war

Moscow, Russia – Russia faces a severe fuel deficit as Ukrainian drone strikes knock out a significant portion of its refining capacity.

With continuing war in Ukraine and agricultural harvesting under way, the government is scrambling to re-route supplies, maintain price caps and enforce export bans to prevent further domestic shortages.

Long lines at petrol stations are now a common sight throughout the country, including in the prosperous capital Moscow.

People wait for hours to fill up their cars. In some places, the pumps are completely dry.

There is a sense of patience but also mounting anxiety in the air.

“I’m deeply frightened by the uncertainty and the lack of understanding where the situation is heading,” a woman named Irina, waiting to fill up her car in Moscow, told Al Jazeera.

Igor, another Moscow resident, said: “I think things can get out of control if the crisis causes major industries to shut down.”

Both interviewees requested to withhold their surnames.

Analysts predict that increased fuel prices will mean higher transportation costs followed by significant price hikes for goods and services.

Stanislav Mitrakhovich, an expert at the National Energy Security Fund at the Russian Financial University, said the crisis is “deep, yet for a long time, Russian authorities were unwilling to acknowledge it”.

He added that the Russian response has led to “greater public distrust” of authorities and, consequently, triggered panic buying.

“Indirect evidence indicates that Ukrainian drone attacks have disabled about a quarter of Russia’s oil refining capacity,” he told Al Jazeera. “Seasonal demand has also contributed to the problem. The crisis has led to rising fuel prices and local shortages, as some regions simply lack oil refineries.”

The situation is “even worse” in regions close to the combat zone, he said. “Measures to restrict and ration fuel sales have long been in place there.”

To tackle the problem, Russia has imposed fuel rationing. Sales are often limited to about 20-30 litres (about 5-8 US gallons) per vehicle, and drivers must pump fuel strictly into vehicle tanks. Filling jerry cans is largely prohibited.

Earlier, the government banned petrol and jet fuel exports. Officials are now weighing a ban on diesel exports, too.

Authorities have loosened fuel-quality regulations, temporarily allowing lower-grade fuel for the domestic market.

In Russia-controlled Crimea, a state of emergency has been declared.

As the approaching agricultural harvesting season relies on a steady stream of diesel, authorities are prioritising farming allocations to prevent a hit to food security.

To offset the domestic shortfall, Moscow has sought fuel imports from neighbouring countries, such as Belarus, as well as Asian markets. Moscow has shipped in 60,000 to 80,000 tonnes of petrol from India, according to industry sources cited by the Reuters news agency. Russia reportedly plans to import 400,000 tonnes of petrol monthly from various countries.

‘I would say it is not critical’: Putin

While Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledges the crisis, he appears reluctant to end the war in Ukraine and insists the situation is under control.

“These attacks on our facilities certainly create problems, that is obvious. We are currently seeing a certain shortage, though I would say it is not critical,” he said.

“First and foremost, we have to rapidly and significantly increase production of air defence systems that are most in demand. We must also continue to improve them … Repairs at refineries must be completed more quickly.”

Ukraine is seizing its opportunity. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has authorised a 40-day military and intelligence campaign, aimed at pressuring Russia into ending the war.

Mitrakhovich said the way the crisis unfolds from here depends on what’s more effective: Ukraine’s drone strikes or Russia’s air defences.

U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers departed from RAF Fairford in the U.K. today, marking the end of a deployment to support the war against Iran. The flights come as the U.S. and Iran are still working toward a peace deal amid a shaky ceasefire occasionally marred by flare-ups of tit-for-tat attacks. However, there has been no mass bombardment of Iran since the April 8 ceasefire.

The departure was captured in video and still images by local aviation photographers, two of whom shared their work with us. Andy Riddle told us that six B-52s left RAF Fairford today in two waves of three. The first left at 10:15 a.m. local time and the second at about 2:20 p.m., noted Riddle, whose work can be found on his @Andyyyyrrrr X account.

B-52s land in the UK for Iran Ops

As we noted at the time, at least three of the bombers arrived at Fairford on March 8. It’s unclear when the others arrived. Both U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) declined comment.

In our previous reporting, we pointed out that during their time at Fairford, the B-52s operated at a high tempo, striking targets inside Iran. All told, the U.S. claims it struck 13,000 targets, though there is no way for us to know how many involved B-52s from Fairford.

You can see one of those jets leaded with stealthy JASSM cruise missiles in a photo shared with us by another local aviation photographer, who uses the @Saint1Mil X account.

Meanwhile, a dozen B-1 Lancer bombers remain at the base, according to @Saint1Mil.

Since the military won’t comment, we can’t say for sure why the BUFFs left Fairford, but the move comes after both the U.S. and Iran promised to hold off on further tit-for-tat strikes after the latest round that threatened the fragile ceasefire.

The flights also took place on a day when the U.S. and Iran concluded a round of indirect talks. However, there were no signs that the parties made headway toward a lasting peace. Instead, they focused “on issues that they had supposedly resolved two weeks ago,” Reuters reported.

“Sources said negotiators for the two countries spent two days in Doha discussing maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and financial incentives for Iran, two pillars of the initial agreement ​they signed in June, rather than more difficult topics that framework was supposed to tee up.”

The most difficult of these are the future of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Despite the ongoing talks, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume bombing Iran. He also has “weighed a return to all-out war with Iran, holding multiple conversations in recent days with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine on more strikes, but has decided to stick with diplomatic talks for now,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials familiar with the discussion.

The departure of the B-52s won’t preclude Trump from ordering a new round of strategic aviation attacks. Aside from the remaining B-1s, the Air Force can launch B-52s, as well as B-2 and B-1 bombers from the U.S. to strike Iran as it did during Epic Fury. However, having the B-52s stationed at a base like Fairford much closer to the action helps to cut down on flight times, wear and tear on the aircraft and crews, and increases the generation of sorties.

As we have frequently reported, given that the U.S. began building up forces in the region in January, many of the ships, aircraft and troops will have to ‘retrograde’ out of the CENTCOM area of responsibility in the coming weeks and months. We’ve already seen aircraft like A-10 Thunderbolt II close attack jets, F-22s, F-15Es and other assets return from the region. As a result, the future of the American footprint there remains a question mark even as negotiations continue. Reinstating a large force once it has been even partially drawn down, assuming there is the will to do so, would take time and would put extreme stress on a force structure that has seen constant surges of deployments over the last year.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Brent falls below $71 a barrel amid reports of progress in talks to end the war.

Oil prices have fallen to levels not seen since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran amid rising hopes for a breakthrough in negotiations aimed at sealing a permanent peace deal.

Brent crude fell more than 1 percent on Thursday to below $71 a barrel, returning the international benchmark to pre-war prices.

Brent futures for August delivery stood at $70.82 per barrel as of 04:30 GMT, lower than at any point since February 27.

Following the latest drop, Brent prices are down more than 38 percent from their post-war peak of more than $126 a barrel on April 30.

The slide came after Qatar, a key mediator between Washington and Tehran, said that US and Iranian officials had made “positive progress” in indirect talks aimed at resolving issues related to their memorandum of understanding (MoU) on ending the war.

US President Donald Trump also cast a positive light on the talks on Wednesday, saying the “denuclearisation of Iran is moving along well”.

Vandana Hari, the founder of the Singapore-based oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights, said a steady uptick in oil flows out of the Gulf and “cautiously optimistic geopolitical sentiment” had driven prices lower.

“Several key issues in the MoU remain unresolved, but the two sides appear to have backed off confrontation on the issue of the interim Hormuz transit regime, at least for the time being,” Hari told Al Jazeera.

“I expect crude to continue grinding lower until the backlog of stranded barrels has cleared, and prices could even swing into oversold territory,” she said.

