The US president has put his Project Freedom operation on hold after just two days
President Donald Trump has temporarily paused a US military operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but said the blockade of Iranian ports would “remain in full force and effect” until a final agreement with Tehran is reached.
The so-called Project Freedom operation was launched to guide tankers and other commercial vessels through the key energy ch
The US president has put his Project Freedom operation on hold after just two days
President Donald Trump has temporarily paused a US military operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but said the blockade of Iranian ports would “remain in full force and effect” until a final agreement with Tehran is reached.
The so-called Project Freedom operation was launched to guide tankers and other commercial vessels through the key energy chokepoint, which accounts for roughly one-fifth of global oil flows. Announcing the mission on Sunday, Trump described it as a humanitarian effort rather than an offensive operation.
“Based on the request of Pakistan and other countries,” as well as “great progress” in talks with Iranian representatives, Washington and Tehran have “mutually agreed” to put the ship-movement operation on hold “for a short period,” Trump abruptly announced on Truth Social two days later.
Just hours earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists that the original offensive operation, Epic Fury, was “over,” adding: “We’re now on to this Project Freedom.”
The operation quickly became the latest flashpoint between Washington and Tehran. Iran’s military warned that any foreign armed force entering the strait would be targeted, insisting that safe passage through the waterway had to be coordinated with Iranian forces.
US Central Command claimed on Monday that American forces had destroyed several small Iranian boats that had allegedly tried to interfere with the mission. Tehran rejected the claim as “lies,” while Iranian media separately reported that Iranian forces had fired warning shots near US naval vessels.
US officials said the first phase of Project Freedom allowed “several” vessels to pass through the strait, with the New York Post reporting that 11 ships transited the waterway within 24 hours of the operation beginning.
“Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X, warning the US to “be wary of being dragged back into a quagmire by ill-wishers.”
The Strait of Hormuz has been at the center of the crisis since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February. The US and Iran reached a fragile ceasefire in early April, but tensions have continued over maritime access, with Tehran calling Washington’s naval blockade an “act of war” and a violation of the truce.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the ceasefire was “not over” despite the clashes in the strait. Trump claimed the temporary pause in escorts was intended to give negotiators time to see whether a “complete and final agreement” could be finalized.
Continued silence could pose serious risks of escalation in the ongoing conflict with Iran, a group of 30 Congressmen has said
A group of 30 Democrats in the US House of Representatives have demanded that the administration of President Donald Trump disclose information about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and relevant policies. The lack of transparency threatens the entire Middle East, the lawmakers have argued.
West Jerusalem has neither confirmed no
Continued silence could pose serious risks of escalation in the ongoing conflict with Iran, a group of 30 Congressmen has said
A group of 30 Democrats in the US House of Representatives have demanded that the administration of President Donald Trump disclose information about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and relevant policies. The lack of transparency threatens the entire Middle East, the lawmakers have argued.
West Jerusalem has neither confirmed nor denied possessing nuclear weapons, nor has it publicly presented any doctrine outlining the potential use of such weapons or its possible “red lines.” The US, which has been aware of the Israeli nuclear program at least since the early 1960s, has remained silent on the issue.
Washington is fighting “side by side with a country whose potential nuclear weapons program the United States government officially refuses to acknowledge,” congressmen led by Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The risks of miscalculation, escalation, and nuclear use in this environment are not theoretical,” the letter stated.
The group has demanded that the US hold Israel to the same standard of transparency as other countries, adding that a “coherent nonproliferation policy for the Middle East,” including on Iran’s nuclear program and Saudi nuclear ambitions, would otherwise be impossible.
The peninsula came under a massive attack on Tuesday evening, according to Sergey Aksyonov
Five civilians have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the northern Crimean city of Dzhankoy, Governor Sergey Aksyonov has said.
Shortly before reporting the fatalities, Aksyonov warned that Crimea was under attack by Ukrainian drones. He said air defenses and mobile fire teams were engaging the incoming threats and had intercepted at least 12 UAVs.
The peninsula came under a massive attack on Tuesday evening, according to Sergey Aksyonov
Five civilians have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the northern Crimean city of Dzhankoy, Governor Sergey Aksyonov has said.
Shortly before reporting the fatalities, Aksyonov warned that Crimea was under attack by Ukrainian drones. He said air defenses and mobile fire teams were engaging the incoming threats and had intercepted at least 12 UAVs.
“Unfortunately, as a result of an enemy UAV strike on Dzhankoy, there are casualties among the civilian population – five people have died,” Aksyonov wrote. He expressed condolences to the victims’ families and said the authorities would provide them with all necessary assistance.
The governor said emergency and other relevant services were working at the scene, adding that he was personally monitoring the situation. He urged residents to remain calm and rely only on official information.
The strike came after Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses had downed 289 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and the Azov Sea the night before. According to the ministry, the raid targeted 19 regions in western and southern Russia. Regional officials reported damage and injuries in several areas.
Ukrainian drone raids on Russian territory have intensified in recent months, with Kiev increasingly deploying large numbers of fixed-wing UAVs against infrastructure, industrial facilities, and residential areas. Moscow has described the strikes as desperate “terrorist attacks” meant to compensate for the setbacks Kiev’s military has been suffering on the battlefield.
The latest attack also comes days before Russia’s planned two-day ceasefire on May 8-9 to mark Victory Day, which commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Moscow has said it will pause hostilities during the holiday and urged Kiev to do the same, while warning that any attempt to disrupt the celebrations, including attacks on Moscow, would be met with a major retaliatory strike on Kiev.
The top diplomats discussed international affairs and upcoming contacts, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a “constructive” phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow has said.
