-point Gaza offer, Troops must stay until Hamas disarms

August 9, 2026 No Comments

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed US President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, telling his cabinet that Israeli forces would remain in the enclave until Hamas surrendered its weapons. Netanyahu’s declaration puts him at odds with a framework that the White House has treated as its signature achievement on the war, and it comes at a period when the Israeli prime minister has little political room to maneuver.“Israel rejects the 15-point document. Netanyahu said at the cabinet meeting: “We will not make any withdrawal until Hamas is truly disarmed and we will continue to prevent threats against our forces and our citizens,” he continued. A row over sequence, not substance Both parties say they want to disarm Hamas. They’re different in the order of operations, and that difference has held up the plan for months now. The Board of Peace, the supervisory body established under Trump’s framework, said last month it had secured a commitment for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed factions in Gaza. Hamas said it would only turn up heavy weaponry if Israel stopped “all forms of aggression” and pulled its forces out of the land. Netanyahu’s cabinet remarks closed that door from the other end. Disarmament comes first,” he said, “and Israeli disengagement only once it is done, not before. Neither side has progressed since the disarmament agreement was announced last month, meaning the plan has been basically sitting in the same place for weeks despite the Board of Peace’s claim a deal had been struck. Israel has continued to target Gaza since the first ceasefire took effect last October, undercutting Hamas’s narrative that the current time is one in which Israeli aggression has ended. The paradox is why the two sides can’t agree on who goes first, more so than any single quote from either side. Hamas will be able to point to ongoing bombing to argue that Israel’s violence has not ceased. But Israel may point to Hamas’s complete arsenal as evidence that disarmament has not begun. Both statements are technically true in a narrow sense . And that is precisely why the framework has not moved forward . Trump’s proposal, and what’s left of it The Board of Peace would oversee the implementation of the 15-point plan released by Trump in September last year calling for Hamas’s disarmament, an Israeli troop withdrawal and rehabilitation of Gaza. The proposal was offered as a complete way out of the war, addressing not just the immediate question of weaponry and army locations but also the longer-term reconstruction of the area. When Hamas claimed last month it had agreed to a disarmament plan, Trump termed it “a monumental step toward lasting peace and security.” Netanyahu’s refusal on Sunday makes that story a lot more complicated. A plan Washington presented as acceptable is, according to Israel’s own prime minister, not something Israel currently plans to honor on the terms proposed. “It could not be some fictitious disarmament,” Netanyahu stated, without indicating what kind of verification he would consider real. He did not describe what, if any, process would persuade Israel that Hamas had in fact disarmed, rather than merely declared so. \”Discussions are in progress with U.S. officials,\” he said. “They have ideas, some of them are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand our ground on these issues,” he said, a comment that reads as much as a warning to his own coalition as to Washington. Netanyahu drew a public line between acceptable and unacceptable U.S. proposals, suggesting he’s open to negotiating details but not the current paper. That distinction leaves room for a modified framework without forcing Netanyahu to outright retract Sunday’s statement. Coalition arithmetic before an election Netanyahu’s comments are not unrelated to that coalition strain. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose faction is part of Netanyahu’s governing majority, said the proposal is “not acceptable” and wants a cabinet vote to withdraw Israel’s involvement in the framework entirely. Netanyahu has limited room for maneuver with concessions his far right partners could exploit to bring down the government, a threat Ben Gvir and allies have made before, with elections looming soon. In that light, Sunday’s denial looks less like a negotiation position aimed at Hamas, and more like a warning intended at Jerusalem. Netanyahu has not relented, it says, as coalition braces for vote Ben Gvir may still force For a Prime Minister heading into an election, the electoral cost of looking like he is making concessions to Hamas is likely to outweigh the diplomatic cost of publicly rejecting a US-brokered plan, at least in the short term. That assessment helps explain Netanyahu’s decision to lay out Israel’s stance so bluntly during a cabinet meeting rather than via quieter channels with US officials. Next steps Netanyahu did not specify how long Israel would wait or what would happen if Hamas does not disarm on Israel’s terms. He also did not say whether continuous Israeli strikes in Gaza, already at variance with Hamas’s demand that “all forms of aggression” halt first, will continue while the two parties remain apart on sequencing. The cabinet meeting ended with no vote on what to do next. Ben Gvir is still waiting for a vote to cancel the Gaza plan and Netanyahu will have to answer that one way or another, either maintaining the framework he just partially rejected or moving further toward the coalition partners pushing him to abandon it all together. But nearly a year after Trump unveiled the idea, the core question of who disarms first and who withdraws first remains exactly where it was: unsolved. Israel and Hamas have not agreed to a roadmap proposed by the Board of Peace. Israeli military are still in Gaza. Hamas has not given up its weapons. And with Israeli elections looming, the political incentives for Netanyahu are to stand firm, rather than reach a deal that could be used against him by his own coalition members. What comes next probably has less to do with the talks Netanyahu detailed with US officials than with the internal politics of his own government. If Ben Gvir manages to force a vote in the cabinet, Netanyahu might end up legally putting a stop to Israel’s involvement in a plan he has already rejected in content. If that vote is not held the current stand-off between Israel and Hamas – disarmament first by Israel, withdrawal first by Hamas – is likely to continue with neither side being forced to budge.