“The real test of normalisation of Persian Gulf supply will come after that, necessitating fresh supply-demand balance recalibration.”

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of the global trade in oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime, has shown tentative signs of recovery in recent days after a sharp decline following attacks on two commercial vessels in the waterway on Thursday and Saturday.

At least 40 vessels transited the strait on Tuesday, according to data from MarineTraffic, up from 27 crossings on Monday and 22 on Sunday.

Maritime traffic nonetheless remains far below its pre-war level of roughly 130 daily crossings amid persistent concerns about safety in the waterway.

While Iran agreed to make its “best efforts” to arrange the safe passage of vessels in the MoU it signed with the US on June 17, Tehran has since repeatedly claimed the sole right to control movement through the strait.

At least 49 attacks on commercial vessels have been recorded in the strait since the start of the war, according to MarineTraffic, most of which were claimed by Tehran or blamed on its forces.

Prosecutors allege a yacht was used in the sabotage of pipelines, with the suspect leading the operation.

German federal prosecutors ⁠have filed charges ⁠against a 50-year-old Ukrainian national over a series of explosions that destroyed two Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines linking Russia to Europe in 2022.

The federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the specifics of the indictment on Wednesday against the accused, who is identified only as Serhii K in court documents under German privacy rules.

Serhii K is accused of attacking civilian energy infrastructure, causing an explosion, and destroying structures, according to the German public broadcaster ARD.

The underwater explosions damaged both the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines so severely that no gas could be transported through them, knocking out the key routes for Russian gas ⁠to Europe for months after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a December 2025 detention filing by the Federal Court of Justice, prosecutors allege that Serhii K helped coordinate a team that used a sailing yacht, the Andromeda, to place explosive devices on the pipelines near Denmark’s ⁠Bornholm Island in September 2022.

According to those documents, Serhii K is suspected of acting as the on-board coordinator and team leader, not as a diver or bomb expert.

The Berlin law firm Menaker, which is representing the accused Ukrainian, has not provided any details on the indictment.

Federal prosecutors confirmed to the AFP news agency that Serhii K was the same suspect who was arrested in August 2025 in Italy and extradited to Germany the following November, and who was named at the time as Serhii Kuznietsov.

At the time of his arrest, German prosecutors said Kuznietsov had used forged identity documents to charter a yacht, which departed from the German city of Rostock to carry out the attacks.

Kuznietsov has denied being part of the sabotage operation. He said he was a member of the Ukrainian armed forces and in Ukraine at the time of the incident, a claim his defence team has said would give him “functional immunity” under international law.

Answering a question from Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine during a news conference in Dublin on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was too soon to comment on the charges against Serhii K in detail.

“We have not officially received any details; at least I have not seen them”, Zelenskyy said. “It is too early to say yet,” he added.

Ukraine’s government has previously denied any involvement in the sabotage or knowledge of the plot to bomb the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.

Medical experts fear the aftermath of Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes could trigger a widening health crisis marked by untreated injuries, infectious diseases, and a healthcare system already on the brink of collapse.

Thousands of displaced Venezuelans are sleeping in crowded temporary shelters or outside without access to clean water amid dismal sanitary conditions following the June 24 earthquakes, which officials said on Wednesday killed at least 2,295 people and left more than 11,000 injured.

“The issue we foresee just around the corner is the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring,” said Eugenio Cova, the head of the trauma unit at Hospital Jose Gregorio Hernandez in Caracas.

“We’ve already gone through a period of complex trauma – which will continue to occur – but now, it’s complicated by infections,” Cova said.

Aid workers also warn that the extensive damage to infrastructure could fuel outbreaks of diseases in the hardest-hit communities.

“There’s been lots of reports among the population here with diarrhoea and other diseases,” said Al Jazeera’s correspondent Teresa Bo, reporting from a shelter site in the region of La Guaira.

“They’re asking, for example, for portable toilets, and also help from the government to try to reorganise this place to try to prevent overcrowding, but also the spread of disease,” Bo said.

US military deploys 900 personnel to aid Venezuela

The United States has deployed some 900 military personnel on the ground in Venezuela to support relief and rescue operations as of Wednesday, Steven McLoud, a spokesperson for the US military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), told The Associated Press news agency.

According to McLoud, the US military has repaired an earthquake-damaged runway at Venezuela’s main international airport, which serves Caracas, to allow for the arrival of humanitarian assistance, and has stationed naval vessels off the country’s coast to assist in the aid operation.

An additional 100 people from the US Department of State have been sent to support the efforts, McLoud said.

So far, the administration of US President Donald Trump has offered Venezuela $300m in assistance channelled through aid groups and the United Nations.

That contribution is just a fraction of the post-earthquake aid the country needs, with material damage from the devastating quakes estimated at more than $6.7bn, according to satellite analysis by the UN Development Programme.

About 50 other international aid teams have arrived in the country in recent days to help with search-and-rescue operations, including from Ecuador and Israel, which do not have diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

Against the odds, rescuers continue to find a small number of survivors, including on Tuesday, a toddler who had been trapped for six days beneath the rubble.

Kevin Simm, a volunteer aid worker, told Al Jazeera the scale of the destruction was akin to armed conflict.

“This obviously brings to mind the current situations that are going on across Gaza and Ukraine,” Simm said.

“It’s like a scene from a movie or from a war zone… We have never seen this in peacetime.”

Venezuela’s crisis-stricken hospitals dealt another blow

Long before the earthquakes, Venezuela’s public hospitals were strained by shortages of water, energy, critical medical equipment, and highly trained staff, according to reports.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since its economic crisis began in 2013 under then-President Nicolas Maduro, who was abducted by US forces in a military raid, along with his wife, earlier this year.

Many specialised doctors and nurses were among those who departed, with Venezuela’s medical association estimating that about one-third of its 60,000 registered physicians have left the country.

Huniades Urbina, a member of the board of Venezuela’s paediatrics association, said that a 2025 national survey of public hospitals revealed shortages of more than 30 percent of emergency supplies, and more than 70 percent of supplies in operating rooms.

Laboratories are “all practically closed or do the basic things only”, Urbina said.

The earthquakes “once again highlight the Venezuelan government’s inability to provide an adequate healthcare system that meets the needs of the Venezuelan people”, he added.

The new 210-member parliament takes shape, marking a historic shift after decades of Assad family rule.

The first parliament in Syria’s post-Assad era has taken shape with the release of a list of 70 legislators picked by President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The inauguration of the new parliament on Wednesday shows the country is moving ahead with drafting laws as the nation works on recovering from decades of iron-fist rule under longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December 2024 after more than 13 years of civil war, which killed about half a million people.

The head of Syria’s electoral committee, Mohammed Taha al-Ahmad, told reporters that the new 210-member legislature will hold its first meeting on Monday, when the new members will be sworn in, and the parliament’s presidential council will be elected.

Interim President al-Sharaa directly appoints one third of the 210 seats. His list of 70 legislators includes 15 women, raising the number of female members in the legislature to 22.

Syria held the first phase of its parliamentary elections in October last year while excluding the southern province of Suwayda, a predominantly Druze governorate and where no date has been set yet for a vote due to security concerns.

The October vote also excluded northeast Syria, which was under Kurdish control. A vote in that region was held in May after government forces took control of the area during deadly clashes earlier this year.

The new parliament also includes representatives of the Alawite community and two legislators from Suwayda.

“Initially, there was a very small portion of the elected members that were from some of the minority groups, such as the Kurdish community,” said Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from the capital Damascus.

“The appointees by the president remedied that by adding several more Kurdish members from the Hasakah governorate,” Hitto added.

