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What you need to know

American pause ends, conflict with Iran resumes

The five-night U.S. halt on strikes inside Iran ended overnight July 29-30, after President Donald Trump had held off attacks since July 24. The pause was never a ceasefire: the naval blockade stayed active, Iran kept restricting Hormuz transit, and Tehran-aligned forces kept pressing Saudi Arabia and shipping throughout.

Iran broke the calm first with proxies, then directly. On July 28 it fired ballistic missiles at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, prompting U.S.-Saudi strikes on militia targets in Iraq and a renewed U.S. strike wave inside Iran, hitting command centers, missile and drone sites, and coastal defenses.

Second front: Saudi Arabia-Houthi truce collapses

The informal Saudi-Houthi de-escalation that held since March 2022 is breaking down. Houthi forces have hit Saudi tankers, Jizan and Yanbu energy infrastructure, and Sanaa airport tensions, while Riyadh has resumed limited airstrikes in Hodeidah, Marib, and al-Jawf. This is the most dangerous phase between the two sides in four years, though neither has crossed into full-scale war.

U.S. force posture: concentrated, but thin in the Red Sea

Two carrier strike groups (USS Abraham Lincoln, USS George H.W. Bush) plus the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group remain massed in the Arabian Sea, deliberately kept outside the Persian Gulf to preserve maneuvering room and reduce exposure to Iranian coastal weapons. No carrier has entered the Persian Gulf or transited Suez in the past 48 hours.

The Red Sea, by contrast, has just one destroyer, USS Gonzalez, covering the entire Houthi threat zone. Western diplomats say international naval forces lack capacity to protect merchant shipping there. Washington would need to divert Arabian Sea assets or route additional destroyers through Suez to reinforce it.

Oil markets price in sustained disruption

Brent settled at $90.74 a barrel Wednesday, up $6.65, before slipping to roughly $89.78 this morning. WTI settled at $84.46, up $5.20, trading near $83.82 this morning. Hormuz transit is recovering off a very low base, not normalizing: 12 tracked crossings on July 29, up from 3 on July 25, but still irregular and reliant on AIS-dark movements and Iranian-authorized routes.

The bottom line

The core structural risk is simultaneous pressure on both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, neither closed outright but both disrupted enough to keep insurance costs and prices elevated.

Most likely near-term path is calibrated escalation, not decisive war or lasting de-escalation. Washington keeps intermittent strikes and blockade enforcement; Iran leans on militias, Houthis, and maritime coercion; Saudi Arabia strikes selectively while avoiding a full Yemen campaign relaunch. Diplomatic channels (Oman, Qatar, & Pakistan) remain open but have only produced temporary pauses so far. A key variable is whether Israel decides to re-enter the war.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone needs to pick a side

Russia-Ukraine: Strikes go deep as both sides target rear infrastructure

Russia and Ukraine have escalated long-range strike campaigns well beyond the front line, shifting the war's center of gravity toward air defense stocks and energy infrastructure. Russia fired more than 70 missiles and roughly 280 drones at Ukraine overnight; Ukraine hit two major Russian oil refineries in response.

The exchange shows Moscow trying to exhaust Kyiv's limited interceptor supply and expose air-defense gaps, while Kyiv imposes financial and logistical costs by hitting the refineries that fund Russia's war economy. Neither campaign is likely to produce a battlefield breakthrough on its own, but both sides are treating rear-area resilience as now nearly as decisive as territorial control.

Overnight barrage kills at least 8, reaches Polish airspace

At least eight civilians, including children, were killed in Russia's overnight barrage; the toll remains preliminary. Strikes and falling debris hit Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and Lviv (roughly 70 km/43 miles from the Polish border), damaging residential buildings and injuring dozens.

Poland scrambled fighter jets during the attack. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile may have entered Polish airspace; Warsaw has not confirmed the claim. This is the latest close call raising the risk of spillover onto NATO territory.

