- Introduction
- Ukraine: nearly a thousand drones, the Starshield order came from the White House, and Kyiv breaks the pause
- Hormuz: CENTCOM debunks the mine narrative; controlling the strait is not normalising it
- Saudi Arabia and Yemen: Twenty attacks on King Khalid Airport and missiles targeting Aden's presidential palace
- Washington–Tehran: MOAB on the menu and the electoral calendar as doctrine
- Media Rack
- Editorial Commentary
Introduction
In Ukraine, the energy truce announced by Trump on Sunday has been shattered by facts. Russia launched nearly a thousand attack drones in little more than twenty-four hours — **over 850** during Thursday's night-time wave alone —, leaving **three dead** and **six injured** in Kropivnitski and damage across some fifteen oblasts (provinces).
A Reuters exclusive places the origin of the order to restrict Starshield, the military version of Starlink, inside the White House; a senior official denies it came from the president, whilst Elon Musk recalls that such limits are set by "the US military and, ultimately, the president". Kyiv has responded by breaking its unilateral pause: a fire at the Ryazan refinery and an unambiguous message from Zelenskyy to the Financial Times: "We're done."
In Hormuz, CENTCOM (United States Central Command) has stated publicly what Singapore had already pointed out: the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) mine narrative is false. The GFS Pride was struck by a Pasdaran projectile and sank whilst being towed to the coast. Washington asserts that **over forty merchant vessels** crossed the strait in twenty-four hours, but data from the maritime centre coordinating transits paints another picture: around thirty daily passages, barely one-fifth of pre-war traffic.
Militarily controlling a strait does not equate to normalising it. Brent closed on Thursday at **$105.92**. According to CNN, new strike plans contemplate the GBU-43/B MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) — the so-called "mother of all bombs" — against Iranian energy and nuclear infrastructure, including Pickaxe Mountain. Trump rules out the nuclear option; Pezeshkian retorts that "bombs and missiles cannot force a nation to surrender".
In the Kingdom, the Riyadh-led coalition presented its tally: **twenty attacks** by the Houthi terrorist organisation against King Khalid Airport since 1 October, resulting in **17 deaths** and **over 330 injuries** there alone, and **19 deaths** and **364 injuries** across Saudi airports overall.
That same Thursday, Houthi terrorists fired **five missiles** at the Al Maashiq presidential palace in Aden, seat of the legitimate Yemeni government: **five dead**, including two of the Prime Minister's bodyguards. It is the first attack of its kind against the institutional heart of the Yemeni state. In Rome, Leo XIV, operated on Tuesday for pulmonary adenocarcinoma, is already conducting business from the Gemelli Hospital with Substitute for General Affairs Paolo Rudelli; doctors describe a normal recovery.
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Gustavo de Arístegui: Análisis geopolítico del 15 de octubre
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Gustavo de Arístegui: Análisis geopolítico del 14 de octubre
Ukraine: nearly a thousand drones, the Starshield order came from the White House, and Kyiv breaks the pause
Facts
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported in Brussels on Thursday, following a meeting with NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Secretary General Mark Rutte, that Russia had launched "nearly 1,000 drones" since the start of the previous day; between midnight and Thursday morning alone, he specified, they exceeded 850. He added that several waves of ballistic missiles had followed in preceding days and urged allies for anti-ballistic interceptors and ammunition for F-16s: "Literally every day and every hour, new packages can save lives" (Interfax-Ukraine). In Kropivnitski, capital of Kirovohrad oblast, a prolonged attack throughout the night of 14–15 October — "intense", in the words of Governor Andrii Raikovich — left **three dead** and **six injured**, five of them hospitalised, targeting logistic, transport, and industrial sites.