The new parliament will have a 30-month term and work on a new elections law while preparing the ground for a popular vote in the next elections, according to al-Ahmad, as a test for the country’s transition.

America 250” is no “Spirit of ‘76.”

For those of us who remember the bicentennial, the semiquincentennial is a complete and utter dud. Many fine festivities will take place on and around July 4, but compared with the years-long nationwide celebration that marked this country’s 200th anniversary, 250 feels like a nonevent.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Semiquincentennial (meaning half of a 500-year anniversary) certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as bicentennial and our current president isn’t making it any catchier. Mostly because he seems to think 250 is the new 80 (the birthday President Trump recently marked with his UFC Freedom 250 cage match on the White House lawn).

As many have noted, Trump’s method of honoring this country’s birthday involves making it all about him by demolishing parts of the White House (to install a new bunker-like ballroom), attempting to set up a $1.8-billion slush fund for pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, seeking to build a triumphal arch that a majority of Americans oppose and trying to slap his name and/or image on any surface he can think of (including a proposed $250 bill). No wonder so many artists have dropped out of the concert series planned for the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C.

To be fair, the federal government’s involvement in bicentennial planning also got bogged down with political and personal hubris. The national commission, originally created by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was reformed under President Richard Nixon. Plagued by criticism and scandal, it was eventually dissolved by Congress and replaced by a new commission that decided to mostly fund community celebrations.

There was much hand-wringing over missed opportunities at the time, but for more than a year, state and local governments staged reenactments, parades and patriotic events all over the country while the commercial sector star-spangled the crap out of everything: T-shirts, bell-bottoms and bathing suits; curtains, bedspreads and throw rugs; dishware, glassware and Tupperware.

The Declaration of Independence appeared on highball glasses, tea towels and collectible plates. Beginning in 1974, CBS ran mini-history lessons called “Bicentennial Minutes,” which were then sent up on shows as diverse as “Hee Haw” and “Maude.” George Washington and other Founding Fathers graced Pez dispensers, coasters and the cover of Mad Magazine. There was a bicentennial Barbie and a colonial Campbell’s Soup doll. McDonald’s sold red, white and blue milkshakes, Burger King offered a flag-bedecked series of glass tumblers, Disney characters wore tricorn hats for a line of park merchandise.

Some called it the “buy-centennial” but for a kid who daily rocked Stars and Stripes sneakers, and, thanks to a year’s worth of American-history-themed “Schoolhouse Rock!,” could, and would, sing the preamble to the Constitution or the anthem “No More Kings” at the drop of a hat, it was great fun.

Now, of course, “No More Kings” is an anti-Trump protest theme, and the right has so co-opted patriotism that wearing a flag-emblazoned T-shirt can feel somehow partisan. American history itself has become a bone of contention, with the left accusing the right of whitewashing this country’s inarguable sins — Native American displacement, slavery, gender inequality and racist policies — while the right insists that the left is obsessed with undermining our nation’s power and legacy by “woke”-shaming it.

The only thing each end of our divided political spectrum can agree on is that democracy is under mortal threat from the other.

That’s one good reason to feel less than festive, and there are plenty of others, including increased political violence, the war in Iran, tariffs, surging gas prices, civil rights rollbacks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics, artificial intelligence’s threat to jobs, the resurgence of measles, the rising cost of just about everything and the fact that some critics are claiming that Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” is less full of wonder than “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

But things weren’t so great heading into the bicentennial either. I was 12 at the time, born nine months after Alabama Gov. George Wallace gave his infamous “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” speech and less than two months before President Kennedy was assassinated. I hadn’t been alive a year when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan and hadn’t turned 5 when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were also assassinated.

Sure, it was that now-wistfully remembered time when kids went out in the morning and played, mostly unmonitored, until nightfall (with the inevitable trips to the doctor for stitches and tetanus shots for those wounds too obvious to hide from parents). But by the time the bicentennial rolled around, my life had played out against the backdrop of civil unrest and the Vietnam War, both spilling from our black-and-white television almost nightly.

I was 9 when Wallace, then a presidential candidate, was shot and 10 when I learned what OPEC and gas siphoning meant as my family spent hours in an un-air-conditioned car, inching toward the gas pump after the 1973 “Yom Kippur” Arab-Israeli War resulted in oil shortages.

That same year, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from office, pleading “no contest” to charges of tax evasion but avoiding prosecution for charges of bribery and criminal conspiracy, and Nixon appointed House Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-Mich.) to Agnew’s place. In 1974, Nixon, faced with impeachment for his part in the Watergate scandal, became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

The bicentennial’s tall ships festivals, fife and drum parades and Old Glory consumer fest occurred in a country reeling from more than a decade of history-changing assassinations, civil unrest, economic anxiety and high-level political corruption (not to mention a collective fear of the ocean brought on by the 1975 release of Spielberg’s “Jaws”). Democracy was celebrated under Ford, the first, and thus far only, president to come to office through the provisions of the 25th Amendment rather than a national election.

A president who, after being regularly and ruthlessly lampooned by comedian Chevy Chase on the nascent “Saturday Night Live,” reacted by becoming friends with Chase instead of, you know, forcing the network to fire him.

If the bicentennial roiled with some of the same tensions Americans feel today, it did benefit from a cultural cohesion that no longer exists. The year 1976 saw the founding of Apple and the introduction of VHS tapes, but the national audience was still very much a reality. Back then, you couldn’t escape the songs of the summer — “Silly Love Songs” (Wings), “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (Elton John and Kiki Dee) and “Afternoon Delight” (Starland Vocal Band) — any more than you could miss those “Bicentennial Minutes.” We all listened to the radio, watched TV, went to the movies and bought books, and our preferences revealed the country’s desire for both comfort and change.

On the bestseller lists, Agatha Christie’s final Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple books marked the end of an era, toggling in the No. 1 spot with the political turbulence of Gore Vidal’s “1876” and Leon Uris’ “Trinity.” “Rocky” beat “All the President’s Men,” “Taxi Driver,” “Network,” “Marathon Man” and “The Omen” at the box office and, later, in the best picture Oscar race.

On television, Americans sought the nostalgic comfort food of “Happy Days,” “The Waltons” and “Little House on the Prairie” amid the more pointed social comedies of “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “MASH,” all of which had nightly averages of 20 million or more viewers.

In today’s cultural landscape, defined by social media bubbles, streaming services and Spotify libraries, the gap between mass audience and cultural significance is much wider than it was 50 years ago (“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” may be the highest-grossing movie of the year, but it’s hard to imagine it winning best picture) and mass audience has become a relative term for pretty much everything that is not the Super Bowl.

Even so, we too find ourselves rooting for the little guy (“Project Hail Mary”) and reaching into the past for inspiration (a new “Little House on the Prairie” debuts next week on Netflix) even as we contemplate the future of tech (“The Six Billion Dollar Man” has become every computer genius who can leap a firewall).

I don’t know what it was like to be an adult in 1976, but I remember my parents fretting over the grocery budget, nixing travel plans because of the price of gas and worrying about the future of a country that seemed so irreparably divided. To paraphrase the Diana Ross hit of the time, did we know where we were going to? Not at all. The bicentennial occurred during an election year, with all the partisan denunciations that entails (though when Jimmy Carter narrowly beat Ford, no one thought of contesting the results).

Even so, most Americans were still ready to party, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of a long-shot revolution that resulted in the United States of America.

So does it stink that the semiquincentennial has been such a flop? Yes, it does. But, as is written in its very singable preamble, the Constitution was written “in order to form a more perfect union.” Not “perfect,” but “more perfect.” As in better.

Even in the most troubled times, the cornerstone of our democracy is the understanding that we will always need to do better and there is a living document that allows us to do so.

