The Gulf War and the drone revolution - a fresh summary of the Ukrainian conflict from Nikolai Mitrokhin*

The Gulf War suddenly became a very important factor determining the situation in Ukraine. Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced the US to lift sanctions on the Russian "shadow fleet", which helped the Kremlin delay the looming financial crisis. In response, Ukraine launched multiple strikes on oil ports. Over the past time, the country has made a qualitative leap in the technology of combat drones, which Russian military experts are already openly calling a disaster. Nikolai Mitrokhin* explains how oil geopolitics, diplomatic scandals and the technological revolution affect the situation on the battlefield.

International situation

At the end of March - beginning of April, the political position of Ukraine in the negotiation process due to the war in the Persian Gulf and the successful actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces against the Russian oil and gas transport infrastructure became significantly more complicated.

When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the world experienced an acute shortage of oil and gas. The market urgently needed additional volumes of fuel - and they could have been taken from Russia, among others. Therefore, the United States began step by step to lift sanctions from Russian “shadow fleet” tankers and issue temporary permits to Indian oil refineries to purchase Russian raw materials.

This became a salvation for the Russian budget. Firstly, world oil prices have increased. Secondly, Russian oil grades are now sold at almost no discounts, whereas previously buyers demanded significant concessions. As a result, Russia is receiving tens of billions of extra euros a week, helping it emerge from the severe financial crisis that began at the beginning of the year.

Subscribe to read in full

Subscribe to Redefine.Media to read Republic

Subscribe [You can pay with a Russian or foreign card. The subscription is renewed automatically. You can unsubscribe at any time.]

Where does the subscribers' money go?

Most Republic content is available through a paid subscription. We think this is a good way to finance media. After all, as you know, if you didn’t pay to read it, then someone else paid for you to read it. In our case, everything is fair: your money pays salaries and fees to journalists, and they write about topics that are important and interesting to you.

A key feature of our subscription: Your money is split across Republic magazines based on how you read them. If you read materials from one magazine, then your money will go only to him, and will not go to others. That is, you finance only what interests you.

Republic uses a Redefine.Media subscription. To register, we will redirect you to the Redefine.Media website, where you will need to register and pay for a subscription. Logging into the Redefine.Media website will allow you to read Republic materials from the same device.

A yearly subscription is more profitable than a monthly subscription. And if you want to unsubscribe, you can always do this in your personal account.