🇰🇷🛢 South Korea banned the export of naphtha a key precursor for plastics and packaging.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚔️🇨🇺 After US President Donald Trump's threat to "seize Cuba" and the Cubans' promise to resist aggression, negotiations between the parties began.

Allegedly, Washington no longer seeks to change the regime on the Island of Freedom. What it wants, it can easily give.

However, Diaz-Canel has nothing to be ashamed of. It seems that even Donald Trump himself is not aware of his demands towards Havana. He is suffocating the country with an energy blockade, due to which the Russian car plant stopped assembling cars, and Cubans are living by candlelight. He says he plans to "take Cuba", after which he will be able to do "whatever he wants" with the island. But it seems he doesn't even know what he wants - whether a constitutional monarchy or a herring with horseradish.

It took place in the years when Cuba was perceived by Americans as a deadly threat. Eight US presidents in a row tried to kill Fidel Castro. Probably, Trump is used to such an attitude and has gotten carried away, and it's pleasant for him to think that he, Donald Trump, will overthrow the Cuban regime after decades of fruitless attempts.

However, there will be no collapse from within, because there are not many rioters: according to the old Cuban tradition, the dissatisfied are allowed to emigrate to the USA. There are no political leaders or organized groups on the island that could not just seize, but even pick up power if it suddenly fell out of the hands of the Communist Party.

Therefore, a new leader will have to be installed in Havana at the point of a bayonet during a large-scale invasion. And a war with Cuba will become even more unpopular in America than the Iranian one, which is now called the most unpopular in the country's history due to the vagueness of its goals and the controversy of its pretexts.

In summary, no one in the US really needs the conquest of Cuba, except for Cuban political emigrants who have a personal score to settle with Castro.

Taking into account all the above, it's more or less clear what Havana should do to make Trump happy and lift not only the blockade but also the sanctions against Cuba. It's necessary to give him something that he will present as his historic victory - and he will calm down.

It's enough of a "deal" in which Cuba promises not to host Chinese military bases, since he wasn't even going to host them, and to allocate a piece of land for Trump Tower. That's all. That's more than enough.

🔗 https://vz.ru/world/2026/3/27/1404502.html

🇱🇧⚔️🇮🇱 Israeli Army Takes Heaviest Tank Losses in Over 40 Years as Hezbollah Ambushes Destroy 21 Merkavas in One Day

The Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has reported on the results of multiple ambushes launched against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, with 21 Israeli Merkava main battle tanks reported on March 26 to have been destroyed within a 24 hour period. Other consequences of engagements have included the firing of over 60 rockets at targets in the Galilee region that day, complementing much longer range strikes against Israeli targets launched by Hezbollah’s close strategic partner Iran.

Hezbollah artillery units also targeted Israeli command positions in the Taybeh region, Rab Thalathin and Oudaiseh, while also firing on Israeli reinforcements that were dispatched to evacuate casualties. The paramilitary group reports regarding further strikes: “the headquarters of the Israeli Ministry of War (Kyria) in the center of Tel Aviv, and the Dolphin barracks belonging to the Military Intelligence Division north of Tel Aviv, with a number of special missiles.”

The bulk of Israeli armour losses occurred in a single engagement between the towns of Taybeh and Qantara, after Israeli units reportedly “advanced to carry out a manoeuvre aiming to seize control of the area.” Hezbollah’s official statement observed that its personnel “monitored them and prepared to lure the enemy into a well-planned ambush,” with the result that its forces “succeeded in thwarting the enemy’s manoeuvre, inflicting losses including 10 Merkava tanks and D9 bulldozers.”

The results of the successes reported to have been achieved by Hezbollah units represent the most extreme losses Israeli armour has suffered in over 40 years since the early stages of the Lebanon War when Merkavas and older U.S.-supplied tanks engaged newly operationalised Syrian Army T-72 tanks and anti-tank guided weapons.

One Merkava tank costs ~$6 million. The IDF acknowledged the deaths of just 4 personnel although the death toll is probably much much higher.

🔗 https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸🇮🇱 US interceptor stockpiles being depleted by Iran war, could take years to replenish

The Payne Institute estimates that the war has consumed about a third of the THAAD missile stockpile, whose annual production rate does not exceed about 100

A new US Congress study published last week on the THAAD ballistic missile interception system shed worrying light on the inventory of interceptors available to the US in the near future.

