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Russia’s oil and gas sector is experiencing a historic downturn due to a combination of tightening Western sanctions, falling global crude prices, and sustained infrastructural damage due to Ukrainian drone strikes.
The crisis has led to severe budget deficits and a wave of bankruptcies across the country’s energy infrastructure.
T-14 Armata. Image Credit: Russian State Media.
In February 2026, Russia’s oil export revenues collapsed by $1.5 billion month-on-month to $9.
First we were treated to nonstop legacy media coverage of a cruise ship stricken with the deadly hantavirus. Hantavirus, with its 40% mortality rate and an incubation period lasting for weeks, made the perfect pandemic boogey man. With some of the initial fears about the human-to-human spread of hantavirus beginning to subside, we are now being treated to a new pandemic scare: Ebola.
When it comes to a horrifying pandemic, few are scarier than Ebola.
America’s emergency oil stockpile is shrinking at one of the fastest rates ever recorded as the war with Iran continues to disrupt energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. and its allies are burning through the reserves meant to protect them from a prolonged crisis, but analysts can’t all agree whether it poses a long-term risk to the United States. They can, however, predict that it will cause major economic instability in the near future.
NATO airbasePublic Domain
Washington — The United States intends to significantly reduce the military forces it would make available to European allies during a potential crisis, including strategic bombers, fighter jets, warships and refueling aircraft, according to a report by German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The planned reductions come as the NATO alliance faces growing strain amid transatlantic tensions. European officials have expressed concern that Washington could scale back its commitments or even withdraw support entirely.
U.S.
Rose Gottemoeller joined Ryan in Washington. They discussed how the West might think about relations with Russia once the war with Ukraine ends, as well as nuclear diplomacy and other critical issues. Gottemoeller was the deputy secretary general of NATO and, before that, served as a senior State Department official. She is currently at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and has a new book out called Security Through Cooperation: Space, Nuclear Weapons, and US-Russia Relations after the Cold War (Stanford University Press).Image: Kremlin.
Sometimes, when I am lucky enough to give a lecture or speak to a group of folks interested in national security, I get the question: what got me interested in this field? Since I was a child, I have dragged history books (A World At Arms is my favorite) with me everywhere I went, and I have always been obsessed with military history. But the one thing that literally pushed me to change careers from the telecommunications industry in Rhode Island to a professional defense geek in a Washington, DC think tank back over a decade ago was one missile.
The latest flare-up between U.S. and Iranian forces underscores how the current “ceasefire” has so far failed to stop fighting between the two countries.
On Wednesday, U.S. forces intercepted five Iranian one-way attack drones launched near the Strait of Hormuz and “prevented a sixth drone launch from an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas,” according to U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM.
CENTCOM’s carefully worded statement did not specify if the U.S. military had attacked the Iranian ground site. Nor did it include any information on how U.S.
We are so used to Vladimir Putin leading Russia that it rarely seems that there could be a different president someday. He has created a cult of personality, eliminated all opposition, and limited dissent so well that there is no reason to believe that even a violent coup could take him down. But he can’t live forever. There are usually reports discussing his various health issues, but these are often just internet rumors. Putin just keeps ticking.
He may also be hiding in an underground command center, fearing assassination from Ukrainian drone strikes. He is definitely a marked man.
Ukraine’s forces aim to build on its frontline progress by targeting Russian logistics along its operational depth at the rear.
Global oil markets are behaving as though the Strait of Hormuz crisis is not temporary, despite continued public optimism from the Trump administration about negotiations with Iran, and analysts warn that inventory drawdowns and rising summer fuel demand could bring global oil inventories to “minimum operational levels.