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Fraud Ledger White House

White House Launches “Fraud Ledger” Tracking Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force Wins

August 7, 2026 No Comments

The White House rolled out a new website Thursday called “The Fraud Ledger,” a public tracker for the fraud crackdown work led by Vice President JD Vance’s task force. The site describes its purpose in stark terms. “President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance are waging war on the fraudsters and scammers who have looted hardworking Americans for far too long,” the page reads. It invites visitors to follow “every action, every takedown, and every dollar recovered as part of the unrelenting effort.” According to figures posted on the site, the administration has uncovered nearly $230 billion in fraud and stopped $56 billion in fraudulent payments before they went out. A TASK FORCE TAKES SHAPE Vance convened the White House Task Force on Eliminating Fraud for the first time in March. The panel has since grown into a recurring forum where administration officials and lawmakers review cases and coordinate enforcement efforts across federal programs. White House spokesperson Olivia Wales framed the new website as an extension of that work in a post on the social platform X on Thursday. “President Trump and Vice President Vance are waging an all-out war on fraud, shutting down billions of dollars in taxpayer theft,” Wales wrote. She said Democrats “have refused to stop this epidemic of fraud,” and argued that the administration’s approach protects the programs fraud schemes target. “The Trump Administration is holding these criminals accountable and ensuring key federal programs remain viable for the Americans they were meant to support,” she added. Vance held the task force’s most recent session on Wednesday, gathering Republican members of Congress for a roundtable discussion at the White House. The vice president used the meeting to lay out his framing of fraud as a crime with two sets of victims. “Fraud is really a dual victim crime,” Vance told the group. He said the first victim is the American taxpayer footing the bill for stolen funds, and the second is the population of people who actually need the programs being defrauded, since fraud drains resources meant to reach them. Vance did not soften his language when describing the scale of the problem. “This is despicable behavior, and it’s something that we’ve allowed to go on for too long in the United States of America,” he said. A CALL FOR CONGRESS TO ACT Beyond the enforcement actions themselves, Vance used Wednesday’s meeting to press lawmakers to lock in the task force’s work through legislation. He argued that without formal codification, anti-fraud measures put in place by the administration could prove temporary, subject to reversal by a future White House or agency leadership. He also pointed out the partisan makeup of the room. “I see only Republicans surrounding us today,” Vance said. He noted that the task force had found cooperation outside Washington despite the room’s makeup on Wednesday. “We really have been able to work in some cases with Democratic governors and Democratic attorneys general on the anti-fraud task force, and we would love, I’m not necessarily holding my breath, but we would love to work with Democrats in Washington to codify some of the anti-fraud actions that we’ve taken and to take it to the next level,” he said. That distinction, between state-level cooperation and a lack of it in Washington, ran through much of Vance’s remarks. State officials from both parties have signed on to specific fraud investigations tied to their jurisdictions, according to Vance, even as national Democratic lawmakers have stayed out of the task force’s federal proceedings. WHAT THE LEDGER SHOWS The Fraud Ledger presents the administration’s enforcement totals in a running format, updated as the task force closes cases and recovers funds. The site’s stated dollar figures, nearly $230 billion in fraud uncovered and $56 billion in payments halted, cover the task force’s activity since Vance’s March launch meeting through the current update. The administration has not published a detailed case-by-case breakdown of how those totals were calculated, and the website’s framing leans heavily on cumulative numbers rather than itemized enforcement actions. That approach makes the ledger useful as a headline tracker of the task force’s stated impact, though it leaves specific verification of individual cases to whatever documentation the administration releases separately. The task force’s work touches federal programs across multiple agencies, spanning benefit payments, procurement contracts and other areas where fraud investigators have historically found exposure. Vance’s dual victim framing, taxpayers on one side and program beneficiaries on the other, has become the administration’s standard language for describing why it considers fraud enforcement a priority separate from routine government oversight. Wednesday’s roundtable adds to a pattern of recurring task force meetings since March, each drawing a mix of administration officials and members of Congress. Vance has used these sessions both to review enforcement progress and to build a case for the legislative follow-through he raised again this week. Whether that push gains traction with Democrats in Congress remains an open question. Vance’s own comments Wednesday suggested he does not expect quick bipartisan movement in Washington, even while pointing to cooperation at the state level as evidence that anti-fraud work can cross party lines outside the capital. For now, The Fraud Ledger stands as the administration’s public-facing summary of that broader effort, giving the task force a standing record it can point to as the initiative continues into its next phase.

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Cernavoda nuclear plant

Romania Sinks Rock-Loaded Barges Into Danube to Save Nuclear Reactor From Drought Shutdown

