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Middle East crisis live: US says nearly 2,000 targets hit in Iran war; Iran insists it has ‘complete control’ of strait of Hormuz

India is facing a highly precarious situation for its energy security if the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s most critical oil shipping chokepoint – remains closed amidst the escalating Middle East crisis. India, a country of more than 1.4bn people, imports about 88% of its required crude oil to meet its vast energy requirements. Around 40% of that comes from the Middle East, through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow but vital maritime corridor linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman. Oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz halted since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran last week. In retaliation, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps claimed control of the shipping corridor and warned that any vessel attempting to transit the passage could face missiles or drone strikes. According to industry analyst Kpler, India currently has around 100 million barrels of commercial crude oil stocks left, covering roughly 40 to 45 days of its requirements. Over the past few months, punitive tariffs and sanctions from US president Trump had pushed India to move away from its reliance on discounted Russian oil, over accusations it was funding Putin’s aggressions in Ukraine. However the ongoing turbulence in the Middle East, which is driving up crude oil prices, could send India back to Moscow to ensure its energy security needs are met. On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told a state-run tv channel that India had signalled “renewed interest” in importing larger volumes of Russian crude oil following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Indian officials have not officially commented but government sources told Reuters that India was “scouting for alternatives” of both crude oil and natural gas and that they were “reasonably confident that if one source closes, another window will open”. The situation is even tricker for India’s natural gas needs, which are largely reliant on Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Facing strikes from Iran, both countries have halted production and exports. This week, Indian companies began reducing gas supplies ⁠to some industrial customers as they face an impending shortfall.

Cuba charges six exiles with terrorism in wake of deadly speedboat attack

Cuban prosecutors have formally charged six people with crimes of terrorism after a US-flagged speedboat was involved in a deadly shootout with Cuba’s coast guard last week. The US-based Cuban defendants are accused of packing a boat with weapons and heading toward Cuba in hopes of destabilising the government in Havana. The coast guard shot and killed four other people aboard the boat, which came within one nautical mile of the Caribbean island’s shores in the 25 February shootout. At least two of those on the speedboat were US citizens, one of whom was killed. The defendants will be “remanded into provisional detention,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement. There was no further update as to the condition of the wounded detainees, nor their whereabouts at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Cuba. Washington has effectively halted all oil shipments to the Communist-ruled island while demanding political and economic changes. Donald Trump’s administration has made no secret of its desire for regime change in Cuba. Cuban officials have alleged the purported infiltrators came armed with nearly 13,000 rounds of ammunition, 13 rifles and 11 pistols, displaying the captured armaments from the studio on a special television program on Friday. They also showed pictures of the vessels, each peppered with bullet holes from the firefight they said took place at a range of 20 metres (66 feet). Cuba has said at least two of those taken into custody had been previously placed on a list of accused terrorists. Cuba’s interior ministry alleged the men came from the US with the intent to sow chaos and attack military units on the island. Prosecutor Edward Robert Campbell told state television on Friday the accused faced a host of possible charges including crimes associated with terrorist acts. If convicted they could face prison terms of up to 15 years for the lesser offences and 20 to 30 years – or even the death penalty – for the more serious charges, Campbell said. US politicians have expressed skepticism over Cuba’s version of events, calling for independent investigations. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said it was not a US operation and that no US government personnel were involved. Last week, Havana said Washington was willing to cooperate in the investigation. After the Cuban revolution in 1959, such infiltration attempts by armed commandos from South Florida were not uncommon. With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

Wednesday briefing: Was the chancellor’s spring statement already out of date?

