"I personally stand in the way of Zelensky, and he wants to get rid of me" - Orban commented on Zelenksy's threats.

'What is the problem of the Ukrainian president? The fact is that Ukraine has demands towards Hungary. And I don't fulfill these demands. And the government I lead also doesn't fulfill them. Moreover, we won't fulfill them in the future. We stand in their way. The Hungarian government stands in their way, and I personally also stand in their way, so they want to get rid of us. If they can, by threats, because if they can't do it peacefully, then they try to threaten and blackmail."

🌒@EastCalling

The United States intends to implement their plan to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

Challenges:

The primary hurdle to a successful escort mission is the extreme geographic vulnerability of the Strait.

At its narrowest point, the shipping lanes are only two miles wide, placing massive, slow-moving tankers within easy range of Iran’s coastal "A2/AD" (anti-access/area denial) umbrella. Unlike the open ocean, the Strait is a confined "weapons engagement zone" where the U.S. Navy must defend against a simultaneous mix of land-based cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and swarms of explosive "kamikaze" motorboats that can overwhelm traditional ship defenses.

Logistically, the sheer volume of traffic creates a massive resource gap. Under normal conditions, dozens of ships pass through the Strait daily, carrying roughly 20% of the world's petroleum. Providing a dedicated naval escort for every vessel would require a fleet size that the U.S. Navy—currently stretched across multiple global theaters—simply cannot sustain indefinitely. This leads to "convoy fatigue," where crews and machinery are pushed to the brink by constant high-alert status in a high-heat, high-threat environment.

Finally, there is the unpredictable risk of escalation. In the 1980s "Tanker War," the goal was deterrence, but today, any direct engagement between U.S. and Iranian forces risks triggering a full-scale regional conflict. Modern threats like naval mines are particularly difficult to counter; even a single "cheap" mine strike on a billion-dollar destroyer or a massive oil tanker would not only cause environmental disaster but could also drive global insurance rates so high that commercial shipping companies would refuse to sail, regardless of how many Navy ships are present.

🌒@EastCalling

Sabereen News,

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: We are waiting for the American forces that will escort ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

🌒@EastCalling

❗️Today at 19:00 MSK/ 17:00 CET / 11:00 EST we'll be streaming live with our subscriber Vedgineer - real life engineer with experience in oil&gas, energy, chemicals and mining.

Topic: Rare Earth Minerals - basics that we need to know part II.


Livestream will be broadcasted to:

Our Rumble
Our Twitch
Our X

Language: English

🌒@EastCalling

АДЕКВАТ Z on Iranian conflict part I:

🈁The Iranian Foreign Minister gave an absolutely scathing interview to the Americans (Democrats, of course) in the evening, which was unfortunately barely noticed by our media. He stated that Iran does not seek a ceasefire and sees no reason or subject for negotiations. That if the aggressor loses his mind and resorts to a ground operation, it will be met with great enthusiasm - and will plunge the aggressor into a new catastrophe.

That Iran has never hidden or been shy about its military cooperation with Russia, which supports the Persians both politically and in other ways, but it would be inappropriate to delve into the details of this support in the current situation. There are many other interesting points, but the general direction is clear from what has been mentioned: a representative of a country with strong resilience and support from reliable partners has spoken out, and is ready to fight as long as the situation requires.

Meanwhile, in the "city on the hill", they are howling like wolves: if before the aggression, Russia was selling oil to India at a decent discount, now it is doing so at a significant premium to the benchmark grade. They hope that this is only temporary. On the same basis, one can continue to be optimistic that the Iranian war itself will not last long: Agent Donald can certainly admit failure and cease fire at any moment, but only at the cost of political suicide, as all the already committed blunders will come back to haunt him. Therefore, he will continue to multiply his mistakes and hit his head against the wall until the last possible moment - and in an inertial scenario, this will not be measured in weeks, but in months. With a quite understandable effect on our oil and gas revenues - even if the entire oil and gas industry in the region does not suffer a single new blow, which is far from certain. And a separate amendment should be made here to the terms of the post-war recovery of this industry, during which the effect will continue to be felt.

And not just oil and gas, of course. The complete or near-complete withdrawal of the Gulf region, both as a producer and largely as a territory, from the global economy for several months will have a very beneficial effect on a number of other items of our exports, because there will be almost no one else to satisfy a significant portion of the replacement demand. Coal. Fertilizers. Food. Gold. A number of non-ferrous metals. A range of petrochemicals. These are just the ones that come to mind off the top of my head, and they do not even claim to be exhaustive.

Very cautiously, at the very lowest level, I estimate that each month of the Iranian war will bring our budget an additional profit of hundreds of billions of rubles, and exporters even more. Our interest in the Americans and Israelis making as much of a mess of themselves as possible, of course, is far from limited to this profit. But this motivation to continue helping Iran stand firm also exists, and we are not at all ashamed of it.