August 7, 2026 No Comments

Romanian authorities sank four rock-laden barges into the Danube River on Thursday, racing to redirect water toward the Cernavoda nuclear plant before falling river levels force a second reactor offline. The military blasted rock from the riverbed near the Danube’s Bala Canal earlier in the week using explosives, then loaded the debris onto four barges. Crews lowered the barges into the river to form an underwater barrier, one meant to push water into the main channel and send it downstream toward Cernavoda. Cernavoda’s director, Romeo Urjan, told local news channel Digi24 on Thursday that the river had dropped about two centimeters, or roughly 0.7 inches, between Wednesday and Thursday alone. Without the barges, he said, the plant’s second reactor would likely need to shut down within five to six days. “If the installed barges bring surplus water… instead of five to six days, we will talk about nine to 10 days of operation from today onward,” Urjan said. He added that any benefit from the submerged barges would take roughly a day to reach the plant, which sits about 60 kilometers, or 37 miles, downstream from the barrier site. Cernavoda normally supplies about 20% of Romania’s electricity when both of its reactors run at full capacity. The plant draws river water to cool those reactors, which makes it directly exposed to the Danube’s falling levels. One reactor already shut down last week after an extended heatwave and thin rainfall pushed the river to record lows across the region. A RIVER RUNNING THIN The Danube’s flow in Romania has dropped to 1,400 cubic meters per second this week, its lowest point in decades and less than a third of the volume typical for early August. The shortfall stems from a combination of extreme heat and a prolonged dry stretch that has gripped the wider Danube basin, cutting into both hydropower generation and the cooling capacity nuclear plants depend on. Authorities have added other emergency steps since the first reactor went offline, including dredging sections of the riverbed to keep water moving toward the plant. Acting Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan declared a nationwide state of alert in the energy sector on July 31, and he renewed his appeal to households and local governments on Thursday, asking them to cut electricity use voluntarily during peak evening hours. Bolojan said the barge operation would likely continue through Friday. Speaking after a government meeting, he said the goal of the work carried out so far is to maintain enough flow toward Cernavoda so the second reactor can keep running “at maximum capacity,” even as forecasts point to continued low levels on the Danube. He also acknowledged the risk facing the country if the plant goes fully offline. Romania’s ability to cover any shortfall would depend partly on importing power from neighboring countries during peak evening demand, Bolojan said, a plan complicated by the fact that several of those countries are managing their own drought-driven shutdowns at the same time. A REGIONAL PROBLEM Romania is not alone in facing this strain. In Hungary, the Danube’s record-low levels have pushed the country’s only nuclear plant close to a full shutdown for the first time in decades, a milestone that would have been unthinkable in a normal water year. Moldova, which depends heavily on imported electricity, including supplies from Romania, has already asked residents to cut consumption during peak hours as it watches the situation upstream. The overlap points to a wider vulnerability across the Danube basin, where multiple countries rely on the same river for both drinking water and power generation. When flow drops this far below seasonal norms, the effects move downstream quickly, touching plants and grids well beyond the point where the drought first hit hardest. Cernavoda’s situation illustrates how tightly nuclear generation in the region is tied to river conditions. Reactors need a steady, sufficient volume of cooling water to operate safely, and when that volume falls too far, operators have little choice but to reduce output or shut down entirely, regardless of demand. That constraint puts engineering crews like the ones working the Bala Canal barrier in a race against a clock set by the weather rather than by mechanical failure. The barge maneuver itself reflects an improvised, short-term fix rather than a structural solution. Urjan’s own estimate, that the barrier might buy Cernavoda four extra days of operation, underscores how narrow the margin has become. Even with the barrier in place, the plant remains dependent on rainfall patterns and temperatures that Romanian authorities cannot control. Bolojan’s government now faces a two-part challenge: keeping the barrier and dredging operations effective long enough to matter, and managing public electricity demand so that any reduction in Cernavoda’s output does not translate into blackouts during the hottest and highest-demand hours of the day. The appeal to households to voluntarily cut evening usage is aimed directly at that second piece, buying operational headroom on the grid side while engineers work the river. Whether the barge barrier holds up through Friday and beyond will determine how much additional time Cernavoda’s second reactor gets before facing the same fate as the first. Urjan’s numbers suggest the difference amounts to a matter of days, not weeks, which leaves Romanian officials watching river gauges as closely as they watch the plant’s reactor readings. For neighboring Hungary and Moldova, Romania’s response offers an early look at what a prolonged Danube drought could force other governments to attempt as their own water levels keep falling through the rest of the summer.

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White House ballroom

Court Halts Trump’s $400M White House Ballroom, Says President Can’t Rebuild It Alone

August 7, 2026 No Comments

Federal appeals judges in Washington told the Trump administration on Friday to halt above-ground construction of a $400 million ballroom rising on the site of the demolished White House East Wing, a ruling that hands the president one of his sharpest legal defeats yet over his authority to alter federal property. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit split 2-1 in backing a lower court order that froze the project. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett and Brad Garcia wrote the majority opinion, stating that “each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House,” and that no occupant of the office can remake the building without Congress signing off. The case began last year when the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed suit after crews tore down the East Wing and started work on a 90,000-square-foot addition, roughly 8,360 square meters, without asking lawmakers for approval. The majority wrote that “whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.” Judges gave the administration a 14-day window before the order takes effect, time meant to let the White House seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court. Trump said he intends to do exactly that. Writing on Truth Social hours after the ruling, Trump called the decision “horrendous” and accused the panel of acting on political grounds. He argued the outcome puts him, his staff and White House visitors at greater risk, describing the ballroom as a “military center” rather than a banquet hall. “This unjust decision must be overturned by the Supreme Court in its entirety,” he wrote, adding that the design folds in bomb shelters, medical facilities and defenses against drones and missiles, features he described as “all tied together as one big, expensive, and very complex unit.” Brent Leggs, president of the National Trust, welcomed the ruling in a statement, calling it “a great day for our country and for the American people’s right to voice their opinions about the historic places they cherish, including the White House.” A LONGER FIGHT OVER ONE BUILDING Friday’s ruling is the latest turn in a dispute that started with U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush. Leon twice blocked construction above ground on the East Wing site while permitting underground work to proceed, a split ruling that neither side fully accepted. Trump’s legal team appealed, setting up Friday’s decision from the three-judge appellate panel. The ballroom sits alongside other Trump-era changes to buildings and monuments across central Washington. A judge ruled separately in recent weeks that Trump’s name was added illegally to the exterior of the Kennedy Center and ordered it taken down, a decision that added to a pattern of court pushback against changes made to federal landmarks without the usual legislative sign-off. The administration has defended the ballroom as a functional necessity, saying the White House needs a venue for large formal events and additional security infrastructure. Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth told the appellate judges during arguments on June 5 that courts have no business second-guessing a privately funded construction project. He said the National Trust was pressing an “architectural preference” that should not override the government’s stated security concerns, arguing that evidence showed the old East Wing left the president and others exposed. The majority rejected that framing. National security claims “are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card,” the opinion said. Millett and Garcia went further in their written ruling, stating that “the bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it flouts our constitutional order.” The two judges in the majority were both appointed by Democratic presidents. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, appointed by Trump during his first term, dissented. She wrote that the trial court’s injunction “is beyond the proper province of the federal courts” and argued construction should have been allowed to continue while the case played out. “The district court seized supervision of construction at the White House, and my colleagues affirm this judicial overreach,” Rao wrote. The judges in the majority were careful to note that their order does not shut the door on a ballroom permanently. It only pauses work above ground while the underlying lawsuit continues, and until the administration secures the congressional approval the court says the project requires. COST QUESTIONS PERSIST Money has followed the project since planning began. The price tag has roughly doubled from initial estimates, a jump Trump addressed directly in a Truth Social post in May. He said the increase reflected a building that is “approximately twice the size, and a far higher quality, than the original proposal,” and promised the finished structure “will be magnificent, safe, and secure.” Court filings and public statements have not settled how the administration plans to fund the difference between the original estimate and the current $400 million figure, and neither the National Trust nor the Justice Department addressed that gap directly in Friday’s proceedings. The dispute over cost sits alongside the legal question of authority, giving Congress a second avenue to weigh in if lawmakers choose to hold hearings on the funding source once the appeal process runs its course. For now, the practical effect of Friday’s order is narrow but immediate. Crews working above ground on the East Wing site must stop within the 14-day window unless the Supreme Court intervenes first. Underground work, which Judge Leon’s earlier rulings already allowed to continue, is not addressed by the new appellate order and can proceed unless a future ruling says otherwise. Both sides are now watching the Supreme Court’s calendar. Trump’s legal team is expected to file for emergency relief before the two-week clock runs out, seeking to keep builders on site while the broader legal fight over presidential authority to remake the White House works its way through the courts.