And 250 years’ worth of that is definitely worth celebrating.

Skaters from Russia and Belarus banned “exclusively in the interests of the safety of participants and the integrity of the competitions” can return to world championships and Grand Prix events next season.

The International Skating Union said Tuesday that the ban triggered by Russia’s 2022 military invasion of Ukraine is over. But skaters and officials from Russia and Belarus may compete only as neutral athletes, meaning without their national symbols of flag and anthem.

The figure skaters, speed skaters and short track speed skaters will be allowed to participate as long as they have not supported the war in Ukraine. A neutral skater is not eligible if they are in active service with the armed forces or a national security agency of Russia or Belarus; have taken active part in military operations in the war against Ukraine; and-or have actively and publicly supported that war.

In announcing the decision, the ISU council described the ban as a “protective measure” and emphasized that “those measures were expressly stated not to be a sanction, disciplinary measure or ineligibility decision.”

The war in Ukraine is in its fifth year since the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022. According to Global Conflict Tracker, Russia occupies roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory and fighting persists with ongoing Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities. Meanwhile, Ukraine has launched retaliatory drone strikes deep into Russian territory targeting energy and military infrastructure.

Nearly 56,000 civilians have died or been injured, while 3.7 million people are internally displaced. Through 2025, Ukraine had received about $188 billion in aid from the United States and $197 billion from the European Union.

“The ISU continues to condemn all armed conflict around the world,” the ISU said in a statement. “The ISU continues to provide financial support to Ukrainian skaters through various initiatives, including the ISU Development Program, contributions to the Ukrainian Skating Federation, and a support program for displaced skaters.”

The ISU council’s decision to lift the ban on Russian skaters took into account “developments across the Olympic Movement and the differing approaches of other International Federations.”

While acknowledging that the lifting of restrictions had given rise to occasional protests at competitions, the participation of neutral Russian and Belarusian athletes in 2025-2026 Olympic qualification events and at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games were completed “without related incident.”

Russian figure skaters Adeliia Petrosian and Petr Gumennik were cleared to compete with neutral status in Milan and both finished sixth in their events. Viktoriia Safonova of Belarus also competed as a neutral athlete.

“Skaters should not be held responsible for the actions of their governments,” the ISU posted. “Safety remains the guiding consideration for any further easing. The ISU will continue to monitor conditions at ISU events and will relax restrictions further only when satisfied that no safety or integrity issues arise, and reserves the right to reintroduce or increase restrictive measures should such issues emerge.”

Neutral athletes could face difficulty obtaining entry visas from countries hosting ISU events. The 2027 figure skating, short track and speed skating world championships will be hosted by Finland, South Korea and China, respectively.

The International Olympic Committee was instrumental in the ISU decision, advising sports bodies to readmit athletes from Belarus on May 7 without vetting for neutral status.

US president says a meeting with Iran will take place in Doha today, but Tehran says there are no plans for talks in the coming days.

US president says talks will take place on Tuesday, but Tehran has not confirmed the negotiations in Doha.

President Donald Trump says a meeting will take place between Iran and the United States in Qatar on Tuesday, suggesting that diplomacy is still on track despite the recent military skirmishes in the Gulf.

Trump’s announcement on Monday came less than two hours after a top Iranian official said that technical talks over the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran “are not planned” for this week.

“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the meeting would take place after conditions are met, without providing details.

“Although consultations with Qatar, including regarding the follow-up of the implementation of the other party’s commitments, are ongoing as usual, the news from some media outlets that technical talks of the working groups will be held in Doha cannot be confirmed,” Gharibabadi told Tasnim news agency.

The two statements from Washington and Tehran appear to contradict each other, but it is possible that a breakthrough finalising the meeting occurred after Gharibabadi’s comment.

Iran, however, has not confirmed that talks have been scheduled.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will lead the US negotiating team in Doha.

“Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week as we continue to discuss the memorandum of understanding,” she told Fox News.

Leavitt added that technical talks will take place on the sidelines of the high-level negotiations.

The US and Iran reached a deal to end the war earlier this month, kicking off a 60-day period of negotiations over the thorniest issues in the relationship – Tehran’s nuclear programme.

But the deal has been tested by Israel’s continuing attacks in Lebanon and Iran’s assertion of control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The first sentence of the 14-point MoU calls for a full ceasefire in Lebanon, “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty” of the country.

But the US has sponsored a separate agreement between the Lebanese government and Israel that conditions Israeli withdrawal on the disarmament of Hezbollah across the country.

Hormuz has been another sticking point. Iran has rejected routes through the strait outside of its control and fired at ships passing through lanes not designated by Tehran.

The US has struck Iranian positions near the waterway, to which Iran responded with missile and drone attacks against American bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.

But diplomatic and de-escalation efforts appear to continue, despite the trading of attacks.

“As far as we’re concerned, we’re holding up our end of the ceasefire,” Leavitt said on Monday, but she warned that “violence will be met with violence” if Iran attacks commercial ships or US interests.

On Monday, Trump hailed the drop in oil prices that followed the deal, which lifted Tehran’s blockade on Hormuz and eased US sanctions on Iran’s energy products.

“GAS PRICES COMING DOWN, FAST! REPORT ANY ABUSES AT RETAIL LEVEL,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The average price of one gallon (3.8 litres) of gasoline in the US has dropped to $3.86, down from a peak of $4.56 in May. It was less than $3 before the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine has proposed a mutual halt to long-range strikes and a meeting with Kyiv’s leadership. But, though he says he is considering the proposal, he believes the deal would benefit Ukraine more than Russia.

Washington and Tehran have agreed to stop attacks and renew talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, Axios reports.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) the United States and Iran have signed is not a peace treaty. It is not even a credible framework for one. A vocal chorus of critics has rushed to portray it as a humiliation – evidence that President Donald Trump was manoeuvred into negotiations and extracted a poor deal from a regime that outplayed him.

That reading mistakes a mirage for reality. The Trump administration entered these talks with a precise understanding of what the Iranian regime is, what it wants and what any agreement with it is actually worth. No one in that negotiating team harbours the illusion that Tehran intends to honour commitments that constrain its core ambitions. The MоU is not a peace settlement. It is a mutually understood pause – a tactical intermission chosen by both sides for reasons that have nothing to do with trust and everything to do with time.

To grasp why, one needs only consult Iran’s unbroken record. That record is not a matter of interpretation or political dispute. It is a documented history of agreements made, commitments given and obligations systematically abandoned whenever honouring them conflicted with the regime’s objectives.

The pattern is consistent enough to constitute a doctrine: Iran negotiates under pressure, signs what is necessary to relieve that pressure and resumes its course once the immediate threat has passed.

The deeply flawed 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the most prominent recent demonstration of this cycle. Presented as a landmark of multilateral diplomacy, it was in practice a subsidised intermission – a breathing space Iran used to consolidate resources, sustain its proxy networks and continue advancing its strategic programme. The JCPOA did not change Iranian behaviour. It funded and protected it.

The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign was a direct response to that lesson: A regime of this kind cannot be managed through diplomatic lifelines. It can only be constrained by pressure severe enough to leave it no viable alternative to compliance.

The new MoU does not signal that Iran has changed. Its calculus remains what it has always been – survival and expansion, pursued through whatever tactical posture the moment requires. When pressure mounts, Iran negotiates. When pressure eases, Iran advances. Its negotiators are, by all available evidence, prepared to offer assurances they have no intention of keeping. This is not a failure of diplomatic craftsmanship. This is simply the nature of any negotiation with a regime like Iran’s.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Iranian nuclear programme. As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has repeatedly committed to transparent cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has repeatedly broken those commitments, blocking inspections, constructing clandestine enrichment facilities, destroying evidence and systematically deceiving the international community. The pattern is not one of occasional noncompliance. It is deliberate, sustained deception in pursuit of a single unwavering objective: the acquisition of a nuclear weapon.