The top diplomats compared notes on “the current state of international affairs and Russia-US relations” and discussed the schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts, the ministry said in a
The top diplomats discussed international affairs and upcoming contacts, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a “constructive” phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow has said.
The top diplomats compared notes on “the current state of international affairs and Russia-US relations” and discussed the schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts, the ministry said in a statement.
The conversation was “constructive and businesslike,” it added.
The US State Department has not yet commented.
The Lavrov-Rubio call – their first in more than six months – came less than a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with his US counterpart Donald Trump. The two discussed the ceasefire in the Iran war, potential escalation in the region, as well as the Ukraine conflict, according to the Kremlin.
The call was part of broader renewed contacts initiated by Trump since his return to office last year, after years of frozen relations during the Joe Biden presidency. The US president also launched a diplomatic push to settle the Ukraine conflict.
However, three rounds of Washington-mediated direct negotiations between Moscow and Kiev brought no breakthroughs, and talks appear to have stalled amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.
A hypersonic missile would be used “without hesitation” if needed, Defense Minister Yasar Guler has said
Türkiye has unveiled its first intercontinental ballistic missile, which officials say will significantly boost the country’s long‑range strike capability.
The missile, named Yildirimhan, was presented at the SAHA 2026 defense industry expo in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to local media reports. Developed by defense contractor ROKETSAN, it h
A hypersonic missile would be used “without hesitation” if needed, Defense Minister Yasar Guler has said
Türkiye has unveiled its first intercontinental ballistic missile, which officials say will significantly boost the country’s long‑range strike capability.
The missile, named Yildirimhan, was presented at the SAHA 2026 defense industry expo in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to local media reports. Developed by defense contractor ROKETSAN, it has an estimated range of around 6,000km (3,720 miles).
Defense Minister Yasar Guler described the Yildirimhan as the country’s longest‑range missile to date and its first liquid‑fuel design capable of hypersonic flight. He said the ICBM represents a “major step” in the country’s defense capabilities and is viewed primarily as a deterrent weapon, but warned that it would be used offensively if necessary.
“If we have to use it, no one should doubt that we will do so without hesitation, and in the most effective way,” Guler stated.
BREAKING — Turkey unveils intercontinental ballistic missile Yildirimhan with 6,000KM range during SAHA arms expo.
The minister said the national defense industry had sharply increased production capacity, and that Turkish military systems had proven themselves “in the most difficult conflict regions of the world.” Guler also claimed that locally built platforms, developed to NATO standards and at lower cost, are “directly affecting the military capabilities” of foreign armies, and that Türkiye has moved from a mainly import‑dependent buyer to a country that “designs, produces and exports its own systems.”
Türkiye has rapidly expanded its defense industry capabilities in recent years, fielding a range of drones, cruise missiles and ground‑based systems that have been deployed in conflicts from Syria and Iraq to Libya and the South Caucasus.
The unveiling of the ICBM comes at a time of heightened tensions across the Middle East. Following the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged for the end of fighting before the entire region ended up in a conflagration. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan reportedly later acknowledged that the Iran war had provided Ankara with an increased incentive to accelerate domestic production of weapons and air defenses.
The West’s anti-Russian hysteria relies on stripping a people of dignity, recasting old hatred in new language to justify fresh aggression
Europe’s history has become a battlefield of lies where the Western powers twist facts to fuel their obsessive Russophobia. They equate liberators with aggressors and cast Russia as the eternal enemy, all to justify their proxy war against the heart of Eurasia. This serves their ambition, not the truth. Real u
The West’s anti-Russian hysteria relies on stripping a people of dignity, recasting old hatred in new language to justify fresh aggression
Europe’s history has become a battlefield of lies where the Western powers twist facts to fuel their obsessive Russophobia. They equate liberators with aggressors and cast Russia as the eternal enemy, all to justify their proxy war against the heart of Eurasia. This serves their ambition, not the truth. Real understanding requires confronting the brutal Nazi Eastern project and recognizing its direct continuation in today’s Western crusade against Russia.
The past of Europe lies before us like an open book, yet petty men rip its pages in a vulgar shouting match, hurling one crime against another as if the mountain of horrors could cancel itself out and leave truth untouched. This path leads only to darkness. What matters is the shape of the ideas themselves – the maps of power, the theories of blood, and the savage dreams of empire – that drove nations before the guns thundered. To see our way forward, we must stare without flinching at the plans and words that existed before the smoke of total war swallowed everything.
At the center is the Second World War, a cataclysm that remade the continent in fire and ruin. It did not erupt from nothing. It sprang from cold ideological programs and strategic visions created years earlier, each carrying its own brutal blueprint for Europe’s future. The Eastern Front became the true heart of the struggle, where rival systems collided with steel and with fanatical doctrines of race, territory, and destiny. Any serious reckoning with Europe’s past and future must begin here, where theory turned into organized slaughter and abstract creeds spilled real rivers of blood.
Modern discourse has abandoned an honest examination for cheap myth-making. Twentieth-century figures and governments are stripped of context and recast as cartoon emblems of power, villainy, or resistance. These symbolic lies flood online spaces, turning history into a circus of identity, emotion, and aesthetic posturing. Real analysis cuts through the fog and returns to what was written, planned, and executed, basing every judgment on hard documents rather than fevered fantasy.