Good morning. When she stood up in parliament yesterday to deliver the spring statement, Rachel Reeves insisted that “inflation is down, borrowing is down, living standards are up and the economy is growing” – and that Labour’s economic plan was the right one for a world that has become “yet more uncertain”. In narrow fiscal terms, the chancellor achieved what she set out to do. Borrowing is forecast to fall, her headroom against the fiscal rules has edged up to £23.6bn, and the statement contained no policy surprises to unsettle investors. But the economic weather beyond Westminster has shifted sharply. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecasts were finalised before the US and Israeli attack on Iran, which has sparked a surge in oil and gas prices and war across the Middle East. Reeves was speaking against a backdrop of tumbling markets and rising geopolitical risk. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Guardian’s economic editor, Heather Stewart, about whether Reeves achieved the calm she was aiming for – and how long it might last. First, the headlines. Five big stories Iran | Israel and the US intensified their attacks on Iran as Donald Trump said he had rejected what he claimed was an attempt by Tehran to restart negotiations. UK news | A doctor who gave crucial expert evidence for the prosecution of the nurse Lucy Letby was under investigation at the time due to serious concerns about his fitness to practise. US politics | The US justice department has dropped legal proceedings against four law firms that stood up to retaliatory executive actions by Donald Trump for representing clients or causes the president did not like. Reform UK | More than half of Reform UK members believe non-white British citizens born abroad should be deported or encouraged to leave, according to polling. Baftas 2026 | Alan Cumming has joined the chorus of disapproval at the BBC’s failure to edit out a racial slur from their Baftas telecast, saying it turned the event “into a trauma-triggering shitshow”. In depth: ‘People assume prices are going to fall. They aren’t’ Reeves acknowledged that growth will be “slightly slower” this year, with the OBR downgrading its 2026 forecast from 1.4% to 1.1% after weaker-than-expected data late last year. Unemployment is now expected to peak at 5.3%, up from a previous estimate of 4.9%, as new entrants to the labour market struggle to find work amid subdued hiring. For a chancellor effectively telling parliament that short-term growth is slowing and unemployment is rising, she struck a notably upbeat tone. As Heather Stewart put it to me, had Reeves delivered the same statement a week earlier “we’d all have been writing that the public finances were improving a little bit and there were modest causes for optimism”. Instead, she was making the case for restored “economic stability” while the US and the Middle East have gone to war. *** Did Reeves succeed in delivering a boring statement? In one sense, yes. There were no rabbits pulled from hats, no new fiscal loosening and no deviation from the government’s self-imposed rules. Headroom increased modestly, debt is forecast to fall slightly faster than expected and inflation is projected to return to target in the second half of this year. Labour’s strategy relies on what Reeves has called a “stability premium” – a period of calm in which lower borrowing costs encourage businesses to invest and households to spend. “There’s all this chaos going on around them,” Heather says. “Her absolutely central message is supposed to be that the government has restored economic stability, but a lot of that will depend on what happens in the Middle East.” “It’s very hard to know how long that situation will last,” she adds. “If it doesn’t last very long, and energy prices come back to something a bit more like normal, the markets calm down, then it won’t do particularly lasting damage to the UK economy.” But markets did not provide the calm backdrop Reeves might have hoped for yesterday. Expectations of a near-term interest rate cut have fallen sharply as energy prices have risen, the FTSE fell and the pound plunged. *** What are ordinary people going to feel in their pockets? Labour’s argument is that real wages are rising and that households will be about £1,000 a year better off in real terms by the next election. The OBR forecasts GDP per person will grow by 5.6% over the parliament. Yet, as Heather notes, there is a persistent disconnect between economic metrics and lived experience. “For economists and central bankers, 2% inflation is about right – you don’t want zero or negative inflation because that risks recession. But when politicians say inflation is ‘under control’, people probably assume prices are going to fall. They aren’t”. In fact on the morning of the spring statement, Reeves had the unwelcome news that grocery inflation had risen. Ministers, she says, have pinned their hopes that households will notice April’s energy bill reduction and, potentially, lower mortgage rates if further Bank of England cuts follow. But if higher global energy prices persist, that relief could prove short-lived. And it isn’t just directly in people’s pockets that the economy is felt. Heather notes that unemployment, particularly among first-time jobseekers, is already close to a five-year high and forecast to rise further this year. “If voters – or their kids – are struggling to get a job, that’s not going to make you feel particularly cheerful. Unemployment has already risen quite significantly, and the OBR has it ticking up further this year, especially among first-time jobseekers. That’s something people really notice.” *** What role does immigration play in the OBR’s forecasts? One of the more technical but potentially significant issues behind the scenes was migration. The