Reuters — in an exclusive by Erin Banco and Gram Slattery, citing two US officials and one Western official as sources — revealed that the order to restrict Starshield, the military version of Starlink contracted by the Pentagon for the Ukrainian army, originated inside the White House: Defence Department officials received a message that the service "had to be slowed down". Sources did not specify who made the decision or who executed it. A senior US official responded: "No such request was ever made by the president"; the White House did not clarify if another official issued it. This version clashes with that of Elon Musk, who wrote on X on Wednesday that Starshield is Government property and under its control, meaning any speed or usage limits are decided by "the US military and, ultimately, the president".
The restriction did not cut bandwidth, but mobility: ship-borne terminals stopped working on fast platforms (between 72 and 161 km/h, according to Ukrainian military reports cited by the Kyiv Post), cutting off attack drones, reconnaissance drones, and interceptors against jet-powered Shaheds. A Ukrainian Defence Ministry source indicated on Thursday that receivers work again in motion, but only up to 160 km/h; Kyiv is demanding the threshold be raised to 450 km/h.
Mykhailo Fedorov — former Defence Minister, whose dismissal we scooped in July — thanked Musk for the partial restoration. Zelenskyy went further: "People are dying because of their decision," he said, without naming the author. In Washington, British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, on his first visit in the role, stated that War Secretary Pete Hegseth assured him "directly" that the service has been restored; the Pentagon briefing thanked London for intelligence regarding the terror plot attributed to Iran against RAF Fairford, following which the United States withdrew its bombers from there.
Kyiv has broken its pause on Russian energy infrastructure observed after the "energy ceasefire" announced by Trump on Sunday, a truce Moscow never signed and breached within hours. Ukrainian drones set fire to the Ryazan refinery, some 200 kilometres southeast of Moscow; Governor Pavel Malkov acknowledged the fire and damage to a warehouse and vehicles at another facility, with no casualties, prompting the city to close 14 schools and 25 nurseries (Meduza). Zelenskyy told the Financial Times: "We're done," conditioning any future truce on the arrival of more Patriot batteries.
The backdrop is energy. Trump announced a week ago an agreement whereby Russia will supply diesel to the United States and world markets — **300,000 tonnes** immediately, **500,000** in November, and **one million** thereafter, according to Euronews —, facilitated by a temporary Treasury licence. On Thursday, OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) extended until **24 April 2027** the licence permitting Lukoil petrol stations outside Russia to operate, and issued another for the group's Bulgarian subsidiaries.
Reuters further reports that Washington is studying easing restrictions on the "ghost fleet" so that "legal oil" may circulate in previously sanctioned vessels. Twelve senators have urged Trump to reverse the diesel deal, and 22 lawmakers are demanding full enforcement of sanctions against Russia ahead of the 18 October deadline (Kyiv Post). European Union (EU) foreign ministers have criticised the pact for undermining transatlantic unity.
Implications
The contradiction between the White House and Musk is no nuance. Either the decision was made by the president and the denial is semantic, or someone within his circle ordered the degradation of an ally's defensive capability without his knowledge; both hypotheses are grave. The second also describes an institutional anomaly Congress has a duty to clarify. For Moscow, the lesson is different and more unsettling: Washington can blind Ukraine's eyes with an internal message, without announcement or debate. Every blinded interceptor on a night of 850 Shaheds translates into deaths in Kropivnitski and darkness for hundreds of thousands of homes.
The pattern is consistent, and hence concerning: licensed Russian diesel, Lukoil petrol stations pardoned until 2027, studied relief for the ghost fleet, and pressure on Kyiv to halt strikes against refineries. None of these pieces is a capitulation on its own; together they form a policy where the price at the pump prior to 3 November weighs heavier than the sanctions architecture built since 2022. Communicating vessels operate here that Tehran and Moscow need not negotiate: Hormuz's intermittent closure drives up crude prices, that hike pushes Washington to ease pressure on Russia, and that relief funds the drones falling on Ukraine.
Europe stepped up in gesture, for once: Rutte in Brussels, Streeting in Washington, EU ministers' criticism of the diesel pact. It is not enough. Dependence on a private US constellation subject to another government's political will is tangible proof of Europe's inability to take its own defence seriously. IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite), the community alternative, will not be fully operational before the decade ends.