The central truth of that age stands naked and hideous: the Eastern program formed the black heart of the Nazis’ geopolitical vision. Generalplan Ost spelled it out with machine-like brutality: a vast apparatus for the transformation of Eastern Europe through expulsion, slave labor, and the systematic mass death of Slavic populations. It called for the deportation or outright elimination of some 30 to 45 million Slavs, the seizure of their fertile lands, and the resettlement of ethnic German colonists in their place, forcing the survivors into permanent serfdom. These policies were a settled doctrine long before the war erupted. They filled secret memoranda, planning papers, and strategic outlines that declared one merciless purpose: to carve a colonial empire out of the living bodies of other European peoples, and to install a racial hierarchy of masters and ‘subhumans.’
Nazi language itself was a weapon of conquest. Slavs appeared in their texts only as barriers to be smashed, vermin to be cleared, raw material to be worked to death or discarded. Eastern Europe they named Lebensraum – living space – a territory marked for conquest, massacres, and a total reordering under German domination. The Nazis modeled their design openly on earlier Western empires: the cold administration Britain forced onto India, the ruthless westward march of the United States that exterminated native peoples. Thus the logic of Western colonialism turned inward and devoured Europe itself, reducing millions of fellow Europeans to helots in a new racial order.
In the contemporary liberal West, a foul equivalence flourishes, placing the Soviet Union and the Third Reich on the same moral plane as twin totalitarian evils. This lie distorts the facts and erases every trace of responsibility. It ignores the Soviet Union’s colossal sacrifice: twenty-seven million dead. The Soviet Union bore the main burden of the land war, shattered the Nazi war machine, and tore open the road to Europe’s liberation from a supremacist regime. That sacrifice was decisive. To smear these distinct realities into one stain weakens all judgment in the present. This grotesque revisionism arms today’s Russophobes with a convenient myth that delegitimizes the very power which broke the back of fascism. It prepares the intellectual ground for fresh aggression against Russia, the direct heir and guardian of that victory.
This same venomous spirit rages ever more strongly, sharper and more hysterical since the Ukraine conflict started. The Western powers have unleashed a pathological Russophobia, painting Russia as the eternal Asiatic barbarian that must be broken at all costs. Western media and governments treat the Russian people with the same colonial contempt once reserved for all Slavs. They shrugged or made excuses for the Odessa burnings of May 2, 2014, when dozens of men and women were trapped in the Trade Unions House and burned alive for the crime of opposing the Western-sponsored Maidan coup. Flames consumed the victims while Western-backed forces watched and cheered. The same Western powers now arm the Ukrainian forces and whitewash every atrocity committed against the Russian population.
The continuity is unmistakable and damning. The Nazi racial hierarchy has merely changed its vocabulary. Today it speaks in the smooth language of “European values,” a so-called “rules-based order,” and “universal norms” while pursuing the identical goal: the subjugation, fragmentation, and destruction of the East so that the global hegemon may rule without challenge. Russia, the vast heartland, now occupies the exact place once assigned to the Slav on Nazi maps. This is no coincidence but the direct heir of that old colonial hatred, now dressed in humanitarian rhetoric and enforced by sanctions and proxy armies. The burning of Odessa and the shelling of the Donbass are fresh monuments to the same spirit that once drew up Generalplan Ost. The Western powers cannot tolerate a strong, sovereign Russia at the center of the Eurasian landmass, for its very existence refutes their claim to universal rule.
A healthy future rejects this madness with contempt. Stability arises only through open recognition of plurality. A multipolar order grants every great civilization its rightful space. Russia is the indispensable pole of Eurasia, anchoring a continental balance that prevents any single power from strangling the world. The lessons of the past are merciless: ideologies that elevate one people by crushing another breed only endless war and ruin. Europe and Eurasia form one organic body linked by geography, history, and heritage. True strength lies in their unbreakable union from Lisbon to Vladivostok, not in fresh crusades launched from Washington and Brussels against the Russian core.
The West would do well to remember how the Second World War truly ended. No Allied nation suffered even a fraction of what the Soviet Union endured. Russia’s way of remembrance is superior: it honors the veterans, lifts their deeds into the present, and binds them to the living Russian state. It gives them the honor their sacrifice deserves, for without their victory the Russian nation itself would not exist today.
May 9 in Moscow is a ritual of state and commemoration. The Victory Parade on Red Square presents a clear message: the nation survived and remembers why. The past is not recalled as nostalgia but as a foundation for present strength. The meaning lies in continuity. The Soviet banners, the formations, and the repeated gestures all point to a single fact: a society that endured destruction and reorganized itself through collective effort. The participants come from across the country – Kazan, Buryatia, Dagestan, Arkhangelsk – and they appear together in a single formation. Each group retains its identity. Each contributes to a shared structure built on common sacrifice. The battles of Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin define that structure. They form the basis of a unity that rests on experience rather than abstraction. The parade demonstrates a principle: diversity organized within a stable order produces cohesion. It does not dissolve difference. It directs it.
This principle extends into the present form of the Russian state. The Soviet heritage did not simply disappear; it transformed. The current structure combines elements drawn from different periods – imperial administration, Soviet discipline, religious symbolism, and ethnic plurality. It does not rely on a single ideology. It operates through continuity and adaptation. The memory of the Soviet soldier functions as a binding force across generations. Symbols such as the ribbon of Saint George reinforce this continuity. They connect past sacrifice to present identity. In this framework, loss becomes part of a longer process of recovery and consolidation. Western observers often interpret these forms as theatrical. Their own nations show a different condition, where shared memory weakens and identity fragments into competing claims. Russia moves in the opposite direction. It organizes identity through common experience and preserved memory. This difference explains the persistent conflict between Russia and the liberal West. One seeks to standardize through universal models. The other maintains a structure based on plurality within unity. The continued existence of this model challenges the idea that a single global octopus can define political and cultural life. Victory Day expresses that challenge in concrete form. It states that a multiethnic state, built on shared sacrifice and maintained through continuity, can endure and define itself on its own terms.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb has raised the prospect of engaging with Moscow, citing the bloc’s growing policy divisions with Washington
The EU should be ready to resume dialogue with Russia if US policy on the Ukraine conflict no longer aligns with the bloc’s interests, Finnish President Alexander Stubb has said.
