Vladimir Putin has spent the war insisting Russia is winning and that Ukraine’s strikes change nothing. On Sunday, he conceded, for the first time, that the country faces a fuel “deficit” and is going through what he called a difficult period, after Ukrainian drones set yet another major refinery ablaze. In the same remarks, he disclosed something else new, that Ukraine had offered to halt the deep strikes hammering Russian oil plants, and that he had turned the offer down. The admission is the story here.
Author: Michael
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The Russian Navy is preparing to return its most formidable surface combat ship to operational service, as following the most extensive modernisation ever undertaken on a Russian combat vessel, the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov undertakes its final sea trials. The Kirov class cruiser has spent well over a decade undergoing reconstruction at the Sevmash Shipyard, emerging with entirely new combat systems, sensors and missile armament intended to keep it operational for decades to come.
During the recent 40-day deployment of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning for 40 days of operations in the western Pacific, the Japan Air Self Defense Force and Maritime Self Defense Force not only closely monitored the carrier group, but also carried out “targeted simulated attacks,” according to Chinese state sources. Although Japanese media described warships and fighters conducting simulated attack profiles against the Chinese vessels, following significant controversies Japan’s Ministry of Defense claimed this had not occurred.
As the relationship between the United States and Canada continues to degrade, it now comes at the expense of each country’s industrial security.Last month, the Pentagon announced the unilateral suspension of the 86-year-old Canadian Permanent Joint Board on Defense in response to what the White House sees as Ottawa’s failure to present a credible plan to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035. And the opening of the gleaming new bridge between Detroit and Windsor has been long delayed in the tense run-up to the continental trade deal review.
During the Cold War, Europe kept asking whether Washington would risk an American city to save a European one. It was an impolite question, but a useful one, which is why it never quite left the room. It has now packed its bags and moved east. Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron created quite a stir with an important speech on French nuclear weapons policy.
The availability rate of the British Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet has again fallen to zero, with all of the service’s Astute class submarines currently being under maintenance. The total lack of available attack submarines has caused particularly high concerns due to the Navy’s overwhelming reliance on the Astute class for combat roles, in large part due to the limited numbers and highly constrained capabilities of the Navy’s Type 45 class destroyers, which have themselves continued to suffer from poor availability rates and poor reliability.
Jack Watling, Statecraft: The New Rules of Power in a Divided World (Macmillan, 2026)The war against Iran exposed a multitude of forced errors and own goals in the conduct of statecraft. The purpose of sound statecraft is the integrated application of a state’s tools and its repertoire of governmental instruments of power to gain its desired outcomes in international relations. The yet-to-be-resolved contest against the Islamic Republic of Iran reveals a litany of shortfalls in the conduct of U.S. statecraft.It is unlikely that the present U.S.
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The United States Air Force and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force have demonstrated a greater degree of operational integration during Valiant Shield 2026 exercises, during which both services deployed their premier air superiority fighters to simulate an air campaign. The campaign is widely assessed to be based on conditions for a joint war effort against China. The U.S. Air Force deployed F-22 fifth generation fighters, which it operationalised from 2005-2012, while the Japan Air Self-Defense Force deployed F-15J fighters that were procured from the early 1980s.