Outlook and Scenarios
Sustained Russian pressure and Washington–Kyiv friction until the midterms (probable): heavier combined waves of drones and missiles; Starshield capped at 160 km/h; Moscow calibrating every US gesture on sanctions, intelligence, and connectivity.
Atlantic recomposition (possible): accelerated European and British air defence packages, public clarification between the White House, the Pentagon, and SpaceX, and congressional pressure to reverse or limit the diesel pact around the 18 October deadline.
Real and verified energy truce (unlikely): would require credible costs for the Kremlin, not OFAC licences and rally soundbites.
Hormuz: CENTCOM debunks the mine narrative; controlling the strait is not normalising it
Facts
CENTCOM published a denial on X on Thursday addressing "three false Iranian claims" broadcast in the previous twenty-four hours. First: the IRGC does not control the Strait of Hormuz; it is controlled by the United States and regional partners, and commercial traffic continues despite the Pasdaran's "unjustified aggression". Second: it is false that the container ship GFS Pride struck a naval mine; it was hit by a projectile fired by Iranian forces and sank whilst being towed to the coast. Third: it is false that Iran killed "hundreds" of US military personnel in Jordan; three were killed in action in July whilst allied forces repelled Iranian attacks. The Command added that **over forty merchant vessels** transited the strait in the preceding twenty-four hours.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) had already confirmed that the GFS Pride — a **2,824 TEU** container ship under the Singapore flag, managed from the Emirates — suffered damage and an onboard fire after being struck on Tuesday the 13th, sinking on the 14th; its **21 crew members** were safely evacuated uninjured. Singapore branded the attacks "unprovoked, unjustified, and a violation of international law". According to IMO (International Maritime Organization) data analysed by Reuters, the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged bulk carrier Cape Dao, struck by a projectile on 23 September — with one crew member killed —, also sank near the strait: these are the second and third vessels sunk since the war began on 28 February. Two senior Iranian officials admitted to Reuters that Tehran is resorting to "new tactics" against shipping to keep crude prices high and influence US midterm elections.
JMIC (Joint Maritime Information Center) found "no evidence" to support the mine version, though it maintains warnings over mining risks and keeps the threat level at "severe". Its figures temper Washington's triumphalism: 121 US-facilitated transits between 11 and 14 October — roughly thirty daily —, compared to a pre-war average of 138, meaning around **22%**; eight projectile attacks on 11 and 13 October targeting four tankers and four container ships, including the Petro Dolphin off Sohar (Oman), with two crew members missing; and 149 confirmed incidents since 1 March. The IMO tallies **24 sailors dead**. Some 430 vessels remain anchored across Fujairah, Khor Fakkan, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah, Musandam, and Sohar (gCaptain).
Brent closed Thursday at **$105.92** (−0.13%) and WTI rose to **$97.97** (+3.03%) following a sharp drop in US crude inventories (Reuters). The EIA (Energy Information Administration) raised its Q4 Brent price forecast to **$105**, fourteen dollars higher than its previous estimate. The IEA (International Energy Agency) notes that Gulf crude shipments rose in September to **13.9 million barrels per day**, over **75%** of pre-war levels, but warns the recovery "remains vulnerable" to fresh attacks. On Friday in Asia, Brent hovered around **$105**, heading for its second consecutive weekly gain.
Implications
The mine was the narrative; the projectile, the facts. When CENTCOM, Singapore's maritime authority, and JMIC converge against the IRGC statement, Tehran's oligarchic-jihadist regime loses the narrative battle it sought: framing the sinking as an accident and whitewashing the aggression. Singapore — a serious power and exemplary port state — gave it the exact legal name: violation of international law.
Deliberately targeting a neutral merchant vessel in transit breaches the transit passage regime through straits codified in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Articles 38 and 44), a regime widely regarded as customary law which Iran cannot bypass by having signed the Convention without ratifying it.