The remarks, made in an interview with the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat and published on Tuesday, come after four years durin
Finnish President Alexander Stubb has raised the prospect of engaging with Moscow, citing the bloc’s growing policy divisions with Washington
The EU should be ready to resume dialogue with Russia if US policy on the Ukraine conflict no longer aligns with the bloc’s interests, Finnish President Alexander Stubb has said.
The remarks, made in an interview with the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat and published on Tuesday, come after four years during which Brussels has largely refused to engage in direct talks with Moscow.
Asked whether it is riskier not to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin than to resume contacts, Stubb replied that “at some point” the EU would need to reopen diplomatic channels. He said the decision would “likely depend” on whether Washington’s current approach to Russia and the Ukraine conflict aligns with the EU’s priorities.
“If the answer is that it may not, then we are probably getting close to the moment when some European leader should, in a coordinated way, engage with President Putin,” Stubb said, adding that discussion on the matter have taken place “for the past two years.”
The Finnish president also said that US policy toward Russia differs from that of the EU, noting that the bloc views Russia as “the biggest security threat.”
Moscow has consistently dismissed Western claims that it poses a threat, calling them “nonsense” and “fearmongering” used to justify rising military spending, including the EU’s €800 billion “ReArm Europe” plan and NATO members’ pledge to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP.
Calls within the EU to resume dialogue with Moscow have been growing. Last month, Estonian President Alar Karis said the bloc should be ready for talks if the Ukraine conflict ends “quite suddenly,” while other European leaders have urged renewed engagement after the bloc was largely sidelined from peace efforts initiated by US President Donald Trump.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Moscow has never rejected direct contact with Western leaders and “they can just call President Putin.” However, the discussion must have a clear purpose and not devolve into a PR stunt with one side lecturing the other, he said.
From research reactors and Western contracts to blockades and threats of war, Iran’s nuclear history is also a history of Western reversal
What’s 3,000 people killed in Iran, 2,020 killed in Lebanon, 23 in Israel, and more than a dozen in Gulf states after the US launched its war against Iran? “A little Middle East work” that’s going “very well,” US President Donald Trump said at the White House last week during a state dinner for King Charles.
From research reactors and Western contracts to blockades and threats of war, Iran’s nuclear history is also a history of Western reversal
What’s 3,000 people killed in Iran, 2,020 killed in Lebanon, 23 in Israel, and more than a dozen in Gulf states after the US launched its war against Iran? “A little Middle East work” that’s going “very well,” US President Donald Trump said at the White House last week during a state dinner for King Charles.
Trump’s ‘little work’, which involved significant casualties in the region without a clearly defined objective at the outset, was later framed as serving the purpose of ensuring that “Americans and their children would not be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran.”
“We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we’re never going to let that opponent ever – Charles agrees with me even more than I do – we’re never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon.”
Will Charles help Donald make sure there’s nothing – and no one – to allow Iran to work on its nuclear project? It seems like the US will try to level Iran to the ground anyway. According to The Atlantic, the Trump administration began considering strikes aimed not simply at Iran’s military capacity, but at the faction inside the regime that Washington believed was preventing a deal.
Trump even reposted a video by Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen calling for an air campaign along those lines. According to Axios, the military prepared options for a “short and powerful” wave of strikes, which General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed the president on.
The timing is politically delicate. Trump has a state visit to China scheduled for mid-May, a trip that has already been postponed once. If strikes are ordered, they could come before the trip, allowing the president to travel after demonstrating strength. Or they could come immediately afterward, once the diplomatic optics are out of the way.
While Trump supplied the performance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio supplied the doctrine. When Trump spoke of military victory, royal agreement, and Iran never being allowed to possess a nuclear weapon, Rubio framed the same position as strategic necessity: Iran’s government cannot be trusted, its future intentions are already known, and any deal that fails to address the nuclear question is unacceptable.
The nuclear question, he said, is “the reason why we’re in this in the first place.” He insisted that if Iran’s “radical clerical regime” remained in power, it would eventually decide to pursue a nuclear weapon. Therefore, in his view, the issue has to be confronted immediately.
But there is something deeply ironic in this entire spectacle. Listening to Trump and Rubio, one might think Iran’s nuclear program appeared out of nowhere – a dark project born entirely from anti-Western ideology and clerical ambition. This is far from the case.
Iran’s nuclear program did not begin with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It did not begin with the Islamic Republic. It did not begin as an anti-American project. It began under the Shah, when Iran was a close US ally. And it began with direct American assistance.
When Iran’s nuclear dream was a Western project
The origins of Iran’s nuclear program were actually a pro-Western modernization project of the Shah’s era, and it was the Western countries that acted as the architects in the early stages, Nikolay Sukhov, a leading researcher at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations and professor at the HSE University in Moscow, told RT.
The Atoms for Peace program, launched by the Eisenhower administration, was designed to export nuclear technology to US allies for peaceful purposes: Research, energy, and medicine, Sukhov said.
Under the Shah, Iran was one of Washington’s priority partners.
Practical implementation began in the late 1950s, when Iran and the US signed an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Under the agreement, Washington committed to supplying Tehran with nuclear installations and equipment, and to helping train Iranian specialists.