Ukraine hits refineries 1,500 km (930 miles) inside Russia

Ukraine struck the Ryazan and Perm oil refineries, which together process about 220 million barrels a year and feed Russia's domestic fuel supply, export revenue, and military logistics. The Perm refinery sits more than 1,500 km (930 miles) from Ukraine, marking a new benchmark for the range of Kyiv's strike capability.

Zelenskyy presses Washington for more Patriots

The refinery strikes followed a Washington meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump, U.S. senators, and representatives from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Talks centered on additional Patriot air-defense batteries, licensing Ukraine to manufacture Patriot systems or interceptors domestically, and expanding joint weapons production.

Domestic Patriot production or licensing would reduce Kyiv's dependence on U.S. supply timelines, directly addressing the interceptor shortage Russia's drone-and-missile saturation strategy is designed to exploit.

What to watch

Watch whether Poland confirms the Kh-101 incursion claim; a verified violation would raise NATO Article 4/5 consultations and pressure for a more forward air-defense posture along the eastern flank. Also watch for further Ukrainian strikes on refineries deeper inside Russia; and whether Washington moves from talks to concrete Patriot licensing or production agreements, which would mark a durable shift in Ukraine's air-defense self-sufficiency.

Move fast and break things

Senate sanctions bill turns into a tariff weapon on China and India

The Senate voted 86-12 on July 28 to advance the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, named for the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. The vote is procedural, not final passage, and the House is not expected to take it up before returning in September.

The bill's real weight sits in a tariff provision, not its Russia sanctions list. It would let President Donald Trump impose tariffs of up to 100% on imports from any of the top five buyers of Russian crude oil or gas, or countries judged to be helping Russia evade energy sanctions. That makes it as much a trade lever against Beijing and New Delhi as a Moscow sanctions package.

Original 500% tariff cut to 100%, with exemptions built in

The final text is narrower than Graham's original draft, which proposed a 500% blanket tariff on Russian energy buyers. The revised cap is 100%, with an exemption for countries getting less than 15% of their natural gas from Russia and showing steps to cut dependence.

Trump retains broad discretion throughout. He can waive sanctions by certifying it serves the national interest, and can impose, adjust, or remove tariffs at will. That discretion, not the text itself, will determine whether this becomes a real constraint on Russia or a bargaining chip in unrelated trade disputes.

China and India face the most direct exposure

China and India are the largest buyers of discounted Russian crude, making them the bill's most likely targets. Japan and parts of Europe, including France, Hungary, Belgium, and Slovakia, could also be affected depending on how rankings and exemptions are applied.

India's exposure is the most acute. Russian crude is central to its energy strategy, but a 100% tariff on its U.S.-bound exports would threaten one of New Delhi's largest commercial relationships. Washington could use that leverage for more than energy policy, extending it to market access or defense procurement disputes. China is less likely to yield directly, but any tariffs imposed would fold into the broader U.S.-China trade and strategic competition already underway.

Iran provisions added at Trump's request

Iran-related sanctions were added to the bill after a request from Trump, extending existing authorities targeting Iranian energy revenue, weapons activity, and support for armed groups. The bill's core economic mechanism, however, remains built around Russian energy buyers, not Iran.

Democrats warn of a tariff-power expansion, not just a Russia bill

Some Democrats see the bill as a vehicle for expanding presidential tariff authority beyond its stated purpose. Representative Gregory Meeks, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has warned it could expose U.S. allies to new tariffs and raise costs for American consumers. Senator Ron Wyden has signaled he may push amendments to limit the tariff provisions.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched the vote from the Senate gallery after meeting Trump and a bipartisan senator group, calling the measure a signal of U.S. support meant to pressure President Vladimir Putin toward negotiation.

Political implications

The 86-12 margin shows broad congressional appetite to squeeze Moscow, but it guarantees neither final passage nor that the toughest provisions get used. The real test is how aggressively Trump applies the tariff authority once available.

Watch whether the House takes it up after returning in September, whether Wyden's amendments narrow the tariff scope further, and whether India moves preemptively on Russian crude purchases to avoid exposure. If Trump applies the authority broadly, expect this to function less as a Russia sanctions bill and more as a restructuring tool for U.S. trade relations with India and China.

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