The second lesson is more uncomfortable for Washington. Military control of the strait is real — escorts, over forty passages a day, blockade of Iranian ports —, but commercial normality is decreed by shipowners and insurers, not CENTCOM.
With traffic running at around one-fifth of pre-war levels and over four hundred ships anchored, the Pasdaran does not need to close Hormuz: making it intermittently impassable is quite enough. This is variable-temperature warfare in its purest form. Crude finds bypass pipelines toward Yanbu and Fujairah — hence the IEA noting over 75% of Gulf flows —, whereas container ships and bulk carriers do not. Every dollar of Brent above one hundred is, in part, the toll the IRGC levies on US and European inflation. Rota and Morón are not in another galaxy.
Outlook and Scenarios
More targeted attacks and narrative warfare until the midterms (probable): projectiles against merchant shipping on the southern route, Tehran insisting on mines, and Brent anchored above $100.
Reinforced escort and limited naval retaliation (possible): expanded US and Gulf partner protection, with the risk of a direct incident between the IRGC and CENTCOM.
Negotiated maritime ceasefire via Oman or Qatar (unlikely short-term): would require Iranian interlocutors with real authority to bind the IRGC, not merely the Foreign Ministry.
Saudi Arabia and Yemen: Twenty attacks on King Khalid Airport and missiles targeting Aden's presidential palace
Facts
The spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, Major General Turki al-Maliki, presented a tally in Riyadh on Thursday regarding the offensive by the Houthi terrorist organisation — an instrument of Tehran's oligarchic-jihadist regime — against the Kingdom's civil aviation. King Khalid International Airport has suffered **20 attacks** since 1 October, resulting in **17 deaths** and **over 330 injuries** there alone, and **19 deaths** and **364 injuries** across Saudi airports overall.
Across Saudi airports overall, including Abha, the coalition tallies **19 dead** and **364 injured**. Al-Maliki put the total launched against the Kingdom since coalition operations began at **1,104 ballistic missiles** and **1,135 drones**, alongside **118 explosive boats** and **278 naval mines**. "Attacking airports endangers the lives of thousands of civilian travellers," he warned (Arab News).
The spokesperson maintained that Houthi terrorists have excavated depots in the mountains of Sana'a, Saada, and Amran as launch pads, with help from "regional parties", and that the coalition has destroyed **127 such depots** and numerous launchers in recent days. On Tuesday, it had already announced strikes against the Al Sabaha central fuel station in Sana'a, plus fuel reserves and transport facilities in Sana'a, Hodeidah, and Dhamar (Al Arabiya). Al-Maliki accused the terrorist organisation of attempting to attack the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, with the coalition announcing the interception of a missile in the Medina region, without independent confirmation of its trajectory. The Saudi Council of Ministers warned that the Houthis will bear the consequences.
That same Thursday, Houthi terrorists fired **five missiles** at the Al Maashiq presidential palace in Aden, seat of the internationally recognised Yemeni government. The Health Minister put the toll at **five dead** and **sixteen injured**; fatalities include two bodyguards of the Prime Minister, who emerged unhurt alongside other senior officials (Al Jazeera). It is the first such attack against the government seat and coincides with intensifying fighting in Taiz and a repelled Houthi assault on Dubab airport.
France maintains its advisory against travelling to Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam airports. Tuesday's strike against Aramco's Dhahran headquarters — extensive damage across multiple floors according to Reuters sources, contrasted with the Energy Ministry's "limited fire" — remains without US response beyond postponement "until after the elections" (see reports from 14 and 15 October). In Yemen, the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) warns of hospital collapse, whilst the WFP (World Food Programme) lacks access to **over 600,000 people** in Taiz.
Implications
Twenty attacks against an international airport in fifteen days are no "incidents": they are a saturation campaign against civil aviation, the Kingdom's economy, and Vision 2030 as an opening-up project. The Houthi terrorist organisation seeks terror, closed skies, and symbolic damage; Tehran collects the geopolitical toll without signing the dispatch. The Saudi spokesperson's "regional parties" are a diplomatic euphemism understandable from Riyadh, but one that does not bind us: without IRGC missiles, technology, and training, there would be no depots in the Saada mountains or missiles aimed at Medina.