Later, in 1967, the US delivered Iran’s first research reactor. Iranian nuclear experts were trained not only in the US, but also in Britain, Belgium, West Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France. Specialists from Israel, West Germany, France, and the US agreed to work on the project and started laying the foundation for a reactor at Bushehr in southern Iran and a research reactor in Isfahan. Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and ratified it in 1970, formally confirming the peaceful status of its nuclear program.
At the time, few in the West described Iran’s nuclear program as a nightmare, and very few warned that the world was about to be held hostage by Tehran’s atomic ambitions. The reason was simple: Iran was ruled by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah, a close American ally and a central pillar of US strategy in the Middle East.
The Shah’s nuclear ambitions, however, weren’t limited to a peaceful project. The whole thing was part of a much larger project, the ‘White Revolution’ launched in 1963 – a sweeping modernization program that he called the “revolution of the Shah and the people.”
Over the next decade and a half, Iran was transformed at extraordinary speed. A country that had recently been largely agrarian began building steel plants, machine-building factories, petrochemical complexes, automobile and tractor plants, gas and aluminum industries, and even the foundations of national shipbuilding and aircraft production.
“The shah placed his bet on large-scale nuclear energy as a pillar of industrialization and as a way to reduce dependence on oil. Paradoxically, that was precisely the logic: Nuclear power would free up more oil for export,” Sukhov said.
Israeli advisers, who Mohammad Reza Pahlavi reportedly listened to carefully, were among those who convinced him that a country with such vast oil wealth deserved its own nuclear power plants. This is an important detail, because today Israel presents Iran’s nuclear infrastructure as an intolerable threat by definition. But in the Shah’s Iran, Israeli involvement in strategic and technological modernization was not unusual. Iran and Israel maintained close security, intelligence, and technical ties. The same Iran that is now described as a permanent danger was then part of a regional order that Washington and its allies wanted to strengthen.
Israel’s role went back even earlier, to May 1958, when David Ben-Gurion received two Iranian nuclear scientists in his office. According to his notebooks, the visitors said they had come to establish ties with the Israeli scientific world and told him respectfully: “We have heard that in everything concerning science, you are at the level of the Americans.”
The Shah’s vision was simple and grandiose: To move Iran “from the Middle Ages into the nuclear age.” The nuclear project, in his mind, would place Iran in the top ranks of Middle Eastern countries. He said Iran would have nuclear weapons “without a doubt and sooner than one would think,” a statement he later disavowed.
Though the Western countries didn’t see Iran as anything but a partner, Washington did have concerns. Declassified documents from the Ford and Carter years show that US officials worried about the Shah’s interest in plutonium reprocessing, a technology that could provide a faster route to a bomb than enriched uranium. And yet no one seemed concerned enough to stop the process – or perceptive enough to notice another one unfolding in parallel: The slow build-up of a revolution that, within just a few years, would erupt.
“Western specialists in the 1960s and 1970s were not helping Iran build a military program. They were building a classic civilian nuclear system for an allied state, one that still depended heavily on Western technology and expertise,” Sukhov said. “Yet that same system, through its personnel, infrastructure, and institutions, eventually gave Iran the tools to pursue technological sovereignty in the nuclear field later.”
The Revolution that inherited the atom
By the time the Shah fell in 1979, the construction of Iran’s first two nuclear reactors, with German participation, had already entered the final stage. The monarchy was gone but the infrastructure remained. So did the idea that nuclear technology was not simply about electricity, but also about development, prestige, and national independence.
“The turning point came after the Islamic Revolution. Most Western specialists left the country, projects were frozen, and cooperation with the United States and Europe came to an end. But the infrastructure already built – along with the experts Iran had trained – became the foundation for a later program that was more autonomous, more closed, and much harder for the West to control,” Sukhov said.
Then came the Iran-Iraq War.
From 1980 to 1988, the Bushehr area was a repeated target of Iraqi air attacks. The unfinished nuclear plant, visible from a distance, was an obvious and symbolic target. According to Iranian media cited in the source material, American assistance allegedly helped guide Saddam Hussein’s pilots toward the facility several times. The attacks killed workers, damaged parts of the plant, and turned what had once been a prestige project of the Shah into a battlefield ruin.
For Iran, watching the region around it militarize, strike first, and treat nuclear capability as a question of survival were lessons that were hard to miss. It was in the years of the Iran-Iraq War that the idea of an ‘Islamic atomic bomb’ likely began to take shape in the minds of some Iranian leaders.
Publicly, the revival of the Shah’s nuclear program was presented as a matter of energy diversification. Iran had oil and gas, but it also had ambitions to become technologically self-sufficient. Nuclear technology was framed as a symbol of development and as a necessary attribute of any state that considered itself serious and sovereign. The possible military dimension was only one part of a broader Iranian drive for self-reliance in arms, technology, and industry.
After Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989, Iran’s approach to nuclear energy changed again. Under the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country resumed its nuclear ambitions and continued seeking technologies connected to nuclear capability. By the early 1990s, the country was recovering from the devastating war with Iraq and trying to rebuild a program that was disrupted by revolution, bombardment, sanctions, and the withdrawal of foreign specialists who helped build it in the first place.
Under US pressure, Germany, India, and Argentina declined to support Iran’s nuclear program. Iran turned to other partners, including China, Russia, and Pakistan. China signed nuclear cooperation protocols with Iran in 1985 and 1990, providing small research reactors, equipment related to uranium enrichment and fuel production, and more than a ton of natural uranium. Russia showed willingness to work on Iran’s civilian nuclear development, and in 1992, Moscow and Tehran signed a nuclear cooperation agreement.