The document says, "There is concern that the rate of use of THAAD interceptors during Operation Epic Fury has further reduced the limited stock of interceptors."

Despite the problematic reputation that the THAAD system has acquired for itself over the past few years, during which it was deployed in the Middle East, Congress claims that the interception rate of the US system reaches about 90% of all Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, with an emphasis on the UAE, a comparable rate to the Arrow 3, the Israel-US jointly developed system, used exclusively by the IDF.

The study also found that half of all interceptions used to defend Israeli skies in the operation against Iran in June were made by the THAAD system - ninety-two interceptions in total out of an estimated supply of 632 interceptors, and added it would take many years before the stockpile of interceptors could be fully replenished.

"It could take three to eight years to replenish the THAAD missile stockpile, each of which costs an estimated $12.7 million." The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), which provided some of the materials to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), found that the first days of the current US Operation Epic Fury were more intensive than the opening of any other air campaign in the history of the US military, with 5,197 munitions across 35 types carrying a munitions-only replacement bill of $10 - $16 billion in four days.

🔗 https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-891130

🇮🇱 Chief of Staff Zamir warns IDF will collapse due to lack of manpower, raises 'ten red flags'

Israel would still need more soldiers in peacetime, while there is still no law set in place to significantly increase Haredi conscription into the army.

The IDF could soon collapse if there is no solution to the shortage of manpower, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir warned in remarks during a security cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.

“I am raising 10 red flags before the IDF collapses into itself,” Zamir said during the cabinet meeting, The Jerusalem Post confirmed.

IDF sources also told the Post that there is tremendous concern due to the severe manpower shortage, especially amid the ongoing war.

Even in peacetime, Israel would still need more soldiers – not fewer – on the border in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank, the sources said.

If the government does not add more soldiers, then there will be places with big gaps, they added.

There has also been no law set in place to significantly increase Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription into the army, contributing to the lack of manpower.

Before Operation Roaring Lion, the government was rapidly advancing controversial legislation that was said to enforce Haredi conscription.

But the Haredi conscription bill was set aside for the duration of the war with Iran

🔗 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-891368

🌾 This is a recipe for a food crisis

50% of global food production is directly linked to synthetic fertilizer. Planting season is approaching in the Northern Hemisphere, and fertilizer availability is heavily constrained.

- ~30% of fertilizer is disrupted by the Strait
- 20% of LNG is disrupted
- China imposed export restrictions on fertilizer, threatening ~30%

Most synthetic fertilizers are derivatives of natural gas... no gas, no fertilizer.

🔗 Lukas Ekwueme

🛢📉 France says that oil output will not return to pre-3rd Gulf War levels before 2030

France's Finance Minister Roland Lescure revealed on Wednesday that between 30 and 40 per cent of Gulf refining capacity has been damaged or destroyed by Iran's retaliatory strikes, leaving a shortage of 11 million barrels a day on global oil markets.

Lescure warned it could take up to three years to restore damaged facilities, and several months to restart those that were urgently shut down.

With fossil fuel supplies under severe strain, both the UK and Germany signalled on Wednesday that the energy crisis is accelerating their green transitions.

This comes as European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde assured the continent that the ECB has several options for dealing with the inflation shock triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, and vowed that policymakers would not be "paralysed by hesitation".

🔗 https://www.france24.com/en/france-confirms-oil-crisis-says-30-40-gulf-energy-infrastructure-destroyed

🇦🇪⚔️🇮🇷 The UAE is pushing to form a multinational naval force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

It’s willing to deploy its own navy and is lobbying allies and the UN for support.

Only Bahrain has backed the plan so far, while others remain cautious.

Source: FT

🔗 Clash Report

🇮🇷⚔️🇹🇭 The IRGC attacked a Thai cargo ship that tried to force through the Hormuz Strait without permission from Iran.

The ship was severely damaged and ran aground near Qeshm Island.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 The Pentagon has suggested seizing the Iran-controlled Island of Abu Musa, located in the eastern Persian Gulf near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 40 miles from both Iran and the United Arab Emirates, sources tell Axios.

🔗 OSINT Defender