Alexander Mercouris

The Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea pipeline route both remain closed after drone attacks by Iran-aligned Iraqi Shia militias and the Houthis, who have taken Yemen's entire Red Sea coast and its islands, leaving the Saudi crown prince in a very difficult position with no good options. Now says Ansar Allah control of Yemen's Red Sea coastline is a genuine driver of rising oil and gas prices, a fact obscured by blaming the diesel shortage on Ukraine's refinery strikes. Now says the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea closures and Houthi strikes on Saudi installations are squeezing Saudi Arabia, with Trump and the US unwilling to give MBS the military backing he wants.

Reads Russia as executing a deliberate strategy to isolate Kiev from the West, striking the Kiev-Poland railway and hitting the locomotive of a train that had carried Western dignitaries, while grinding down Ukrainian forces on the ground, recapturing the villages lost in the August 2025 raid and advancing at Dobropolye and in the Kharkov region. "Kiev step by step is being choked," and travel to and from the city becomes increasingly unsafe. Zelensky continues to refuse Russia's negotiating terms. Now says Russian forces are collapsing Ukrainian defences on several fronts at once, across the Kharkov triangle, Veliki Burluk, the Slaviansk to Konstantinovka to Dobropillia cluster and Orikhiv, while claims of a Ukrainian counteroffensive at Lyman remain unproven. Now says the battle of Orekhov is effectively over and about to be confirmed as a full Russian capture, opening the whole of southern Ukraine including Zaporozhye city to further advances, and reads cumulative Russian strikes plus Kiev corruption scandals and elite turf wars as pushing Ukraine's state and war effort toward an unsustainable breaking point. Now says a disaster is playing out for the Ukrainian army at Orikhiv, with Russian forces also encircling Dobropilia in a move that would open the way to threaten Slaviansk, while the Azov-led Lyman counteroffensive has produced only marginal, politically driven gains far short of Western media claims. Now says massive Russian missile and drone strikes have left Ukrainian air defense effectively non-existent, with the fronts at Dobropolye, Kharkov and Orekhov giving way, and that there is no reason for Putin to change course or compromise while Zelensky, under no Western pressure, refuses any compromise of his own. Now reads Tusk's admission in the Polish parliament of 27,000 Ukrainian killed and wounded a month, close to Putin's own figure and well above anything Zelensky has claimed, as confirmation of a manpower crisis tracking a collapsing front, and says flatly that the war is being won.

China has resumed large-scale purchases of Russian oil to rebuild reserves and, together with BRICS including India, has declared unilateral US sanctions illegal, signaling it will disregard and retaliate against them.

Reads the Delhi BRICS summit as restoring full harmony between Russia, China and India and advancing the bloc's financial architecture, with China taking the presidency next year, and expects 2027 to be a year in which BRICS moves further and faster again. Sets that against fraying Western political cohesion, with Merz's approval collapsing and hawkish commentary going unchallenged. Now says the two-year Western plan for a deep-strike drone offensive to force Putin to capitulate has failed, with Trump distancing himself and blaming Zelensky even as calls in the West for direct NATO intervention keep growing. Now adds that Trump's Truth Social claim of a Ukraine-Russia energy strike truce was false and unreliable, another example of the president's public statements not matching what is actually happening in the war. Now says the Graham sanctions bill's overreach is being openly defied by China, India and BRICS, while a Belgian court ruling on frozen Russian assets exposes the legal fragility of the West's sanctions regime and capital is fleeing to Asia instead of the West. Now says Washington has lost real leverage over Kiev and shows no interest in pressing Zelensky toward negotiations, while its sanctions threats against India and China are hollow and risk wrecking both relationships.

Russia’s economy keeps growing despite sanctions and Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries, while Ukraine’s collapses under a blockaded Black Sea, falling electricity generation and a widening budget hole that risks a fiscal crash without further Western funds. He calls the EU’s revived plan to move Euroclear’s frozen Russian assets into a separate vehicle for Ukraine plain confiscation, and expects it to be resisted by Belgium and Germany. Oil is now above 00 a barrel as China and India keep absorbing discounted Russian barrels, with the two wars together compounding a looming European diesel and gas shortage. Now says Russia's economy has returned to growth on a widening budget surplus driven by higher oil prices, while the US-built and US-guided refinery-strike campaign has caused a real global diesel shortage that Trump is trying to pin on Kiev. Now says EU sanctions consensus on Russia is fracturing, with Slovakia and now France blocking a twelve-month rollover and forcing a stopgap seven-day extension instead. Now says rising oil and gas prices, depleted reserves and pressure on central banks to hike rates are converging with Ukraine's unfunded budget to produce a likely Western recession just as funding Kiev becomes unsustainable. Now says the worldwide diesel shortage and the inflation riding on it are driven mainly by the Hormuz closure and the Red Sea crisis rather than by Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and that the new US sanctions bill aimed at Russian oil buyers is toothless, with India and China openly defying it. Now expects Washington to announce a ban on diesel exports within weeks as the global shortage driven by the Red Sea crisis and Iran's tightening of Hormuz deepens, and calls the consequence for an already energy-short Europe absolutely dreadful.