In 1995, Iran finalized a cooperation protocol with Russia to complete the Bushehr reactor, the very project that had begun under the Shah with German involvement and which was battered during the Iran-Iraq War.
This cooperation was controversial, especially in Washington. Then-President Bill Clinton pressed then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin to halt nuclear assistance to Iran, reflecting American concerns that civilian nuclear cooperation could strengthen Iran’s broader technical base. In Russia, however, the argument was more complex. Some analysts believed that cooperation with Iran in nuclear energy could actually create channels of control and transparency: If Russia was involved, it would have contacts, oversight, and leverage that might help keep the project within civilian limits. The International Atomic Energy Agency did not at this stage report clear signs of a military component in Iran’s nuclear program.
There was also a practical economic factor. In the difficult post-Soviet years, Russia needed major industrial contracts, and the Bushehr project promised significant revenue for Russian companies and the state. For Moscow, the project was not necessarily understood as a dramatic geopolitical gamble. It was a civilian energy contract, a continuation of a half-built plant, and a way to preserve Russia’s role in the global nuclear industry.
There were, however, concerns. Some reports suggested that Russian contractors continued providing assistance beyond what Washington considered acceptable, including help involving heavy-water infrastructure and uranium mining. US and Israeli officials increasingly worried that Iran was acquiring not only nuclear power capability, but a wider industrial base that could shorten the distance to military applications if Tehran ever made the decision.
By 1999, reports indicated that Iranian specialists had begun testing enrichment equipment that would eventually be connected to the facility at Natanz. Then, in 2002, the crisis entered a new stage. The Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq revealed the existence of two previously undeclared nuclear sites: Natanz and Arak. This disclosure came at a moment when the US was already focused intensely on weapons of mass destruction, ‘rogue states’, and non-state extremist actors.
By early 2003, the scale of Iran’s progress had become clearer. Iran had advanced further than US intelligence had expected. It had completed a cascade of 164 centrifuges and was building many more. Natanz was designed to house tens of thousands of centrifuges. At Arak, inspectors found construction related to heavy-water production and a reactor that could produce plutonium.
For the first time, Iran’s nuclear program became not just a source of suspicion, but the center of an international crisis.
The snowball effect of mistrust of the same countries that helped Iran build its nuclear program is well known.
Even though Iran implemented the Additional Protocol to the NPT in 2003, strengthening the IAEA’s ability to inspect and verify the program, and another agreement extending the temporary suspension of Iran’s nuclear activities in 2004, the mistrust of the Western countries did not disappear. In 2005, the US again accused Iran of violating its commitments and developing a nuclear program, citing intelligence literally found on a stolen Iranian laptop.
Though experts questioned the reliability of this material, suggesting that Iranian opposition factions or a hostile state could have fabricated evidence, Washington successfully pushed for an IAEA resolution condemning Iran for a long history of concealment and failures to meet its obligations under the NPT. Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, rejected the resolution as “illegal and illogical” and described it as the result of a scenario designed by the US.
From that point on, the pattern hardened. Publicly, Washington and its partners spoke of diplomacy, inspections, safeguards, and nonproliferation. Privately, the US and Israel expanded intelligence cooperation and pursued covert means to slow Iran’s progress.
What had begun under the Shah as a Western-supported modernization project had become, under the Islamic Republic, a permanent international crisis.
The larger irony remained intact. Iran’s nuclear program began with American approval, European contracts, Israeli contacts, and international legitimacy. After 1979, the same infrastructure became radioactive in the political sense. It was no longer the nuclear dream of a friendly monarch. It was the nuclear ambition of a state that had broken with Washington.
Today’s American outrage has a strange historical aftertaste. Trump wants to erase what earlier American policy helped create, and Israel wants to destroy a nuclear capacity that Israeli experts once helped nurture. The point is not that Iran’s nuclear program was ‘good’ when the West helped build it and ‘bad’ once the Islamic Republic inherited it. The point is that it became unacceptable when it was no longer in the hands of a US-aligned client state.
After 1979, the same infrastructure, institutions, and expertise ended up under a government Washington could not control. And despite losing Western support, Iran managed to keep the program alive through procurement, covert development, and partial localization. Over time, this produced a more autonomous nuclear cycle. It also gave Iran the ability to move close to weapons-grade capability without formally leaving the NPT. This is what made the program so difficult for Washington to contain – not simply that Iran had nuclear technology, but that it had learned how to sustain and advance it without being a client of the West.
Nitrogen and phosphorus discharged into fjords match the raw discharge of millions of people, according to a new study
Fish farms in Norway release three times more waste into fjords than the country’s entire population produces, new research has suggested.
The findings come from the Sunstone Institute, an Oslo-based research group, which calculated the volume of fish excrement and uneaten feed discharged directly into coastal waters by nearly a
Nitrogen and phosphorus discharged into fjords match the raw discharge of millions of people, according to a new study
Fish farms in Norway release three times more waste into fjords than the country’s entire population produces, new research has suggested.
The findings come from the Sunstone Institute, an Oslo-based research group, which calculated the volume of fish excrement and uneaten feed discharged directly into coastal waters by nearly a thousand fjord-based farms in Norway.
Last year, “the nitrogen and phosphorus in this waste were equivalent to the raw sewage from 17.2 million and 20 million people, respectively,” the report said. “Triple the toilet waste from an entire country,” it added. Norway’s population is about 5.5 million.
The discharge has significant environmental consequences, the report argues. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus trigger algal blooms which, as they decompose, deplete oxygen and create “dead zones” where marine life struggles to survive. Uneaten feed drifting from cages also attracts wild fish, exposing them to elevated nutrient levels and degraded conditions.
