Apparently, Uncle Sam wants to suspend Spain from NATO for not helping out in Iran.
A leaked Pentagon email has shown the US eyeing options to reward and punish NATO allies as it remains stuck in the Iran quagmire – which, according to US President Donald Trump, is not actually a quagmire, as he said Washington can just sit it out based on previous conflicts. But quagmire or not, the war is also costing Uncle Sam’s ability to fight China if the need arises over Taiwan, according to unnamed officials.
Just as the transatlantic rift deepens once more, the bond in Europe appears to be growing. Finland is now eyeing a nuke ban lift when push comes to shove, while Ukrainian troops are now training German troops – interesting how a few years ago it was the exact opposite.
In any case, NATO has already said there’s no mechanism to suspend or expel a member state.
Ukraine war updates, EU sanctions, and more
Back in Ukraine, we now have a clearer picture of what the EU’s 20th sanctions package includes. Moscow was quick to decry Europe’s “unlawful” acts – ironic, considering children were abducted from Ukraine and even earned the Kremlin leader an arrest warrant, a point reminded to the world once again by the 20,000 teddy bears lining the National Hall in DC.
Maybe Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin should heed Prince Harry’s call and stop the war – “History will not ask what we said, it will ask what we did,” he said during a visit to Kyiv.
With oil prices showing no prospects of falling soon, Indonesia has secured a deal with Russia for 150 million barrels of oil – assuming Ukraine didn’t get to them first, as the “raining oil” in Tuapse raged for days – with no response from Putin, sowing seeds for further discontent among the Russian public, already strong enough to fuel assassination attempts on telecom execs due to the recent internet outages, according to Moscow anyway.
In Ukraine, apart from a major prisoner of war (POW) swap today, we also have a follow-up to yesterday’s story of emaciated troops on the Kupyansk front – the General Staff acknowledged the difficult logistics and inadequate command, sacking multiple commanders in a bid to remedy the situation.
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, in his three-month report card, also hinted at ongoing work to fix the defense structure – as well as new projects to fix mobilization, which has long been a pain point in Ukrainian society. He also boasted of progress in the country’s drone development, with other reports showing Ukraine launching interceptor drones from Soviet An-28 aircraft, like a tiny TV-guided missile. Cool stuff.
The country is set to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster on Sunday, a scar still fresh in many Ukrainians’ hearts – stay tuned for more exclusives this weekend.
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