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Ceuta migrant crossing deaths

How Israel and the European far right tried to exploit Ceuta

August 6, 2026 No Comments

Thousands of people attempted to cross from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in recent days, and the crossing left dozens dead. What began as a humanitarian tragedy shifted almost immediately into a different kind of story, one dominated by political narratives rather than the deaths themselves. Within hours of the crossings, social media filled with warnings of an “Islamic invasion.” The hashtag #StopIslam spread quickly across far-right networks. Politicians who have campaigned against immigration for years pointed to the events in Ceuta as evidence that Europe faces a civilizational challenge rather than a border management problem. Calls for stricter border enforcement followed, and Italy announced it would reintroduce border checks with Spain. Investigators had not yet established the full circumstances of the crossings. Many of those who died had not yet been identified. Even so, prominent politicians, commentators and online campaigners had already settled on an interpretation of what happened. Who benefits from the narrative That speed of interpretation raises a straightforward question: who benefited from how Ceuta was framed in its immediate aftermath. Europe’s nationalist parties gained fresh material to support existing warnings about migration and Islam. Anti-Muslim campaigners found another opportunity to present Muslim communities as an internal security threat. The events also fed into a broader argument advanced by the Israeli government and echoed by its political allies across Europe, one that links Muslim immigration, criticism of Israel and concerns about anti-Semitism together as a single interconnected issue. That argument has grown more prominent since the war in Gaza began. As public criticism of Israel’s military campaign has intensified across Europe, Israeli officials have argued that shifting European attitudes stem less from the scale of destruction in Gaza and more from demographic change and the expanding political influence of Muslim communities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has advanced this position in public remarks, describing Israel and Europe as partners facing a shared threat from radical Islam, mass migration and what he calls a broader challenge to Western civilization. In that framing, Israel is not only defending itself but defending Europe as well. Political consequences This framing carries significant political weight. It moves the conversation away from Israel’s conduct in Gaza and toward the identity of the people criticizing that conduct. Opposition to Israeli policy stops being treated primarily as a response to humanitarian catastrophe, occupation or violations of international law, and instead gets framed as a byproduct of demographic change and Muslim political influence. Political leaders including Viktor Orban, Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen have adopted this narrative, combining strong support for Israel with hardline anti-immigration platforms. In Britain, figures such as Tommy Robinson have made a similar argument, presenting Israel as the front line in a wider civilizational struggle against Islam. Support for Israel has increasingly become tied to a broader political project built around opposition to immigration, multiculturalism and Islam. The overlap between these movements is notable. For segments of Europe’s nationalist right, backing Israel offers a way to present themselves as defenders of Jewish communities while pursuing policies targeting Muslim minorities and migrants. For Israel’s current government, these same movements provide consistent diplomatic support and reinforce a narrative connecting criticism of Israel to broader public anxiety about migration and security. The two sets of political interests differ, but they reinforce each other in practice. Security framing spreads The effects extend beyond electoral politics. Across Europe, discussions about Palestine increasingly get filtered through the language of security. Demonstrations against the war in Gaza are sometimes treated less as political dissent and more as potential public order concerns. Muslim organizations get evaluated through a counter-extremism lens. Campaigns for Palestinian rights are, in some cases, presented not as movements rooted in human rights or international law but as vehicles for imported anti-Semitism. None of this diminishes anti-Semitism as a real and persistent form of racism that requires ongoing attention wherever it appears. But there is a meaningful distinction between combating anti-Semitism and expanding its definition to include criticism of Israeli government policy. When that line blurs, legitimate political debate narrows, and a tool meant to identify genuine anti-Semitism risks losing effectiveness through overuse. Viewed through this lens, Ceuta represents more than a migration story. The speed with which politicians, commentators and activists converged on the same interpretation suggests the political framework for understanding such events was already in place before Ceuta happened. Whether that convergence was coordinated or emerged independently across separate political movements, the practical effect is the same. Fear of migration fuels hostility toward Muslim communities. That hostility makes solidarity with Palestinians appear suspect by association. Once support for Palestinian rights gets recast as a security concern rather than a political or humanitarian position, scrutiny of Israel’s actions becomes easier to dismiss. A question of legitimacy The stakes go beyond border policy. The underlying question concerns legitimacy: whose voices count as credible, whose suffering gets acknowledged, and which political causes are treated as legitimate. If solidarity with Palestinians can be attributed to demographic change rather than a response to conditions in Gaza, attention shifts away from the actions of governments and toward the identities of the people raising concerns. Ceuta should have been remembered as a humanitarian tragedy first. Instead, it became another episode in Europe’s ongoing culture wars, with the deaths of those attempting the crossing receiving less sustained attention than the political narratives built around the event. When humanitarian disasters get understood primarily through the political narratives they can support rather than the lives lost, the underlying facts risk becoming secondary to political usefulness. Fear stops functioning as a reaction to specific events and starts operating as a standing political framework.