The findings stand in contrast to Norway’s reputation as a global environmental leader. In the 2024 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), compiled by Yale and Columbia universities, the country ranked 7th out of 180 nations and placed 2nd globally for environmental health.
Norwegian authorities have not yet commented on the findings. Industry representatives have pushed back, with the Norwegian Seafood Federation telling the Guardian that current production remains “well within nature’s carrying capacity” and that there is no documented proof that operations are damaging fjords.
The sector is a major pillar of Norway’s economy. With the second-longest coastline in the world, the country is the largest producer of farmed salmon, accounting for more than half of global output. It supplies markets across Europe, the US and Asia, exporting 106,000 tonnes worth over $1.1 billion in March alone, according to the Norwegian Seafood Council.
The industry is dominated by a handful of large Norwegian-based companies, including Mowi, the world’s largest salmon farmer, Lerøy Seafood Group, and SalMar. Profits are concentrated among these major players. Mowi’s largest shareholder, shipping magnate John Fredriksen, ranks 118th on Forbes’ 2026 global billionaires list with a net worth of $21.2 billion.
The self-styled champions of international order have flocked to Armenia to strike a pose against Russia
Over the past several days Western leaders have flocked to Armenia, a post-Soviet nation of 3 million people which hosts a Russian military base, for what Western media has described as a “historic summit,” charting Yerevan’s path away from Moscow and highlighting the EU’s purportedly growing responsibility for world affairs.
The gathering gav
The self-styled champions of international order have flocked to Armenia to strike a pose against Russia
Over the past several days Western leaders have flocked to Armenia, a post-Soviet nation of 3 million people which hosts a Russian military base, for what Western media has described as a “historic summit,” charting Yerevan’s path away from Moscow and highlighting the EU’s purportedly growing responsibility for world affairs.
The gathering gave the host, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and his guests, an opportunity for political posturing – as well as a distraction from the global crisis they’re lurching into.
Who came to Yerevan?
Armenia hosted the latest summit of the European Political Community (EPC), an EU-led intergovernmental group launched in 2022 in response to the escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Originally the brainchild of French President Emmauel Macron, it was transparently designed as a vehicle for an anti-Russian agenda pushed by Brussels and London.
Molodova, an EU candidate state led by a fiercely anti-Russian government, hosted the EPC’s second annual gathering. The group also counts Ukraine among participants and welcomes at its events a Belarusian opposition organization led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, which is based in Lithuania and funded by EU taxpayers’ money.
So in short, it’s largely a club for opposing Russia with questionable entry standards.
What does Armenia get out of hosting the summit?
A lot of positive Western media publicity for Pashinyan, whose approval ratings at home barely cross into double digits. His premiership, launched with a soft coup in 2018, was marred by a lost proxy war with neighboring Azerbaijan for its region of Nagorno Karabakh.
The prime minister attempted to scapegoat Russia – faulting Moscow for a lack of military response during border clashes that were part of Yerevan’s broader stand-off with Baku. He also used government powers to crack down on the Armenian Apostolic Church, which played a leading role in protest against his government in 2024.
This does not make Pashinyan an authoritarian ruler in the eyes of his Western guests. After all, part of his media strategy has been to shave his beard and start posting videos of himself making heart shapes to pop music. European leaders, such as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, would rather echo the Armenian host’s emulation of a K-Pop star than question his governance.
Pashinyan’s efforts to distance Armenia from Russia and convince voters that the EU and the US would ensure their future safety have paid off – at least in the form of a pat on the back from Western leaders.
Eight years ago “nobody would come here,” Macron said on Monday, because when the EPC was launched Armenia was viewed as “de facto satellite of Russia.” He directly linked Pashinyan’s strategy with the Ukraine war and “what is done in Moldova.”
It’s safe to assume that Brussels will have Pashinyan’s back with all its usual ‘anti-interference’ shenanigans during the upcoming parliamentary election in early June. However, unlike Moldova’s President Maia Sandu, who has kept her office thanks to voters based in the EU, Pashinyan must win domestic support, since Armenian laws do not allow casting ballots outside of national territory (the Armenian diaspora numbers some 10 million).
Macron, whose presidency is set to end next year, threw some crumbs for the cameras covering the Yerevan circus by singing Charles Aznavour’s ‘La Bohème’ as Pashinyan played the drums.
Emmanuel Macron chante « la bohème » accompagné à la batterie par le premier ministre Nikol pachinyan . Dîner d’état à Erevan. La musique en amitié. pic.twitter.com/v5vacqZlVv
An inevitable presence at virtually every event involving the EU, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky popped up in Yerevan with the usual assurances that Russia is on the brink of defeat. Though he and Pashinyan are both fluent in Russian, they communicated in English on camera – political optics beating common sense, as it often does wherever Brussels has a hand.
During a photo op with Western leaders, some clerk who must be on the Kremlin’s payroll placed the Ukrainian leader next to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. The positioning was uncomfortable not due to political differences, but because Rama is a giant some two meters tall – contrasting with Zelensky whose height and speculated use of lift shoes has long been debated.
The Ukrainian leader is currently preoccupied with other kinds of optics. Just last week he was faced with a new series of allegations concerning his inner circle’s control and ownership of weapons companies receiving potentially billions in Western aid and orders.
Released transcripts of secret conversations between Zelenskys’ then Defense Minister and his long-time business partner, Timur Mindich – known as “Zelensky’s wallet” – show that Mindich is the beneficial owner of Fire Point, the former casting agency that became a billion dollar weapons company in just 4 years.