A state genuinely committed to civilian nuclear energy has no need for a vast and enormously expensive domestic enrichment programme. Nuclear fuel can be purchased – from Russia, among others – at a fraction of the cost and without the international confrontation such a programme inevitably provokes.

Iran has chosen the far more costly and dangerous path for one reason: Enrichment is not a means to an end, but the end itself. Its rulers are committed to a nuclear weapon, and that commitment has survived changes in personnel, shifts in rhetoric and decades of pressure.

It will not be bargained away – and here lies the critical point that no amount of diplomatic optimism can paper over. Iran’s rulers are not pragmatic actors engaged in a conventional cost-benefit calculation. Their goals are theological and strategic in a way that places them beyond the reach of ordinary negotiation.

They do not govern in the interests of the Iranian people. The sanctions they have endured have devastated ordinary Iranians – driven up poverty, hollowed out the middle class, denied the population access to medicines and opportunity. None of that has moved the regime one degree from its course.

This is a regime that could, if it chose, transform its position entirely. It could make peace with its neighbours, normalise relations with the international community, shed the sanctions that have devastated its economy and dramatically improve the lives of Iranians. The price is not beyond reach: abandon the nuclear weapons programme, cease development of offensive ballistic missiles and end the sponsorship of terrorist proxies. Iran’s rulers have refused that bargain consistently and completely.

That is the essential context for understanding what the Trump administration is actually doing. It would be a serious misjudgement to read this MoU as evidence of American weakness or strategic confusion. The team that designed and executed the most effective pressure campaign against Iran in recent memory is not naive about this adversary.

Trump enters this pause knowing that Iran will not honour commitments that genuinely constrain it. He is not expecting otherwise. Neither side, in all likelihood, operates under any such illusion – which is precisely what makes the critics’ alarm about a “bad deal” somewhat beside the point.

You cannot be cheated by an agreement you never expected the other party to keep.

What this MoU represents is a mutually understood strategic pause, a breathing space both parties have chosen, for entirely different reasons, over immediate confrontation. Iran needs economic relief. A regime facing internal decay and a depleted treasury has strong incentives to buy time, replenish its resources and wait out what it calculates to be a finite window.

Tehran is acutely aware that Trump has roughly two and a half years remaining in office. From its perspective, survival through that period is itself a form of victory.

Washington’s calculus is different in kind. Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is an immediate, non-negotiable goal – a choked strait means an energy price shock with global consequences. Beyond that, the US has its own repositioning to accomplish. Military inventories drawn down through recent operations are being restocked. Strategic options are being preserved and expanded.

A pause that enables that rebuilding, while avoiding a premature confrontation on unfavourable terms, is not a concession. It is preparation.

Trump has never wavered in his commitment to eliminating Iran as a strategic threat – not through wishful diplomacy, but through the kind of pressure that forecloses options. That commitment did not expire with the signing of this MoU. The question for Tehran is not whether American resolve exists but whether it can be outlasted. That is a wager the Iranian regime has made before and lost.

The international community will, as usual, observe from a careful distance. Many nations will urge Iran to be stopped while taking few steps to stop it, criticising US action and inaction with equal facility.

Trump understands this dynamic. It is the foundation of his approach to alliances – the insistence that partners bear proportionate burdens rather than simply drawing on American resolve while contributing little of their own.

The MoU will not resolve the Iranian problem. It was not designed to. When its terms expire or when Iran decides it has served its purpose, the nuclear programme will resume its advance, the proxies will be better resourced, and the Strait of Hormuz will once again become a flashpoint.

That outcome is not a possibility. Given Iran’s record, it is a near-certainty. The only consequential variable is whether the US and those willing to stand alongside it will be better positioned to act decisively when that moment arrives. Far from a mirage, the evidence suggests that is precisely what this administration is working to ensure.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Tehran, Iran – The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed last week between Iran and the United States appears to be in jeopardy after a second day of military strikes, as well as the a framework agreement that entrenches Israeli forces on Lebanese soil.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sunday released video showing the launch of ballistic missiles overnight, with a message written on them in English and Persian saying US President Donald Trump was insisting on a “defeated war”.

The IRGC said it had fired missiles and drones towards the US Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait and the US Fifth Naval Fleet in Bahrain in retaliation for a second day of US strikes. It threatened more attacks if the deal is violated again by the “deceitful” US, which, along with Israel launched air attacks across Iran on February 28.

The exchanges of fire come after the US coordinated the transit of vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz in cooperation with Oman and the International Maritime Organization.

Many ships were being directed through Oman’s waters, which prompted the IRGC to hit a container ship and a tanker with explosive-laden drones in an attempt to force traffic to pass through Iranian waters instead.

Speaking to reporters in neighbouring Iraq on Sunday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran will exercise sole management and oversight of the critical waterway for the next 30 days before allowing full traffic to resume.

He also emphasised the first clause of the June 17 MoU, which says military operations must immediately and permanently end on all fronts, including Lebanon, and urged Washington to exert pressure on Israel to stop attacking southern Lebanon.

The governments of Israel and Lebanon reached a US-brokered framework deal on Friday that allows Israeli forces to remain in southern Lebanon, until Tehran-backed Hezbollah is fully disarmed. That appears to contradict the MoU signed with Iran.

Hezbollah swiftly rejected the agreement, calling it “humiliating, shameful and a surrender” of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, said she expected the Lebanon issue to negatively impact the MoU because Hezbollah was not on board and the Lebanese government’s previous ceasefire deals with Israel have been repeatedly violated.

She also told Al Jazeera that Iran has found tremendous leverage with the Strait of Hormuz, treating it as a “golden card”, as the disruption to oil exports has heavily impacted markets and made the war unpopular among many, including in the US.

“They are using that leverage to the max and not going back to the status before the war, pretending like no war happened,” she said, adding that Iranian authorities and the IRGC have sought to centre themselves in the process of coordinating transit through the strait.

“They’re saying they want traffic to go through in coordination with them, and I think they will be able to exert that kind of power,” she said.

On Saturday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei released an image of their first publicised trilateral meeting since the start of the war more than four months ago.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen or heard from since succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli attack on the first day of the war. But a new written text message attributed to him on Sunday said: “What is certain is that the criminals must be seized by the collar and made to face the punishment for their criminal acts”.

Supporters of the Islamic Republic cheered on the latest IRGC attacks against US interests as they continued demonstrating on the streets overnight into Sunday as hardline politicians and analysts called for further attacks until Iran gets better concessions.

On the state-linked talk show, Tamam Rokh, political analysts said Tehran should significantly strengthen its ties with Moscow and Beijing.

“We could do many things with help from Russia and China to damage US strategic equipment in the region like vessels, refuelling aircraft and electronic warfare,” pro-state analyst Ali Samadzadeh said on the programme on Saturday.

“There was no movement in Tehran to tie Beijing and Moscow to the war, and this major flaw exists in the form of the negotiations and the text of the MoU as well,” he said.

More than 60 hardline legislators on Sunday postponed plans to protest against the closure of parliament since the start of the war after its presiding board said it would meet to reconvene the assembly, following Ali Khamenei’s burial next month.

Many others say demands for extracting major concessions from the US and Israel do not correspond with the reality of the situation after months of war.

“In terms of military power, we couldn’t do anything about the US blockade and we didn’t think the crisis would get so serious,” pro-state commentator Vahid Ashtari told crowds at a street event in Tehran.