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El-Obeid Sudan red alert

Why genocide keeps repeating in Sudan

August 6, 2026 No Comments

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk issued a “red alert” for el-Obeid last month, warning that the central Sudanese city risks becoming the latest casualty of a war that has already displaced more than 14 million people and pushed over half of Sudan’s 50 million residents into dependence on international aid. El-Obeid serves as a commercial capital and logistics hub in central Sudan, and it now sits on the front line of a 40-month conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group known as the RSF. In June, the RSF launched 27 drone strikes on the city, the highest monthly total recorded since the war began. Most of those strikes hit fuel depots, water pumps and electrical infrastructure, cutting off basic services for the city’s 500,000 residents. The RSF has also blocked many of the routes leading out of el-Obeid. Seasonal rains are now making remaining roads difficult to pass, raising the possibility that residents could soon find themselves unable to leave the city at all. Sudan’s army recently recaptured the Sadarat highway connecting el-Obeid to the capital, Khartoum, creating a temporary opening in the RSF’s siege. A pattern with a name What is unfolding in el-Obeid follows a script that has already played out twice in this same war. Last year, the RSF besieged the North Darfur city of el-Fasher. A United Nations investigation found that more than 6,000 civilians were killed within days, while thousands more were tortured, raped, enslaved or forcibly disappeared. The investigation’s report, released last month, concluded that the RSF’s actions in el-Fasher constituted genocide. No significant international action followed. Earlier in the conflict, the RSF’s assault on el-Geneina in West Darfur produced what the UN also classified as genocide, after the group blocked humanitarian aid from reaching the city and prevented civilians from escaping. Then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken applied the same label to those atrocities in January 2025. At the time, that designation carried the hope that it might trigger a coordinated international response before the violence spread further. That hope has not materialized. Echoes of Rwanda The current inaction recalls a nearly identical failure three decades ago. In 1994, the US government acknowledged that “acts of genocide” were occurring in Rwanda but took no meaningful steps to stop it. Then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher, pressed by a reporter on the distinction, asked, “How many acts of genocide make up a whole genocide?” That hesitation reflected the prevailing legal understanding at the time: that formally declaring a genocide obligated the international community to intervene. The failures in Rwanda, followed a year later by Bosnia, forced a period of reassessment among Western governments and international institutions responsible for genocide prevention. That reassessment produced the UN’s Responsibility to Protect framework, which holds that state sovereignty is not absolute and that the international community bears responsibility to intervene when a government cannot or will not protect its own population, or when the government itself is the aggressor. The same period saw the creation of the International Criminal Court, established to prosecute the individuals responsible for such crimes. In 2004, President George W. Bush’s administration used the term genocide to describe the killing then underway in Darfur, turning the label into a rallying point for international action in a region most policymakers did not consider strategically important. More than 20 years later, genocide is once again occurring across Sudan, this time in multiple locations rather than one, raising hard questions about what commitments like “Never Again” and “Save Darfur” actually accomplished. A weakened framework Over the past two decades, the willingness to act on genocide prevention has eroded considerably. The 2011 US-led intervention in Libya, widely viewed as having produced lasting instability, made military intervention politically toxic. President Barack Obama’s decision not to enforce his declared “red line” after chemical weapons use in Syria further signaled that such declarations carried little practical weight. The Trump administration has gone further, actively working against the institutions built to respond to genocide. This month, the administration announced what it called a full diplomatic campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court’s capabilities, with officials saying they intend to do so “brick by brick if necessary.” That campaign runs counter to the administration’s own stated goal of ending the Sudan conflict and holding perpetrators accountable. US mediators have simultaneously engaged the RSF in ceasefire negotiations, talks that could ultimately grant the group a formal role in a future Sudanese government. Such an arrangement might pause the fighting in the near term, in what is currently the deadliest conflict for civilians anywhere in the world, but it risks setting the stage for renewed violence later. No coalition, no red line Unlike earlier genocides, no government or coalition is currently arguing for military intervention to stop the killing in Sudan. Nor does any current administration echo the position Obama articulated in 2016, when he described genocide prevention as “both a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility.” Sudan’s global neglect stems from a specific contradiction. The country holds enough wealth, size and regional significance to draw outside powers into its conflict, yet it remains too peripheral to the core interests of the US and European Union to justify committing serious diplomatic capital toward ending the violence or preventing the country’s fragmentation. Washington has instead allowed regional partners in Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to sell weapons, extract gold and provide tactical support that keeps both sides of the conflict fighting, even as those same capitals publicly criticize unnamed outside actors for fueling the war they are helping sustain. G7 foreign ministers recently condemned the RSF’s bombardment of el-Obeid and called on the warring parties to pursue ceasefire talks, while urging Sudan’s neighbors and foreign backers to halt their support for the conflict. That statement, like three years of similar declarations before it, stopped short of committing to anything beyond condemnation. Those condemnations are unlikely to prevent what could become the next genocide in el-Obeid, leaving open the question of how many genocides it will take before genocide prevention returns to the list of national priorities for the powers capable of acting.