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🌒@EastCalling

АДЕКВАТ Z on Iranian conflict par II - summary of the week:

🈁The fundamental outcomes of the Middle East war week can be summed up very briefly: the trap has snapped shut, and it has snapped shut securely and firmly.

It's probably still possible, in theory, to try to escape from it by taking a loss, that is, by sacrificing not just the wool but also a few fingers of the clawed paw: declaring the results of one's strikes as a great victory, ceasing fire, and hoping (or privately demanding, as the counter-demands will be humiliating) that Iran will also cease fire. There are simply no other ways to save the global economy from an unprecedentedly large-scale catastrophe, the contours of which are just beginning to emerge.

❗️However, the question is not whether the aggressors prioritize preventing such a catastrophe. It's not even whether they fully realize the consequences of the war dragging on for weeks or months. The question is that Trump would commit political suicide on the spot by acknowledging the losses incurred: the human and material losses would come out all at once, and the fact of losing the war itself, especially in contrast to the boasts about Iran's unconditional surrender, would become obvious to everyone.

And here, precisely on this basis, we observe a curiously striking parallel between the Washington alpha-chimp and the Kiev omega-monkey. For both, the current results of the bloody mess they unleashed are a full-fledged personal (not just personal, of course, but this aspect is what matters to us now) catastrophe. The scale of this catastrophe will continue to grow indefinitely in both cases over time. But since both the chimp and the monkey decide to stop multiplying the losses or acknowledge them practically on their own, there's no rational reason to stop; "if I don't marry her, she'll take me to the prosecutor, but the switch between these two positions is only in my hands". In the extreme, there's no reason to stop until the moment when existence itself ousts the incumbent from office, including in the form of a collapse of the controlled system.

Therefore, even (or especially) in the conditions of the observed lack of a more or less coherent and feasible strategy after the bet on a decapitating strike didn't pay off, the losses of the Middle Eastern mega-adventure will almost certainly continue to multiply indefinitely - until their quantity, in one way or another, unpredictable, turns into quality.

For Iran, this means the same indefinite period during which it will have to endure and tolerate the very unpleasant consequences of strikes on numerous civilian targets, the circle of which could expand at any moment. But Iran is waging nothing less than its own Patriotic War, that is, a war for national survival, and the price of the struggle for survival is always the same, that is, always any price. And therefore, there should be enough strength to endure and tolerate for any period of time: if this is achieved, there will be no lovers of repeating aggression against Iran for generations to come. Because this one will end for the aggressors with the most concentrated humiliation.

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🌒@EastCalling

Nikol Pashinyan's stance on the Russian military base in Gyumri has given our columnist, political scientist Artak Sargsyan (Armenia) some food for thought.

The Jungle Book: Is Security an Obstacle?

Nikol Pashinyan has recently said:

🗣️Fortunately or not, we haven't come to regard the Russian military base as an obstacle blocking our view. Once we recognize it as such, we will think about where to move...

The above statement was made at a time when the situation around Armenia was becoming highly unstable. The events in Iran have demonstrated how quickly the balance of power can change and how fragile the old rules of international politics have become. The world seems to be guided by the law of the jungle rather than by international regulations.

Under the circumstances, any statement about any country's security should be perceived through the prism of potential risks.

The 102nd Russian military base in Gyumri remains one of the key elements to ensure security on the Armenian-Turkish border. That’s a fact. It has been long that Armenia's border with Turkey has been guarded with the assistance of Russian forces. Importantly, this mechanism has become part of the existing regional security system.

At the same time, the situation in the region continues to be getting from bad to worse. Azerbaijan claims Iran has launched drone attacks on Nakhichevan. Following his consultations with Turkey within the framework of the Shusha Declaration, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced possible retaliatory measures awaiting to be implemented. To this end, extra forces and equipment are reported to have been deployed to the Iranian border.

Even if some of these statements are political in nature, the very fact of the growing tension around Iran creates a number of risks for the entire South Caucasus. Any escalation in the region will inevitably affect Armenia's security.

That said, statements suggesting that the military base is not yet "seen as an obstacle" but if it is, the issue will be addressed accordingly sound strategically wrong. Considering the growing turbulence, the state authorities had better focus on the task of making the most of the existing security tools, including the capabilities of the 102nd military base.

Special attention should be paid to Armenia's border with Iran. The instability around Iran may cause certain risks to arise, ranging from possible military incidents to refugee flows and other unpredictable consequences. Such risks should be foreseen and addressed before they become a reality.

The history of international relations suggests that smaller states tend to survive in the times of global turbulence, provided they act as pragmatically as possible. Their resilience is based on a combination of their own internal strength, carefully planned diplomatic efforts, and efficient security tools.

