EU

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, has said American bases in Europe will become legitimate targets for Iranian strikes if the United States attacks Iran again. Is this bargaining, an attempt at intimidation, or the outline of a real plan? Can Iranian missiles actually reach Europe? And what happens to the continent's security if the words turn into action? I have gathered reports from Iranian, Western and regional sources and tried to make sense of them.

This morning I opened my feed and counted three stories that seem, at first glance, to have nothing to do with one another. The German chancellor is threatening to block Europe's common budget. European stockpiles have run dry, and there are almost no missiles left for Ukraine's air defense. And the White House has a new chief of staff, who, by all appearances, has little interest in Ukraine. I put the three facts side by side and got a picture I want to lay out in detail. Who is prepared to pay for Kyiv, and how much? Where do the missiles come from when there are none?

I read the November Gas Infrastructure Europe statistics twice. Europe has entered winter with the lowest autumn storage peak in the history of the data, and Germany has fallen below 60% faster than ever before. Where did the hole come from? Why is Moscow talking about $2,500 when the market trades at roughly half that? And who actually benefits from a cold snap that has not yet arrived?

What the First Days of November Showed

Globalization is not dead. It has stratified. Consumer goods still cross borders with the same old ease, but beneath the surface of the familiar world a new tectonics has emerged: chips, rare earths, energy and maritime chokepoints have become a battlefield. Economic efficiency, the god of the past thirty years, has yielded to a new idol: shock resilience. And whoever grasped this first is already rebuilding supply chains while the rest continue to believe the brochures about a "post-polar" world.

On October 20, the European Commission and the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, unveiled a strategy titled "Europe's Northern Neighbourhood." Security comes first among its four priorities. How far has the balance of power shifted? Are Brussels' ambitions realistic? And how might Moscow respond? We have gathered the facts and the views of two Russian experts.

What the document says

The banking systems of the United States and the eurozone look like the star pupil who has memorized the lessons of 2008. Capital is at record highs, stress tests have been passed, and bad loans are under control. But the exam questions have changed, and part of the class has started peeking at the cheat sheet of deregulation. The stability is real, but it rests on a wing and a prayer, a favorable scenario, and the hope that the commercial real estate wall of debt will somehow dissolve on its own.

If you think the protests in Europe flared up by chance, you are mistaken. But there is no single hand on the remote control either. Who gains from the fires? Why did Washington deliver its diagnosis in advance? And what does Russian gas have to do with it?

What Was Actually Burning

The Republican Party has no collective leadership, but there is one person whose word carries more weight than anyone else's: Donald Trump. The party's headquarters is flush with cash and free of debt, and money flows through MAGA Inc. and the Senate fund. Where are decisions made? How are the limits circumvented? Is it true that the fight against the Democrats is moving to Europe?

The Charter and the Reality

Prospects for a change in the US approach to Ukraine received concrete confirmation over the past week: a diesel deal with Moscow, a speed limit on Starshield, and discussion of easing sanctions on tankers. What exactly happened? How much of a turning point is it? What does it give Russian business and the budget? Let us go through the facts.

What Happened This Week

No one runs the US Democratic Party alone. The headquarters is in debt, the money is handed out by the committees of Schumer and Jeffries, closed-door funds push candidates, and activists pull to the left. Where are decisions made? How does money get around the limits? And is it true that the party is placing its people in Europe?

Official Bodies: What the Charter Says