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Google India data center

Google’s $15 billion India data center faces mounting legal and environmental opposition

August 6, 2026 No Comments

Construction crews have already stripped a hillside above Google’s planned data center site in Andhra Pradesh down to bare red earth, cutting it into terraced steps as work moves forward on the company’s largest-ever investment in India. But the $15 billion project is now facing a wave of legal challenges and public protests over its impact on local water supplies and a nearby wildlife sanctuary. The southern state of Andhra Pradesh, led by a political ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has called the project historic and transformational. State officials have rejected claims that approvals moved forward without adequately weighing risks to water resources and wildlife. Even so, the opposition is building into what could become an early test of Google’s ability to expand data center infrastructure in India, a market central to the company’s cloud and AI ambitions. The project faces multiple ongoing legal challenges centered on water usage and its proximity to a sanctuary that shelters leopards and pangolins. Protests spread through Visakhapatnam In recent weeks, activists and children have marched through the coastal city of Visakhapatnam carrying banners reading “We cannot drink DATA” and painting handcuff imagery over the Google logo, according to social media posts documenting the demonstrations. Reuters attended a public gathering on Sunday where organizers laid out plans for door-to-door awareness campaigns and beach protests in the coming days. Raja Rama Mohan Roy, founder of the nonprofit Green Visakha, addressed the crowd with statistics on the city’s water shortage. “Development should not be at the cost of livelihood of the people,” he said. Government figures show Visakhapatnam receives 410 million liters of water daily from its reservoirs and rivers, short of the 480 million liters the city of 2.5 million people needs. Water rationing is already routine there. The pushback in Andhra Pradesh mirrors a pattern playing out globally as data center construction accelerates to meet demand for cloud computing and AI. These facilities require large volumes of water for cooling servers and substantial amounts of electricity to run them, concerns that carry added weight in a developing country like India. In the United States, opponents staged 142 separate protests across 42 states in July over similar issues. Court proceedings and government response Andhra Pradesh’s High Court on Monday ordered the state government to respond to allegations raised by the activist group Jal Biradari, or Water Community, which argues the project will strain a nearby reservoir and reduce water availability in the surrounding area. The court is scheduled to hear the underlying public interest litigation on August 24. In a statement to Reuters, the state government described the activists’ concerns as incorrect and misleading, while stopping short of dismissing the protests outright. “Such protests are their democratic right. In case any of these claims are legitimate, government is committed to engage and provide factual clarifications and suitable redressal,” the statement said. Google, in its own statement, said the project would be built in compliance with applicable laws and that the company plans to use advanced air cooling systems specifically to limit strain on local water resources. When Reuters visited the site on Monday, earthmovers were still actively working the cleared ground, with construction showing no signs of slowing despite the legal proceedings. Adani partnership and job projections Google is developing the project alongside the Adani Group, the conglomerate led by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, which is handling construction of the facility. The state government has projected the project could generate up to 188,000 jobs, though that figure has not been independently verified. Adani’s group did not respond to requests for comment. Wildlife sanctuary concerns Beyond water supply, the public interest litigation before the Andhra Pradesh High Court also raises concerns about the project’s effect on the Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary, located just 860 meters from the construction site. Petitioners argue that heavy construction activity and ongoing noise could disturb the sanctuary’s ecosystem. Asked specifically about the site’s distance from the sanctuary, state officials said the project exceeds the legally required buffer distance. Google said it intends to implement sound-dampening measures at the facility, describing its approach as aiming to make the company “a quiet, unobtrusive neighbour.” Separately, the Human Rights Forum has filed three additional cases against the project in India’s environmental court, seeking to halt construction entirely. Court documents show the group argues that state authorities approved the project without properly evaluating its impact on a rural drinking-water scheme that supplies nearby communities. The state has pushed back on that claim, saying no water drawn for rural or residential use will be diverted to the data centers, and that the nearby reservoir cited by activists will not supply the facility either. A 20-year guarantee draws scrutiny Much of the activist concern centers on the state’s commitment to guarantee water supply to the project for 20 years, a pledge Green Visakha argues is difficult to reconcile with a city already experiencing shortages. “Who will be the sufferers? The people,” Roy said at Sunday’s gathering. The dispute leaves Google navigating a familiar tension for major infrastructure investments in fast-growing economies: balancing the economic development promised by large-scale projects against the resource constraints already affecting local communities. With the High Court set to revisit the case later this month and additional litigation still pending in environmental court, the outcome could shape how future data center projects are reviewed and approved across India.

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DeepSeek Unitree investment

DeepSeek invests $20.8 million in robot maker Unitree, plans joint AI development for humanoids