The attack on Al Maashiq adds a new dimension. Houthi terrorists are no longer content with punishing the Kingdom: they aspire to decapitate the legitimate government in its final stronghold and forcibly complete the conquest of Yemen. With Mocha in their hands since September, the fall of Aden would leave the Asian shore of Bab el-Mandeb under terrorist control.
Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are the two arteries of a single theatre, and anyone believing Europe can look away confuses geographical distance with geostrategic irrelevance. The Kingdom needs the United States, Israel, and Europe: intelligence, interceptors, ammunition, and, if necessary, fire against launchers and depots. Trump deferred the response; a three-week window is an operational gift for Sana'a.
Outlook and Scenarios
Fresh Houthi wave against aviation and energy ahead of 3 November (probable): saturation attempts over Riyadh, Jeddah, or Aramco facilities, carrying risks of further civilian casualties.
Limited yet growing Western support for the Kingdom (possible): shared intelligence, interceptor replenishment, and, post-midterms, targeted US strikes against Houthi capabilities.
Houthi offensive on Aden and collapse of the legitimate government (possible medium-term): simultaneous pressure in Taiz, Dubab, and the provisional capital, risking total civil war and terrorist control of the Asian shore of Bab el-Mandeb.
Iranian mediation accepted by Riyadh (highly improbable): would turn the arsonist into a firefighter and humiliate the Kingdom.
Washington–Tehran: MOAB on the menu and the electoral calendar as doctrine
Facts
CNN reported on Thursday, citing anonymous official sources, that the US military has drawn up new strike options contemplating the use of the MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal, against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites if Trump orders the resumption of fighting, before or after the 3 November elections. It would be its first combat use in this war. According to the network, the president requested additional packages including "lots of energy infrastructure", and plans against nuclear installations — among them the Pickaxe Mountain underground complex, where Washington and Israel believe Iran stores program components — explicitly contemplate the MOAB. One source placed the strike "prior to the US drawdown in CENTCOM's area of responsibility": strike, declare victory, and leave. The next troop rotation arrives in weeks, and some personnel will not be relieved.
Doubts are technical and strategic. "It is definitely not designed as a deep penetration warhead," admits a third source: its effects would be essentially superficial against a target protected by layers of granite, and its huge blast radius elevates the risk of civilian casualties. Officials do not believe it will force Iran to capitulate; its value would be primarily psychological. CNN describes options internally labelled "fireworks show", conceived as an exit for Trump even if they fall short of initial goals, with the reopening of Hormuz as the starting point for a "symbolic" victory. Some advisers doubt the public pledge not to attack before the elections is firm, whilst others privately wonder if the White House has a plan to end the war. Trump told Newsmax: "I wouldn't use nuclear. We don't have to."
Economic pressure continues in parallel. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that "the noose is tightening around the Iranian economy", as his department sanctioned sixteen individuals and ten entities linked to Iran, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated BICSA (Banco Internacional de Comercio, S. A.), a Cuban state entity, for providing services to sanctioned Iranian entities (Fox News).
From Tehran, Pezeshkian retorted, according to the Fars agency, that "bombs and missiles cannot force a nation to surrender". In Israel, government adviser Ophir Falk maintained that his country is "very close" to creating conditions for regime change in Iran; Netanyahu, meanwhile, maintains that a preemptive strike ahead of the 27 October Israeli elections "does not suit us" (see yesterday's report).
Real power in Tehran remains outside the mediation photo-op. Mohsen Rezaei and Ahmad Vahidi — both carrying Interpol Red Notices for the 1994 AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) bombing, which killed 85 people — sabotage any role the Foreign Ministry pretends to sign because permanent tension benefits them.