OBR has previously assumed higher levels of net migration, which tend to support growth and tax receipts. But recent data suggests inflows are falling sharply. The OBR has already factored in weaker-than-expected migration, Heather says. “But it hasn’t yet incorporated the government’s tougher new immigration policies. Economists expect those to be taken into account in the autumn forecast – and that’s likely to put further downward pressure on growth. That’s a looming issue.” That leaves Reeves navigating a delicate balance: addressing voter concerns about migration, which are being exploited by Reform UK, while relying on labour supply to support economic growth and tax receipts. *** Is the OBR still fit for purpose? Beyond the numbers, there is a broader debate gathering pace about the role of the OBR itself (as covered by Aamna in this very newsletter, back in December). Heather wrote at the weekend that some Labour-aligned thinktanks have labelled the OBR “a backseat driver with out-of-date maps”. Others warn that weakening the watchdog would risk unsettling markets at a time when fiscal credibility remains fragile. “There is a sort of bubbling argument about its role,” she tells me. “People say it’s got too much power, it doesn’t give enough weight to the long-term benefits of investment, it’s just too much of a constraint.” But, as Heather observes, it may not be the moment for change. “It’s very difficult to abolish or reform the OBR’s remit at a time when markets are highly sensitive about fiscal credibility. That’s the sort of thing you would want to do from a position of strength, when everything is calm and it would barely be noticed. At the moment, it would probably cause a significant wobble.” *** A political speech, not an economic one The spring statement was billed as a non-event. In fiscal terms, it was largely that: no new policies, modest revisions and slightly improved headroom. In many ways it had more political content than economic content, with Reeves broadening her attacks not just against the Tories, but also having barbs at Reform – noting the MP for Clacton, Nigel Farage, was not in the chamber – and the Greens. “It felt like a soft-left speech,” Heather points out. “There’s been pressure on Labour to shift left after the Gorton and Denton byelection defeat, and she really leaned into language about moving on from a broken economic model and making sure working people and every part of the country benefit. She also talked about getting closer to the EU. There was clearly something there aimed at reassuring the backbenches.” But ultimately the stability Reeves sought to project rests on assumptions about falling energy costs, easing borrowing pressures and a gradual return of business confidence. In a world that has indeed become “yet more uncertain”, those assumptions may prove more fragile than the OBR and Treasury’s spreadsheets suggest. What else we’ve been reading Much has been said about the government’s draconian plan to double the wait for settled status. Kevin Rawlinson’s interviews with those whose lives are now in limbo is an important read that cuts through. Aamna Jason Okundaye thoughtfully laments a growing intolerance in British society – typified by footballers observing Ramadan being booed this weekend – and, he says, politicians are not doing much to help. Martin There is so much horror in the world, so this piece about retirees discovering a new world through dance feels like a genuine tonic. Aamna I’m a big fan of “old man pubs“, where I can often be found in the corner on my laptop. Social media is giving them a new lease of life among younger visitors, as Tomé Morrissy-Swan discovers. Martin This visual investigation into the strike on a girls’ school in Iran, which killed 168 people, is a devastating and meticulous contribution that pieces together how this tragedy unfolded. Aamna Sport Football | In the Premier League, Wolves stunned Liverpool with a 94th-minute winner, walking away with a 2-1 victory. England’s women got their World Cup qualifying campaign off to a flying start with a 6-1 win over Ukraine. Scotland’s women also won, while Wales picked up a potentially valuable point away to the Czech Republic. Rugby union | Steve Borthwick has made 12 changes to his England team to face Italy, picking an entirely different back line as he seeks to salvage his side’s Six Nations campaign with the most radical selection of his tenure. Cricket | England have pledged to go into Thursday’s T20 World Cup semi-final against India with no fear, with Sam Curran describing the fixture as “a dream” and “a brilliant opportunity”. The front pages The Guardian leads with “US and Israel intensify Iran attacks as conflict widens” this morning. “War spreads across Middle East as Trump rages at Starmer” is on the front page of the i paper, the Mail goes with “A prime minister who Trump mocks as ‘no Churchill’ and a Navy fleet stranded in port”, the Times has “PM is no Churchill, says Trump as tensions rise”, while “Starmer is no Churchill” leads the Telegraph. “Enter the Dragon” leads the Mirror, after the deployment of HMS Dragon. The Sun front page reads: “Ship happens”. “Panic at the pumps” leads the Star, as oil prices rise. “Mideast energy shock batters markets” is top story for the FT. Today in Focus What do Netanyahu and Trump really want in Iran? Who’s calling the shots in the US-Israeli war on Iran? Chief Middle East correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison and international security correspondent Jason Burke report Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Across the continent, African women have long passed down intimate knowledge about pleasure and partnership through rites of passage and women-led gatherings. Much of this tradition has been overlooked – until now. Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah travelled across Africa to explore how this ancestral wisdom might help women reclaim joy and sexual freedom today. Among the practices she encounters are “kitchen parties”, where aunties and grandmothers counsel brides-to-be on intimacy, self-care and sustaining a healthy marriage. Dance is just one of the seduction techniques taught. Rooted in centuries-old rituals, these gatherings reveal a communal, confident approach to sexuality that challenges shame. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Middle East conflict offers economic lifeline to Russia’s flagging war machine