August 6, 2026 No Comments

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has taken a stake in humanoid robot maker Unitree and agreed to jointly develop AI models for the company’s machines, according to a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. DeepSeek put 140.8 million yuan, or roughly $20.8 million, into Unitree and received 933,399 shares in return. That allocation represents 2.31% of the shares set aside for strategic investors in Unitree’s Shanghai initial public offering. Both companies are based in Hangzhou, a major technology center in eastern China. Under the agreement, DeepSeek will contribute its work on AI language models while Unitree, also known by its Chinese name Yushu Technology, brings its expertise in mechanical engineering, motion control and embodied intelligence, the term used in robotics for systems that learn to interact with and adapt to the physical world. The filing outlines a preferential arrangement between the two companies. Unitree will give priority to DeepSeek when it needs model-training services or technical solutions. DeepSeek will do the same for Unitree when it needs to purchase robots or pursue projects involving embodied AI. Targeting the robot “brain” problem The partnership addresses a problem that has slowed progress across the humanoid robotics industry: giving robots a “brain” capable of interpreting unfamiliar environments and translating spoken or written instructions into precise physical movement. Chinese manufacturers have already built robots that walk, run and execute choreographed routines at relatively low cost. Turning those machines into workers capable of independent, useful labor is a different challenge. It requires AI models trained on physical-world data, and that kind of data is far scarcer than the text and images used to train most large language models. To collect it, several Chinese robot makers now operate dedicated facilities where human workers guide humanoid robots through repetitive tasks such as folding laundry or opening doors, generating the demonstration data needed to teach the machines how to handle everyday objects and situations. DeepSeek’s track record and its gap DeepSeek built its reputation on language models that perform well on coding, mathematics and reasoning benchmarks, and it has competed aggressively on price against larger rivals. That strength has stayed concentrated in text-based language models rather than in a multimodal system that can process visual information alongside language in a single commercial product. The company has released standalone vision-language research models, including one called VL2, but none of that work has been folded into its main commercial model. In April, a DeepSeek researcher published a separate project focused on improving visual reasoning through points and bounding boxes, a technique for identifying and interpreting objects within an image. The paper and its accompanying GitHub repository were withdrawn shortly afterward without explanation from the company. The Unitree deal gives DeepSeek a path to close that gap. Access to Unitree’s robots and the physical-world data they generate could help DeepSeek build out the vision and spatial-reasoning capabilities it currently lacks in a commercial product, positioning the company to compete more directly in embodied AI rather than staying confined to text-based applications. What the partnership means for Unitree For Unitree, the arrangement secures a committed AI partner as the company works to move beyond demonstration robots and into machines capable of genuinely autonomous tasks. Unitree has built a public profile around videos of its robots performing acrobatics and coordinated movement, but the harder commercial problem is enabling robots to operate reliably in spaces they haven’t been specifically trained for. The preferential purchasing terms in the filing suggest both companies expect the relationship to extend well beyond the initial investment, with Unitree treating DeepSeek as its default AI supplier and DeepSeek treating Unitree as its default hardware platform for embodied-AI experiments. The deal also reflects a broader pattern in China’s technology sector, where AI model developers and robotics manufacturers are increasingly pairing up rather than trying to build every layer of the technology stack independently. Software companies get access to physical robots and the real-world data those robots generate. Hardware companies get access to AI models without having to build large research teams from scratch. Context for the IPO The investment came through the strategic placement portion of Unitree’s Shanghai IPO, a mechanism that allows select investors to buy shares ahead of the broader public offering, typically in exchange for a commitment to hold the stock for a set period. DeepSeek’s stake, while a small percentage of the total offering, signals confidence in Unitree’s approach at a moment when investor interest in humanoid robotics has grown sharply across China’s public markets. Unitree’s ticker, 688836.SS, places it on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a board created to list technology companies, including firms that are not yet consistently profitable but show strong growth potential. The filing did not disclose additional financial terms of the AI development agreement beyond the share allocation and the preferential-purchasing arrangement. Neither company detailed a timeline for releasing jointly developed AI models or robots, and the filing did not specify which of DeepSeek’s existing model architectures would form the basis of the collaboration. Analysts tracking China’s robotics sector will likely watch for follow-up announcements detailing specific products, given that both companies now have a direct financial incentive to show results from the partnership.

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Fauci contempt of Congress

Senate panel votes to hold Fauci in contempt after he invokes Fifth Amendment

August 6, 2026 No Comments

A Senate committee voted along party lines Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, escalating a Republican-led push to force the former top infectious disease official to answer questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the contempt referral 8-7, with every Republican voting in favor and every Democrat against. The move follows a hearing last week in which Fauci, 85 and retired since 2022, declined to answer more than 100 questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Committee Chair Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and one of Fauci’s most persistent critics in Congress, pushed for the referral as part of a multi-year investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Paul and other Republicans have long argued that Fauci concealed information about how the virus emerged and misled the public about the government’s pandemic response. The vote lands amid a wider effort by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to revisit decisions made during the pandemic and assign blame to the officials who directed it. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has restructured federal health agencies around skepticism of pandemic-era science, has cast his changes as a response to what he describes as coercive public health mandates. Kennedy and Paul have both written books criticizing Fauci directly. Democrats push back Democrats on the committee introduced five separate motions to delay the vote, and each failed along party lines. One motion, brought by ranking member Gary Peters of Michigan, would have required Paul to commit to sending any referral through a full Senate vote rather than routing it directly to the Justice Department. Peters described the underlying investigation as rushed and one-sided, arguing that punishing a witness for asserting a constitutional right would damage the committee’s credibility. Democrats also said they had been denied sufficient access to documents related to the probe, an accusation Paul disputed. Fauci led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years and became the public face of the U.S. pandemic response, a role that made him a lightning rod for criticism as COVID-19 killed more than 1.1 million Americans nationwide. President Trump and many conservatives attacked his guidance on lockdowns, masking and social distancing, along with his backing of vaccines, even though public health agencies worldwide endorsed those same measures based on the scientific evidence available at the time. David Schertler, an attorney representing Fauci, dismissed the contempt vote as political theater. “A crude political stunt intended to punish Dr. Fauci for exercising his constitutional rights,” Schertler said, calling on the full Senate to reject what he termed a “meritless and politically motivated contempt resolution.” Schertler pointed to Paul’s public statements over the years as evidence of personal animus. “For years, Senator Paul has proclaimed to anyone who would listen that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted and put in prison,” he said. “Dr. Fauci has committed no crime, and Senator Paul knows it.” Pardon complicates legal picture Former President Joe Biden issued Fauci a preemptive pardon in January 2025, intended to shield him from what Biden’s administration called unjustified and politically motivated prosecution tied to his COVID-19 role. That pardon does not extend to any conduct after it was granted. Paul has argued the pardon undercuts Fauci’s Fifth Amendment claim entirely, reasoning that a person already immune from prosecution for past conduct has nothing left to incriminate himself on. Paul has also contended that Fauci waived any remaining protection simply by choosing to testify at last week’s hearing. Fauci told the committee that Paul had summoned him only to manufacture testimony that would support the senator’s repeated public statements calling for his imprisonment. New details emerged Wednesday night when the Wall Street Journal reported that the committee had obtained a backup copy of Fauci’s iPhone covering his time as NIAID director, including the period in 2020 when he helped lead the first Trump administration’s pandemic response. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who chairs the committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told the Journal his office had obtained the backup, which the Department of Health and Human Services had transferred to the committee. What happens next A contempt referral ordinarily requires approval from both the originating committee and the full Senate, where passage would likely need 60 votes. That threshold would require Democratic support, which appears unlikely given the party’s near-unanimous defense of Fauci throughout the process. Paul has signaled he may try to bypass that step. He told Fox News he could send the contempt referral directly to the Justice Department along with a legal brief, without waiting for a floor vote. His office did not respond to a request for comment on the plan. If the referral does reach the Justice Department, it would fall to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, currently led by Trump ally Jeanine Pirro, to decide whether to pursue a grand jury indictment. Congress is not the only venue where Fauci faces legal exposure. West Virginia recently joined Louisiana, Florida and Alabama in opening state-level investigations into his conduct during the pandemic. Because Biden’s pardon applies only to federal charges, it offers no protection against prosecution at the state level. The committee’s action marks one of the most direct moves yet by Republicans to hold a former pandemic official personally accountable through the contempt process, and it sets up a test of how far GOP lawmakers are willing to push the case without Democratic cooperation in the Senate.