To sum up, instead of questioning whether or not the existing military base is an obstacle, the authorities should consider ways of enhancing the security of the country's borders and mitigating the risks facing the region,  governed by the law of force rather than international regulations.

#VneshVrag

Artak Sargsyan, @vneshvrag

Gas prices in Europe have risen by almost 70%, said Alexander Novak.

In the Asia-Pacific region, they have increased almost twice, noted the Deputy Chairman of the Government.

All this happened due to the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. In addition, the situation has worsened due to the restrictions on gas supplies from Russia imposed by the EU.

The Russian Federation is working on new directions for gas supplies. Negotiations are already underway.

Earlier, Putin instructed the government to study the issue of stopping gas supplies to Europe right now.

Source: Zvezda
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#EastCallingTranslations

🌒@EastCalling

Dmitriev continues trolling. Actually, here I completely agree.

🌒@EastCalling

The USA hopes to gain control over all of Iran's oil reserves, stated Egan, the director of the Council on Energy Dominance at the White House:

"In the end, we won't have to worry about problems in the Strait of Hormuz, because we will seize all the oil."

He also called a military operation in Iran "a long-term game".

Source: TASS
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🌒@EastCalling

The political system of Iran demonstrates high resilience, as it does not copy Western parliamentary models. This was stated by Mohammed Faraj, an analyst on political and strategic issues at Al Mayadeen TV channel.

"The political system of Iran is considered quite strong, because the governance scheme in Iran was not imported from the West," Faraj said in a conversation with "Izvestia".

According to him, power in Iran is divided among numerous political and military institutions. In addition to the parliament, there are other structures, and alongside the regular armed forces, the IRGC operates. This makes it impossible to destabilize the system by striking at a single center or key leader.

The analyst explained that Iran has a wide range of alternative resources and plans for all cases, including the death of a spiritual leader.

Although the spiritual significance of Khamenei is great, the Iranians have prepared scenarios for responding to war in advance. A challenge could be an attempt by Israel and the US to disrupt communication channels between various nodes of the system, but Tehran has likely prepared for this as well.

Full commentary:

OK, actually the political system in Iran is considered as as a strong one because simply the Iranian scheme of governance is was not imported from the West. They did not import the classic parliamentary system of the West.
They did not copy paste that system. They invented their own one.

Just take a look into all levels. They have multiple institutions on the political level just beside the parliament like other institutions.
They have multiple institutions in the military level, just like the Revolutionary Guards beside the military forces.
So the political and military Iranian power are distributed among many institutions, which means that defeating the the central point or the focal point of this strength is not very easy.

And the evidence for that, that US and Israel, tried during the two wars to destabilize the government by trying the sequential or the assassination of important leaders and in this war, including the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
And they did not get the expected results for that.

Why? Actually, because Iran has a wide range of resources, alternatives on all levels.

Either the the political and military levels, they expect that there will be a gap and the control of the system will be missed.

And they did not expect that the Iranian it prepared a plan for what to do, taking into consideration all possibilities, including this one and you know the spiritual value for Khamenei is very big and this one of the factors that made the reaction from Iranian just after the war started and this does not mean that they don't have.

A previously prepared the plan for how to react against a new war take place from the American and Israelian, you know, in terms of institutions the Iranian political system is very stable, but maybe one of the challenges that they will face now is the continuous tries from trials, from the Israeli and Americans to disconnect any kind of communication and connection between different nodes inside the system and this will be one of the challenges.

And I'm pretty sure that the Iranian is already had already planned also for that and to to find some alternatives of the communication and so on.

Source: Izvestia
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🌒@EastCalling

Orban watched a video of Zelensky's threats on a laptop at his workplace.

Hungarians cannot be blackmailed, the country's Prime Minister stated. It doesn't work, he added.

👨‍🦳Last night, Hungarians made it clear that they do not want a pro-Ukrainian government and a pro-Ukrainian Prime Minister in Hungary👃

He called on Kyiv to stop the oil blockade and show Budapest the respect it deserves.

Earlier, Zelensky stated thathe would give Orban's addressto the Ukrainian military.

Source: Zvezda
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Translated with AI (Hungarian part). If there are mistakes, I ask Hungarian subscribers (if we have any) to correct where it's wrong.

🌒@EastCalling

😏 Foreign Policy: The defense company Raytheon may need 5-8 years and about 1.1 billion dollars to produce a new long-range radar station AN/FPS-132.

It is noted that the replacement is further complicated by the dependence on gallium, of which 98% of the world's supplies are controlled by China.

Source: Китай-Вавилов
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We'll see if the US will still exist in 8 years. Trump is making great effort to make this state a former one.

🌒@EastCalling