Acting Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose government forced through extraordinary legislation to accommodate a Fire Point facility on its territory, was spared the outrage that would have met her attending a meeting with Zelensky.
She skipped the meeting, as did German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
So what is all the fuss about?
According to European Council President Antonio Costa, Western dignitaries arrived in Yerevan mainly to demonstrate that “Europe’s way of doing things – diplomacy, multilateralism, and respect for international law – yields results.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a special guest, said he was “very appreciative of the symbolism” of being invited, and said international order “will be rebuilt out of Europe.” He previously argued that Western dominance was based on lies and urged beneficiaries to reject it, but failed to follow through.
US President Donald Trump, whose blatant military interventions have shattered the pretence of a benevolent, hegemonic, and united West, was “the elephant in the room” at the EPC gathering, according to the BBC. His latest strike against confused European NATO members was a drawdown of troops and long-range missiles from Germany. The move came after Merz dared to highlight American humiliation after Washington failed to defeat Iran and put the world on track for a global economic recession.
But Brussels may have had its revenge by challenging Trump’s diplomatic reengagement with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Tikhanovskaya was filmed shaking hands with Macron on the sidelines of the summit in Armenia, after reportedly passing on last year’s EPC meeting in Denmark due to financial constraints.
It is very important for us that Europe maintains unity and continues to act together. Today, I thanked 🇫🇷 President @EmmanuelMacron for the role that France plays today in Europe. #EPCpic.twitter.com/DaSx8E30I1
— Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) May 4, 2026
People behind the arms maker Fire Point, linked to Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle, believe peace is bad for business, MP Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed
Members of Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle are profiting from the ongoing conflict with Russia, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed. According to the MP, newly leaked information related to a major corruption case involving Timur Mindich, a former business partner and longtime a
People behind the arms maker Fire Point, linked to Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle, believe peace is bad for business, MP Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed
Members of Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle are profiting from the ongoing conflict with Russia, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed. According to the MP, newly leaked information related to a major corruption case involving Timur Mindich, a former business partner and longtime associate of Zelensky, could force the Ukrainian leader to step down.
Goncharenko claimed over the weekend he had obtained transcripts from surveillance recordings of Mindich and his business partners. Media outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda (UP) was the first to publish the leaks known as the ‘Mindich tapes’, which are yet to be officially verified.
One ‘tape’ focuses on a conversation between Aleksandr Zuckerman, a business partner of Mindich, and Igor Khemelev, who is believed to be a co-owner of Fire Point, a drone maker touted globally by Zelensky himself. According to the transcript published by Goncharenko on his Telegram channel, Khmelev told Zuckerman that “as soon as the peace [agreement] is signed, the hoax under which we were getting funding will be no more.”
The two then allegedly discussed ways to cash in on the government contracts by supplying as many arms to the military as possible.
“Zelensky built his entire election campaign on the fact that war is profitable… It turns out that it really is profitable and they really make money from it,” Goncharenko commented, calling the latest leak “something that should lead to Zelensky’s resignation.”
The ‘Mindich tapes’ also suggested that Mindich was effectively running Fire Point and was discussing additional funding for the arms maker with then Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. Mindich fled Ukraine late last year after being accused of orchestrating a $100 million graft scheme.
Last week, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Public Anti-Corruption Council said Fire Point would lose access to any government contracts at the very moment its ties to Mindich are “legally proven.” Its head, Yury Gudimenko, also said that the council had already obtained “unofficial confirmation” of Mindich’s “involvement” with the company.
Technology is enabling traffickers to identify, recruit, and control victims at scale, making exploitation harder to detect, a UK study warns
Artificial intelligence is helping criminals expand their entrapment of modern-day slaves across the UK, with traffickers increasingly using digital tools to identify and exploit victims, a new report has found.
Criminal networks in the UK are seeking to enslave people through coercion, deception, or force,
Technology is enabling traffickers to identify, recruit, and control victims at scale, making exploitation harder to detect, a UK study warns
Artificial intelligence is helping criminals expand their entrapment of modern-day slaves across the UK, with traffickers increasingly using digital tools to identify and exploit victims, a new report has found.
Criminal networks in the UK are seeking to enslave people through coercion, deception, or force, including forced labor, sexual exploitation, and human trafficking, the study, commissioned by the UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, has found. AI is enabling traffickers to “identify, recruit and control victims at scale,” making exploitation more widespread and significantly harder to detect.
The report noted that the number of reported cases reached 23,411 in 2025, the highest on record and marked a 22% annual increase, underscoring what officials describe as a growing crisis.
According to the study, AI-driven scams, deepfakes and synthetic identities are being used to target vulnerable individuals, while new forms of digital labor exploitation are expanding the pool of victims. These methods reportedly allow traffickers to operate more efficiently and with greater anonymity.
At the same time, economic pressures, including the rising cost of living, are increasing vulnerability, creating what the commissioner described as a “pipeline” of people at risk of exploitation.
Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Eleanor Lyons warned that without urgent action, modern slavery will become more complex, more hidden, and harder to combat. She called on the government to prioritize the issue, boost law enforcement resources, and raise public awareness.
Lyons stressed that the rapid evolution of technology means the threat is likely to continue growing.
The growing use of chatbots has long fueled concerns among independent researchers and government agencies worldwide about AI-enabled crime. While most illegal activities have been linked to the digital sphere, including hacking, cyberattacks, fraud, and identity theft, chatbots have also increasingly been implicated in facilitating more serious and violent crimes.
A recent joint investigation by CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that 8 out of 10 AI chatbots helped simulate violent attack planning, including school shootings and attacks on public figures. The research also found that most systems were willing to provide actionable guidance in violent scenarios to users posing as minors.
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