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Russia gold reserves

Russia’s gold reserves fall to lowest level since 2022 invasion as Kremlin covers war costs

August 6, 2026 No Comments

Russia has drawn down a substantial share of its gold reserves in 2026, part of an effort by the Kremlin to raise cash and plug a growing hole in its budget as the war in Ukraine drags into its fifth year. The Russian Central Bank reported that gold holdings stood at 73.4 million troy ounces, or 2,282 metric tons, as of the start of July. That figure marks a drop of roughly 43.5 metric tons since January, pulling reserves down to their lowest point since before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The timing of the sell-off overlapped with a run-up in gold prices. The metal traded near $4,800 per ounce during the first four months of the year before slipping back to around $4,000. At that price range, Moscow’s sales have likely brought in more than $5 billion. Elina Ribakova, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the move points to a shrinking pool of options for the Kremlin. “The fact that they’re selling gold means that they’re running out of other more liquid assets,” she told DW. “So there is pressure on the deficit and also pressure on the sources to finance this deficit.” Defense costs strain the budget The bulk of the pressure traces back to military spending. Russia’s finance ministry warned the cabinet earlier this year that war-related overspending would hit at least $28 billion in 2026, with additional overruns expected in 2027 and 2028, according to reporting from the Financial Times. Defense outlays have more than quadrupled since 2021, reaching about 16 trillion rubles, or $204 billion, in 2025. Chris Weafer, a Moscow-based analyst with Macro-Advisory, said the scale of the gold sales is notable but shouldn’t be read as a sign of desperation. “It’s an extraordinary situation, but it’s a relatively normal trend,” he told DW. “It doesn’t represent any element of Russia going broke, running out of money, not having anything else and literally selling the household silver.” According to Weafer, most of the gold has moved through Russia’s finance ministry via the National Welfare Fund, rather than directly from the central bank. Gold became one of the few assets available to the fund after Western sanctions cut off access to US Treasuries and European government bonds following the 2022 invasion. “Since early 2022, gold was one of the assets that the National Welfare Fund could buy, because US treasuries and bunds weren’t available to them,” he said. He described the gold as a core liquid holding for the fund, one that exists precisely to be tapped in moments like this. “To that extent, one can argue it is serving the intended purpose,” Weafer said. Weafer estimated the National Welfare Fund’s total value at around $150 billion, with roughly $50 billion classified as liquid. Keeping that liquid cushion intact matters to the Kremlin beyond the immediate budget math, he said, because a shrinking buffer would invite speculation about a wider financial crisis and weaken Moscow’s negotiating position abroad. “It likes to portray the country as being very stable and very strong, and that $50 billion of cash is an important part of that,” Weafer said. One factor works in Russia’s favor: it ranks among the world’s top gold producers, meaning it can rebuild reserves by buying directly from domestic mining companies rather than on international markets. Russia currently holds the fifth-largest gold reserves in the world, in the same range as China, France and Italy, though well behind leaders Germany and the United States. Ribakova pointed to the same advantage. “Russia has an advantage,” she said. “It does produce gold itself. So when it was worried about sanctions, it allocated part of the money into the gold purchases, which they were buying from the domestic producers.” Oil revenue remains the deciding factor Russia’s federal budget deficit could exceed official targets by more than 1 trillion rubles, or roughly $12.85 billion, in 2026, based on recent government figures. The shortfall is currently projected at 1.6% of GDP, close to $40 billion, with room to widen further. Higher oil prices, driven in part by the war in Iran, have given Moscow some breathing room this year by boosting revenue from oil and gas exports. Ribakova said that revenue stream, more than any other factor, determines how long Russia can keep funding the war. “Everything hinges on that,” she said. “When the oil price is high, Russia gets revenues. It’s easier to borrow, its domestic financial system is healthier. If the oil price drops, say, to sixty or forty, then you immediately have a crisis.” Both economists agreed that despite the current strain, Russia has enough flexibility to keep financing the war for the foreseeable future by trimming spending outside the defense sector. “Putin can continue going for years in the current environment,” Ribakova said. “Maybe not making any progress on the front line, which we haven’t seen any progress for the last couple of years, but still being able to throw resources at the war with Ukraine.” Weafer offered a similar assessment of the near term. “Even if the deficit continues as is, Russia can still find the money and really won’t be in any sort of a financial crisis or a weak geopolitical position over the next 12 to 24 months,” he said. His outlook dims further out. Weafer pointed to the accumulating cost of running the economy on a war footing, and said the strain is now surfacing as friction inside the Russian government itself. “It is creating this huge distortion in the economy and creating this longer-term negative picture that’s now creating divisions in government,” he said. That divide, Weafer said, runs between officials focused on economic growth and the Kremlin’s wartime priorities. Those pushing for a return to normal economic conditions argue the current spending path cannot hold indefinitely, “if you want the economy to go back to a more normal trajectory after peace. That’s the bottom line,” he said.

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