“I think a type of blind idealism has emerged that believes we are on top and at the peak, so we shouldn’t make a deal. But there are facts on the ground. We have some missiles and drones to carry out an asymmetric defence, but we have no fighter jets to fly to the US and hit Trump. Not only could we not avenge [Khamenei], we could not avenge Haj Qassem either,” he added, in reference to General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the US in 2020.

After two nights of attacks, Iran’s financial markets also reacted poorly, with the national currency losing gains since the signing of the MoU to trade at about 1.7 million rials against the dollar in Tehran’s open market on Sunday.

The main index of the Tehran Stock Exchange also lost more than 100,000 points to stand at just over five million points at the end of trading on Sunday, the second day of the working week in Iran.

Vahid, a 37-year-old mechanic who also deals in car parts in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, told Al Jazeera that while the market has marginally improved since the signing of the deal with the US, it is still treading on thin ice.

He said parts for foreign cars are becoming harder to find, while prices have been rising rapidly for both domestic and foreign vehicle parts.

“I think the war will start again over the coming months and some in the bazaar think the same,” he said.

Bahrain and Kuwait have condemned Iran’s retaliatory attacks after a second day of US strikes on Iran. Tehran University academic Hassan Ahmadian argues the US is trying to find its way out of the Memorandum of Understanding that Trump signed 10 days ago, ending the war.

WASHINGTON — A spectacular economic upturn is on its way, President Trump promised Americans last week, galvanized in part by a deal brokered this month to end his war with Iran.

“Very soon you’ll be at $2.50 a gallon for gasoline,” Trump told a crowd Wednesday night on the National Mall. The next year, he said, “is set for an economic boom the likes of which no nation has ever seen before.”

Economists are skeptical. The effects of the war and other factors driving inflation are likely to stick around for months, experts say, presenting an ongoing challenge to American households — and to Trump’s party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

Yesenia De La Torre, 24, from Culver City pumps gas at the Chevron gas station on Sawtelle Boulevard and Culver Boulevard on June 15. Despite an agreement announced Sunday to end the Iran war and open the Strait of Hormuz, high oil, gasoline prices and energy supply problems won’t be solved overnight.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The war’s end will not create “a complete snap-back,” said Patrick Harker, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“Markets are still cautious, and the infrastructure that’s been destroyed [in the Middle East] is going to take a while to re-create,” Harker said. “Inflation’s going to stay elevated for a while.”

Oil prices were dropping last week — falling to their prewar level Friday — and average gas prices fell by 7 cents per gallon over a week ago. But it will take significant time for oil shipping to ramp up through the Strait of Hormuz, infrastructure to be rebuilt and gas prices to drop, said Michael Negron, senior fellow for economic opportunity at the Center for American Progress.

“I would expect there to be a continued inching downward,” Negron said, but “we’re not going to just go back within weeks to $2.90 per gallon.”

That means the prices of gas and of other essentials aren’t likely to improve dramatically before the midterms, in which affordability has become a driving issue. It could heighten challenges for Republicans, who are defending their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, as Democrats seek to leverage the issue to gain ground.

Positive messaging about the economy from Trump and other officials “doesn’t really resonate” with Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, said Gina Plata-Nino of the Food Research and Action Center, a national anti-hunger advocacy organization.

“When you’re still making the same amount of money but there’s less for you to be able to pay [for] your basic needs — gas is more expensive, food is more expensive — it doesn’t really add up,” she said.

A fruit stand on West 7th Street sells bananas for $2 per bunch.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Americans question the costs

The Iran war has cost the average American household between $775 and $1,300 so far in fuel and taxpayer costs, according to an analysis by Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The national average gas price sat at $3.90 on Friday, according to AAA, and California’s average was $5.48 per gallon, down 13 cents from a week earlier.

The increase in oil prices has also affected diesel and fertilizer prices, creating a ripple effect through several sectors, including agriculture. Consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier, putting the inflation gauge at a three-year high.

Trump has leaned on a bullish message about the economy, but he has largely dismissed Americans’ worries about affordability, calling it a “fake word” and a “hoax.” Last week, he undermined the first major progress by Congress on the issue, refusing to sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill after both chambers passed it.

President Donald Trump closes his eyes as Dr. Ben Carson, left, speaks during an event with the White House Religious Liberty Commission in the Oval Office on Friday.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating on the economy dropped to 33% last week in an NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll — his lowest ever for that poll and 3 points below former President Biden’s worst reading on the question during his term.

Nearly four-fifths of respondents said that gas prices present some sort of strain, with 34% categorizing it as a major strain and 44% calling it a minor strain. Half of respondents who said they were not vacationing this summer said cost was the reason.

And only 23% of Americans say the war was worth the costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted days after the Trump administration announced the framework agreement to end the conflict earlier this month.

“People [are] just feeling like they’re getting left behind,” Harker said. “That’s a very real, palpable feeling when you go out and talk to people. They’re worried.”

The president and his party need a midterms message that “real economic change” is coming, said Brian Reisinger, a rural policy analyst in Wisconsin and a former GOP strategist.

“It has to be substance behind the sell,” Reisinger said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) speaks to reporters after the weekly Senate policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Thune spoke on a meeting with President Trump on the Iran deal.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

U.S.-Iran talks on shaky ground

Trump’s boosters have hailed the Iran deal as a victory for the president. And Trump has justified the shock to gas prices as “worth it not to have a nuclear weapon” in Iran, though the war has not achieved the president’s stated aims, which included the elimination of its nuclear program.

“President Trump was clear all along that there would be short-term, temporary disruptions to energy markets, and that oil and gas prices will quickly fall as soon as the Iran situation is resolved,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Friday.

How rapidly the conflict will be resolved is not yet clear. The U.S.-Iran negotiations were on shaky ground by week’s end, with each country offering diametrically opposed messaging on the status of key points of negotiation.

Analysts say much of the increase in traffic through the strait has been driven by the return of Iranian oil to global markets. Trump agreed in the controversial deal with Iran to lift sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to resume trading its most valuable export and breaking with decades of U.S. policy.

The unpredictability of the talks is another factor keeping energy companies, shippers and insurers cautious for now, Negron said.

“Everything is to be negotiated in the next nearly two months,” he said. “It is natural to expect there to be additional risk priced into each barrel of oil, into the insurance people are paying, just because of the volatility and uncertainty of where we are.”

Iran has launched attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait after the United States struck five Iranian targets, escalating tensions and threatening the fragile ceasefire agreed by the two sides earlier this month.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed the attacks on Sunday, saying it launched ballistic missiles and drones at the US Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait and the US Fifth Naval Fleet at Port Salman in Bahrain.

Bahrain condemned the attacks, saying they violated its sovereignty and undermined “opportunities for de-escalation and stability in the region”, while Kuwait described the “repeated heinous Iranian aggressions” as a “flagrant violation of its sovereignty”.

The US military hit Iran’s Sirik, Bandar-e Lengeh and Qeshm Island on Saturday. US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its navy and air force “conducted strikes tonight on 10 Iranian military targets at multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz”, saying the attacks were a response to an Iranian drone attack on the Kiku oil tanker.

It said the Panama-flagged vessel was carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil when it was attacked as it transited near the strait early on Saturday.

Britain’s UKMTO maritime security agency ⁠said the tanker hit on Saturday had sustained damage to its bridge, with all crew reported safe.

Strait of Hormuz

The weekend attacks come after the US struck Iran on Friday following drone attacks on vessels near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Singapore-registered Ever Lovely container ship was hit by a drone on Thursday. No injuries were reported. The US responded by hitting locations near Sirik, while Iran responded by attacking US military locations in the region.

Iran has said vessels transiting the strait can only use its designated route and warned that ships using any other routes would be violating the ceasefire agreement.