Pezeshkian represents the less brutal sector, but lacks authority; Ghalibaf demands war readiness, and the decision to negotiate or shoot rests with Mojtaba Jamenei and the Supreme National Security Council. In Arizona, Trump confessed he does not know "who the hell" he is negotiating with and promised not to eliminate any more leaders: the paradox of decapitation, intact.
Implications
Our central thesis is confirmed once more: military and tactical success, geopolitical failure. The visible leadership was decapitated and the vacuum discovered; bets were placed on extras; those who live off permanent tension are in charge. The choice of weapon is telling. The MOAB was born during the Iraq War as a psychological operations instrument, conceived to demoralise and force surrenders, and its sole combat use — against ISIS tunnels in Afghanistan in 2017 — was more message than solution.
A surface-effect weapon for a problem buried in granite is the exact metaphor for a strategy seeking headlines ahead of outcomes. When planners themselves speak of "fireworks", the question is no longer whether there will be a strike, but what day-after has been prepared for a regime that, once decapitated, has reconstituted itself in even harder hands.
BICSA's designation deserves highlighting. The Cuban dictatorship is no distant spectator of the Iran war: it lends its financial system to a sanctioned terrorist regime, just as Chavismo has provided cover for Hezbollah networks for years, as the US Treasury has repeatedly denounced. Rubio, who knows the Havana–Caracas–Tehran axis inside out, embodies the methodical wing of this administration. He and the rule-of-law Republican senators are the institutional antidote to the transactional impulse currently dominating relations with Kyiv.
Outlook and Scenarios
Operational paralysis until 4 November with MOAB rhetoric (probable): options on the menu, daily incidents in Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, and midterms serving as both brake and excuse.
Post-electoral selective strike (possible): following 3 November and the 27 October Israeli elections, with Netanyahu less constrained; risk of escalation and disappointment if the MOAB fails to deliver on headline promises.
Nuclear and sanctions agreement with an empowered interlocutor (highly improbable now): would require binding Rezaei and the IRGC, not just the Foreign Ministry.
Media Rack
Reuters: Exclusive by Erin Banco and Gram Slattery: the order to slow Starshield came from inside the White House, which does not clarify who issued it. Furthermore, it reports with Jonathan Saul and Renee Maltezou on the sinking of the GFS Pride and Cape Dao, covers two senior Iranian officials' admission regarding "new tactics" to influence midterms, and documents Brent closing at $105.92 alongside talks to ease ghost fleet sanctions.
CNN: Exclusive on plans contemplating the MOAB against Iranian energy and nuclear facilities, including Pickaxe Mountain, and on the "fireworks show" as a symbolic exit; highlights internal doubts over the weapon's penetration capacity.
Euronews: Details the extension until 24 April 2027 of the licence for Lukoil petrol stations outside Russia alongside a parallel licence for its Bulgarian subsidiaries, the Russian diesel schedule (300,000 tonnes immediately, 500,000 in November, one million thereafter), and criticism by EU foreign ministers over damage to transatlantic unity.
Arab News: Leads on the twenty Houthi attacks against King Khalid since 1 October, Saturday's thirteen rush-hour fatalities, and Al Maliki's accusation regarding "regional parties" aiding the construction of depots in the mountains of Sana'a, Saada, and Amran.
AP (Associated Press): Follows Leo XIV's convalescence following the removal of his right lung's lower lobe for lung cancer: normal postoperative tests and an anticipated hospital stay of around a week.
AFP (Agence France-Presse): Reports on the Houthi strike against Aden's presidential palace, with casualties among the Prime Minister's escort (France 24).
Al Jazeera: Raises the toll to five dead and sixteen injured in Al Maashiq and reports from Sana'a on fears of total civil war; adds fighting in Taiz and the assault on Dubab airport.
Fox News: Live coverage combining Trump's Newsmax remark on nuclear weapons, Pezeshkian's retort, Treasury's new sanctions with Bessent's warning, and Rubio's designation of Cuban bank BICSA.