The International Maritime Organization suspended its plan to evacuate ships stranded in the strait on Thursday after the attack on the Ever Lovely.

President Donald Trump said late on Saturday that Tehran had violated the ceasefire agreement, which was signed on June 17.

“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” he posted on social media. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the US strikes on its monitoring and surveillance facilities on its southern coast. It said the “brutal attacks” were in violation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the United Nations charter.

It added that they showed the US “does not place the slightest value and credibility on its commitments” and said Iran would defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity against “US military aggression”.

Agreement under strain

The MoU signed by the US and Iran extended a ceasefire in their war that began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, giving both sides 60 days to negotiate an end to the fighting.

Access through the Strait of Hormuz is a key element of the MoU. During the war, Iran blocked the waterway through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil passes, triggering a global energy crisis.

Article 5 of the MoU states that Iran will “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the strait during the 60 days. It states that Iran and Oman, along with other Gulf states, will discuss the future administration of the strait.

Wolfgang Pusztai, a defence analyst, told Al Jazeera that while neither the US nor Iran have an interest in a bigger escalation, “there is a risk that this might happen unintentionally.”

“If there are some hits in residential areas, if a larger number of civilians are getting killed in the Arab Gulf states, if an American base is hit severely so that the American soldiers are killed, this might easily get out of control,” he said.

US president threatens to ‘militarily complete the job’ as US strikes Iran over ship attacks.

For a second day in a row, the United States has launched strikes on Iran, once again citing an attack against a commercial vessel as a motivation.

Saturday’s renewed attacks are the latest indication that a Middle East ceasefire, established as part of a June 17 memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, might be at breaking point.

In a statement, US Central Command (CENTCOM), which directs military action in the Middle East, explained that the latest attacks came “at the Commander in Chief’s direction”.

“CENTCOM forces launched strikes today in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping,” the command centre wrote.

“U.S. military aircraft targeted Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities.”

Explosions were reported in southern Iran, around the village of Tahrui, near the port of Sirik, which was also the focal point of Friday’s US attacks. State media also indicated that Qeshm Island had been hit.

Responses to cargo ship strikes

Saturday’s strikes against Iran followed a similar playbook to Friday’s.

Early on Saturday morning, at about 4:30am Eastern US time (08:00 GMT), the Panama-flagged tanker Kiku was travelling through the Strait of Hormuz when it was reportedly hit by an unidentified projectile.

No crew members were injured, and no leakage was reported from its cargo.

CENTCOM said the ship had been carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude oil when it was hit by a “one-way attack drone”.

The website MarineTraffic.com indicates that the tanker left the Al Shaheen oilfield on Thursday and is due to dock in Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates, on Sunday.

A similar sequence of events prompted Friday’s volley of US attacks.

In that case, a Singapore-registered container ship, the Ever Lovely, was struck by a drone as it sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. No one on board was injured, and the boat continued on its travels.

But US President Donald Trump denounced the drone strike on Friday as a “foolish violation” of the June 17 memorandum.

By that evening, the US and Iran had exchanged fire, with the US targeting the area around Sirik, and Iran hitting US military installations in the Middle East.

CENTCOM referenced Friday’s actions in announcing the latest round of strikes.

“After yesterday’s U.S. strikes in response to the Iranian attack on M/V Ever Lovely, Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement,” CENTCOM wrote.

Iran “elected not to”, it added, citing the Kiku drone strike. CENTCOM also maintained that commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a sticking point in ceasefire negotiations, would continue, with US military backing.

“U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready,” CENTCOM said in its statement.

Controlling the strait

Central to the latest round of fighting is control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for maritime traffic. Nearly 20 percent of the world oil supply passed through the narrow waterway in peacetime, as well as significant quantities of fertiliser and natural gas.

But after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, launching the present-day war, Tehran moved to shut down traffic through the strait, which sits between its shores and Oman’s.

Iran’s decision sent global fuel prices skyrocketing, and that generated pressure, both domestic and international, for the Trump administration.

The June 17 memorandum was designed to provide relief. Though it was a prelude to further negotiation, the deal called for the US, Iran and their allies to “declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon”.

It also outlined a 60-day period during which time Iran was to make its “best efforts” at allowing commercial traffic to transit through the Strait of Hormuz at no charge.

That part of the memorandum specified that Iran and Oman, the two countries that border the strait, would determine “future administration and maritime services” in the waterway.

But continued fighting in Lebanon has prompted Iran to threaten the strait’s closure once more.

Then, there is the question of the memorandum’s terms. Experts say the US and Iran have come to different understandings of how the June deal should be enforced.

Al Jazeera correspondent Resul Serdar Atas explained that Iran believes it should be allowed to restrict commercial traffic that does not have prior clearance to pass through the strait.

“Article Five of the memorandum of understanding, according to the Iranian officials, is clearly saying that any ship, whether it’s going through the Iranian territorial water or the Omani territorial water, has to be in full coordination with the Iranian authorities,” he said.

“But that is not understanding of Americans. The Americans are saying, ‘Well, if it is going through the Omani territorial waters, they do not need to coordinate with the Iranian authorities.’”

That, in turn, is leading to a disagreement over who is violating the terms of the ceasefire. The US sees Iran as violating the agreement by interfering with commercial vessels, while the Iranians perceive the US as breaking its commitment to stop fighting.

“That is the pattern,” Serdar Atas said. “For Americans, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is quite important for the stability of the global economy. But for Iran, the Strait of Hormuz being under Iranian control is the ultimate deterrence and the biggest leverage.”

Tit-for-tat ‘could get out of hand’

Some of the hostilities are a result of the high level of distrust between Iran and the US, according Hassan Ahmadian, a professor at the University of Tehran.

He noted that Iran’s insistence that ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz receive its clearance could be read as a defensive action.

“I think the Iranians will not let go of this because obviously they want only commercial ships, according to the MoU, to pass through the strait. So any ship that doesn’t coordinate might be a military one, might carry military stuff,” Ahmadian said.

He believes that the latest flurry of US attacks may prompt Iran to halt any deliberations with the Trump administration as they seek to cement a peace deal.

The US side, meanwhile, is likely to face pressure from rising oil prices as the result of the renewed fighting, according to Harlan Ullman, a retired US naval officer and chairman of The Killowen Group, a global advisory firm.

Still, Ullman warned that the latest exchange of fire could spiral into an escalation in violence, rendering the memorandum of understanding moot.

“The agreements are very, very fragile, and this tit-for-tat could get out of hand,” Ullman said.

“If prices go up, as I suspect they will, that will be a moderating influence, and I think the United States will consider that rising oil prices are not good, and it will probably continue the negotiations.  But right now, who knows?”

Iran’s IRGC says it targeted US military in region after Trump administration launched attack on the country.

The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) has suspended plans to evacuate more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the Strait of Hormuz after a cargo ship transiting the waterway was struck by a projectile.

IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said several crews had already been evacuated, but the agency had decided to pause the operation until there were “necessary safety guarantees” for those involved.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a Royal Navy maritime security agency, said on Thursday that a cargo vessel had been struck by “an unknown projectile” about 7.5 nautical miles (14km) southeast of Dahit, Oman. No casualties were reported.

The incident comes despite a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the United States and Iran last week that ended hostilities and included provisions aimed at reopening the strategic waterway. Iran had restricted passage through the strait in early March after the US and Israel attacked it on February 28. In April, the US imposed a naval blockade on Iran-linked vessels trying to pass through the waterway.

Since the MoU was signed, commercial traffic has restarted through the strait, but key disagreements remain over which shipping routes vessels should use — and whether Iran gets to charge a toll or fee.