CNBC: Carries the Reuters exclusive, headlining that resumed Ukrainian strikes against refineries shatter hopes of an energy truce.
The Times of Israel: Links Trump's refusal to use nuclear weapons with the Pentagon's MOAB option.
The Guardian: Carries Hegseth's guarantee to Streeting regarding the restoration of Starlink service in Ukraine.
Saudi Gazette: Headlines Al Maliki's accusation that "regional parties" have armed the Houthis with advanced technologies.
Kyiv Post: Specifies that terminals lost link between 72 and 161 km/h, that Kyiv requests 450 km/h, and that twelve senators demand reversing the diesel pact ahead of the 18 October deadline.
The Kyiv Independent / Interfax-Ukraine: Publish the figure of nearly a thousand drones and the Kropivnitski toll: three dead and six injured.
The Moscow Times / Meduza: Confirm the fire at the Ryazan refinery and the closure of 14 schools and 25 nurseries ordered by Governor Malkov.
gCaptain (specialist maritime press): Contrasts CENTCOM's control claim with JMIC data: roughly thirty daily transits, 22% of pre-war levels, and 149 incidents since March.
Vatican News: Thursday bulletin: good night, respiratory physiotherapy, initial walks in the room, and concelebrated mass on the Gemelli's tenth floor.
Editorial Commentary
Speed limit
One hundred and sixty kilometres per hour. That is, as of Thursday, the maximum speed at which a Ukrainian drone can fly without losing the link guiding it; above that, the terminal goes silent. Kyiv is asking for 450, because at that speed a jet Shahed can be hunted down. That figure summarises the week better than any communiqué: an ally's defensive capability has been made subject to a limit set far from the front, by a hand nobody wants to acknowledge. A senior official swears the president never asked for it; Musk retorts that those limits are decided by the army and, "ultimately, the president".
If both are telling the truth, someone in the White House is degrading an ally's defence without their boss's knowledge, which would be even graver than the order itself. Trump must be taken seriously, but not literally, as former Congressman Chris Stewart habitually reminds us. The bluster strategy — demanding the impossible to secure the reasonable, as in the Greenland episode — has a logic Europe has failed to read. Punishing those defending themselves to cheapen diesel for electoral reasons is morally repulsive.
What the week reveals is a mechanism, not a sum of blunders. The Pasdaran makes Hormuz intermittently impassable; crude rises; Washington, with 3 November in its sights, licenses Russian diesel, pardons Lukoil petrol stations until 2027, and studies relieving the ghost fleet; the Kremlin takes in more and launches more drones; Kyiv strikes refineries to make the war costlier for the aggressor; the White House blames Kyiv for the price at the pump. Tehran and Moscow need no formal alliance: one's disorder subsidises the other's war. We have maintained that the IRGC reads calendars better than many chancelleries read maps. This week, the Kremlin has shown it knows how to read its adversary's calendar too.
George Kennan wrote in his Long Telegram in February 1946 that Soviet power was "impervious to the logic of reason" and "highly sensitive to the logic of force." That sentence describes the Pasdaran and the Kremlin today with uncomfortable exactitude, and that is why it is unsettling when force is announced with an expiry date. H. R. Haldeman attributed the "madman theory" to Nixon: the adversary fears someone who knows no limits. Whoever publishes that they will not attack before an election whilst simultaneously leaking a menu of "fireworks" ceases to be unpredictable and becomes legible. The MOAB, conceived for psychological warfare, may serve for a headline; it will scarcely suffice against Pickaxe Mountain's granite.
Pezeshkian maintains that bombs cannot force a nation to surrender. He is right in a sense he does not intend: bombs, without a day-after policy, merely rearrange the set dressing. The visible leadership was struck and now Rezaei and Vahidi are in charge. Negotiating with someone who cannot bind the Pasdaran is signing with invisible ink; bombing without knowing what comes next is repeating the mistake with more explosive.
The Kingdom cannot wait for that spectacle. Whilst two democracies measure their clocks — Washington on 3 November, Israel on 27 October —, the Houthi terrorist organisation has attacked Riyadh's airport twenty times and fired upon Aden's presidential palace. The asymmetric actor always wins time when the democrat publishes their window of impunity.
Europe, meanwhile, looks at heating bills and calculates. Everything has bureaucratic explanation; nothing has greatness. The Hormuz toll and the Dhahran fire are not eastern crime chronicles: they are inflation at European petrol stations, the risk hanging over Rota and Morón, and proof that Iranian state terrorism — the Fairford plot, the attacks claimed by HAYI (Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right), the assassination attempt against Alejo Vidal-Quadras in Madrid like dozens of dissidents and critics worldwide and tens of thousands within the country — forms a single system. Spain signed the joint statement on Fairford; good.
We criticised the lukewarmness of those who arrived late to it yesterday. Now for consistency: fully applying the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation agreed by the EU on 29 January — asset freezes, dismantling their networks, pursuing front-men —, reinforcing our bases' air defences, and stopping treating Saudi Arabia as a distant producer when the Kingdom holds the frontline against the Houthi proxy. Whoever signs condemnations and then panders to Tehran at other tables practises the moral hemiplegia Ortega diagnosed: seeing danger only where it suits their narrative.
The Atlantic Alliance is no spot diesel market. Article 2 of the Washington Treaty, defended by St. Laurent and Lester Pearson in 1949 against those wanting merely a military pact, conceived it as a community of free institutions. That community is tested when an ally depends on another's will just to see incoming drones. EU ministers did well to criticise the diesel pact, and Streeting in seeking "harmony" between Washington and Kyiv by invoking St. Francis of Assisi. But harmony is no strategy, and critique without capabilities is rhetoric. A Europe still lacking its own constellation and sufficient air defence in 2026 cannot be scandalised that others set the speed of its security.
It will be objected that postponing until 3 November is electoral prudence, not cowardice. I accept the objection and return it magnified. State prudence consists of not handing the enemy a map of your pauses; of escorting merchant shipping, replenishing interceptors for the Kingdom and Ukraine, and talking to whoever can sign. It does not consist of capping Ukrainian drones the very same week nearly a thousand Russian drones cross its skies. Midterms matter. International navigation and Kyiv's defence matter too. Confusing both priorities is the luxury of those not living under Civil Defence alerts in Riyadh nor under Shaheds in Kropivnitski.
In Rome, Leo XIV, operated on Tuesday for pulmonary adenocarcinoma, is celebrating mass on the Gemelli's tenth floor and conferring with Substitute Paolo Rudelli. Those of us admiring this pontiff — and the author does so unreservedly — are grateful for the transparency of a medical bulletin calling the disease by its name. This is no pious padding, but a contrast: some authorities show the X-ray, whilst others invent the mine. In an international system drunk on extremes, that moral difference counts.
The conclusion fits into four demands.
First: treat the sinking of the GFS Pride for what it is, an illegal IRGC aggression against freedom of navigation, and respond with escort, law, and costs, not actuarial resignation.
Second: provide the Kingdom — alongside the United States, Israel, and Europe — with the capacity to intercept and strike Houthi launchers, and sustain Adén's legitimate government before the Asian shore of Bab el-Mandeb falls entirely into terrorist hands.
Third: stop negotiating with extras and demand interlocutors capable of binding Rezaei and Vahidi, or admit there is no negotiation; the MOAB does no substitute for a doctrine, nor fireworks for a day-after plan.
Fourth: return intelligence, uncapped connectivity, and Patriots to Ukraine; Russian diesel does not buy peace, it rents a truce Moscow has already broken. Churchill defined the appeaser, according to the attributed phrase, as one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.
The Hormuz crocodile has learned to read the calendar; the Donbas one to measure our drones' speed. Against those who understand only force, weakness noted down in the diary is not prudence: it is complicity. History, as is well known, does not forgive those who confuse a ballot box with a compass.