Oman and the IMO have proposed a new shipping corridor that would partially bypass waters under Iran’s direct control. Tehran has rejected the plan, saying it was announced without consultation and raises safety concerns while demining operations are still under way. While Iran has not claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack on the ship off Oman, it has not denied any role, either.

The latest attack has heightened concerns that tensions over navigation through the strait remain unresolved. Here’s what we know.

Why is the UN evacuating sailors?

Following the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, Tehran and Washington imposed counter restrictions on the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving thousands of seafarers unable to leave vessels trapped in the waterway.

More than a dozen sailors have also been killed in attacks on ships — some from American missiles, others from Iranian projectiles. Most of those killed were from India.

Even with last week’s agreement between Washington and Tehran to end the conflict, more than 11,000 sailors remain stranded in the strait.

Announcing the evacuation plan on Tuesday, the IMO’s Dominguez said the operation would be conducted in “close cooperation with Iran, Oman, all other coastal states in the region, the United States and the maritime industry”.

Oman’s Ministry of Defence said the operation, which had been under discussion for months, would be carried out in phases.

Denmark also announced on Tuesday that it would join a multinational maritime mission led by France and Britain to help restore safe navigation through the strait.

Why was the ship attacked?

The Singapore-flagged cargo vessel Ever Lovely was struck by what authorities described as an “unknown projectile” while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday.

Ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic showed the vessel had been following the southern shipping route proposed by the IMO earlier that day, a corridor that passes closer to Oman’s coastline and has been rejected by Iran.

Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said the vessel had since completed its transit through the strait and was continuing its voyage, adding that all 21 crew members were safe.

The authority said it was “deeply concerned” by an attack it described as “unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law”.

“All actions affecting international shipping must fully comply with international law, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and not endanger the safety of seafarers and ships at sea,” the MPA said.

The incident prompted the IMO to suspend its planned evacuation of stranded sailors. Dominguez said the Ever Lovely “did not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework”.

“I have always reiterated that the safety of the seafarers remains paramount. Therefore, to ensure a coordinated approach and navigational safety, the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained,” he said.

What has Iran said?

While it remains unclear if the attack was carried out by Iran, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had criticised the new shipping corridor announced by Oman and the IMO, while also warning that passage through the strait, “is only possible via routes announced by Iran,” the state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, has said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz cannot be guaranteed for vessels transiting “with ambiguous arrangements, parallel routes, or decision-making outside of Iran’s considerations as the coastal state”.

“Any credible framework must be based on coordination with Iran and the provisions of paragraph five of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding,” he said in a statement on X. “Otherwise, the outcome will be the suspension of the designated parallel route.”

Iran first published its own map of approved navigation routes in April, directing ships to sail much closer to the Iranian coastline than before the conflict.

The IRGC’s latest warning came after a Liberian-flagged oil tanker transited the strait on Thursday using a route closer to Oman’s coast.

On Friday, a further three foreign oil tankers that attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz “without authorisation” were turned back after a warning from the IRGC, Iranian state TV reported.

Analysts say control over the Strait of Hormuz has long been one of Tehran’s most important sources of strategic leverage, allowing it to exert pressure on the US, whose economy is inextricably tied to global markets.

Why was the evacuation suspended?

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas said the attack appeared to show Iran was prepared to enforce its warnings over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran insisted vessels using either the Iranian or Omani route must coordinate with its authorities.

“Yesterday, Oman announced new routes for the passage of the ships. But then the IRGC released a statement, saying that whether the ships go through the Iranian or Omani territorial waters, they need to be in full coordination with Iranian authorities,” Atas said.

“And if they violate that, then Iran is going to act accordingly. So the question was whether Iran is going to really act or not?

“The answer is yes. Now, we have seen that a tanker has been attacked by some projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz. The Revolutionary Guards did not claim responsibility but did not deny it either.”

Atas added that Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, had also warned that any shipping arrangements made without taking Iran’s position as a coastal state into account would be unacceptable.

“Perhaps, in the coming days and weeks, we are going to see that the Strait of Hormuz will be one of the main sticking points.”

What other disputes remain?

Under last week’s memorandum of understanding, Iran agreed it would “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa”.

Although the agreement says commercial traffic should resume immediately, it also acknowledges that mines laid during the conflict must first be cleared, stating that “demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days”.

It also provides for discussions between Iran, Oman and other Gulf states over future arrangements for managing navigation through the waterway.

However, the agreement does not specify what will happen after the initial 60-day period.

Last week, Tehran announced it would waive any transit fees during those 60 days while negotiations with the United States continue in Switzerland, raising the possibility that charges could be introduced if no broader agreement is reached.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has also suggested Tehran does not intend to return to the pre-war status quo.

“Hormuz will never return” to how it operated before the conflict, he said. The proposal has also faced resistance from the United States and several Gulf states.

Are ships still moving through the strait?

Commercial shipping has gradually resumed, although traffic remains well below normal levels. Before the conflict, between 120 and 140 vessels typically passed through the Strait of Hormuz each day.

According to maritime analytics firm Kpler, 54 verified commercial and energy-related vessels transited the strait on Thursday, down from 70 verified crossings the previous day.

“West-to-East movements dominated, while the Omani Route accounted for the largest share of identified passages. Yet route transparency remains incomplete, with several Dark or Unknown crossings recorded.

“A reported projectile strike on a cargo vessel southeast of Dahit, Oman, adds fresh operational risk, underscoring the gap between improving physical flows and still-fragile maritime security conditions,” Kpler added.

EXPLAINER

Israeli and Lebanese delegations will continue their talks on Friday.

Israel continues to attack southern Lebanon on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledges that the Israeli military is “not going to withdraw” from occupied areas.

Israel currently occupies about one-fifth of Lebanon.

This comes amid progress on the interim peace accord between the United States and Iran aimed at ending the US-Israel war on Iran, which began on February 28.

Here is what is happening:

In Iran

• IAEA chief says inspectors to return to Iran: The interim US-Iran peace accord – also being referred to as the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – gives inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Iran, the agency’s chief Rafael Grossi said, after Tehran indicated that key sites would remain off-limits until a final deal with Washington is reached and sanctions are lifted.
• “There is an agreement and to comply with that agreement, the IAEA will have to have access and inspect,” the UN nuclear watchdog chief Grossi said at a news conference in Japan. “We hope to be there soon.”
• UN halts escort of ships through Hormuz: The UN International Maritime Organization (IMO) paused its operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday after a vessel reported an attack, reigniting concerns about whether a preliminary deal to end the Iran war will hold. The cargo ship said it was hit close to Oman by a projectile, the British Navy agency UKMTO said.
• On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned vessels not to attempt to pass the strait without its express permission, despite Oman and the IMO releasing details of a new safe route. In April, the IRGC released its own safe-transit route for approved ships, showing shipping lanes much closer to its own coast.

In the US

• Trump says unfrozen Iranian assets will be used to buy US agricultural products: US President Donald Trump reiterated during an event for US farmers that unfrozen Iranian assets will be spent on buying wheat, soya beans and corn from the US. Iran has not confirmed this.

In Lebanon

• Two killed in Israeli raid: Two people were killed and another person was wounded in an Israeli raid on the town of Mayfadoun, in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh district, the National News Agency reported, citing the country’s Ministry of Public Health.
• An Israeli air raid also hit the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
• Talks to continue: A US State Department official has told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli and Lebanese delegations will resume their meetings on Friday.

Global economy

• India ends commercial gas restrictions: India has lifted restrictions on supplies of commercial liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imposed during the war, when energy supplies were hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the global energy chokepoint.
• Aramco resumes oil loading: Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, has resumed oil loading at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf after a nearly four-month halt, shipping data showed.