A prolonged energy crisis triggered by the widening war in the Middle East could offer an economic lifeline to Russia’s war machine at a moment when it was beginning to show signs of strain. The sharp weakening and possible collapse of the regime in Iran would deprive the Kremlin of one of its closest regional partners. But that setback could be outweighed by an economic windfall if disruption pushes buyers toward Russian energy, alongside a possible slowdown in western arms supplies to Ukraine. “When a good fifth of global oil supply and roughly a quarter of seaborne trade is effectively locked up, that’s a boon for Russia,” said Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre and leading expert on Russia’s energy sector. Brent crude rose more than 7% on Tuesday to above $80 a barrel, adding to Monday’s 7.2% jump, after a halt to shipping in the strait of Hormuz followed by Iranian missile and drone strikes on regional infrastructure. The surge pushed prices to their highest level since July 2024 and they are predicted to rise further. India and China – among the largest buyers of Middle Eastern crude – would be hardest hit by any extended disruption and could be forced to increase purchases from Moscow. While Beijing has long diversified its oil imports across the Middle East, Africa and Russia, any sustained disruption to Gulf supplies – particularly from Iran – could speed up a deeper tilt towards Russian barrels, Vakulenko said. India faces a more delicate balancing act. Until recently, Russia was its largest supplier of crude, a relationship that deepened after western sanctions reshaped global energy flows. But under a trade deal struck with Donald Trump last month, New Delhi began replacing some Russian cargoes with oil from the Gulf, cutting imports from Moscow to their lowest level since 2022. Should Middle Eastern supplies falter, Indian officials are likely to seek greater flexibility from Washington – reopening the door to increased Russian purchases. Taken together, such shifts will strengthen Russia’s hand in negotiations for higher prices. For months, Moscow had been forced to offer steep oil discounts as a glut of global supply and lingering sanctions risks made traders wary of taking Russian barrels. Storage capacity was tightening and there were growing signs that Russia could eventually be forced to curb production as cargoes struggled to find takers. “Some of the Russian oil that’s been sitting on tankers will definitely find buyers now,” said Vakulenko. Much depends on how long the crisis lasts. Importing countries typically hold about three months’ worth of oil in advance, and last summer’s 12-day fighting had only a fleeting impact on energy markets. Another question will be how severely the Gulf’s energy infrastructure – on all sides – is damaged by the time the fighting ends. “If it’s two weeks, it doesn’t matter much. If it’s longer, then things start to get interesting,” Vakulenko said. Beyond oil, Russia could also benefit from a gas shock. A halt to Qatari LNG exports would leave a gap in the global supply that Russian producers might partially fill, although gas flows are less flexible than oil and harder to reroute at short notice. Russian energy stocks have already reacted, with Gazprom and Novatek among the main gainers on the Moscow exchange. The timing could scarcely be worse for Ukraine. Russia’s oil and gas revenues – vital to financing its war – fell to a five-year low in 2025 as crude prices softened and exports declined under sanctions. The downturn had raised hopes in Kyiv that Moscow might struggle to sustain its military campaign at the current intensity into 2026. “For our budget, the attack on Iran is a big plus,” the prominent Kremlin TV host Vladimir Solovyov gloated to his viewers on Monday. “If Trump strikes Iranian oilfields, then, as unfortunate as it sounds, we would become one of the few remaining oil-producing countries.” For Europe, too, the crisis risks reopening divisions over its approach towards Moscow. The EU has been moving to phase out Russian fossil fuels, a policy opposed by Moscow-friendly governments in Hungary and Slovakia and criticised by surging rightwing parties across the bloc. Norway’s energy minister, Terje Aasland, acknowledged on Tuesday that the escalation in the Middle East could revive debate within the EU over banning Russian gas imports. “The EU has been very clear that they want to liberate themselves from Russian oil and gas, but the events of the last three or four days have been difficult,” Aasland told a conference in Oslo. “With the geopolitical situation we see now, I believe the debate will be revived.” Kyiv is also concerned about the knock-on military effects. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine could face difficulties securing air defence systems, particularly US-made Patriot missiles, if Washington and its regional allies prioritised their own needs. “We may have difficulties acquiring missiles and weapons to defend our airspace,” the Ukrainian president told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “The Americans and their allies in the Middle East may need them for self-defence.” He added that Iran’s strikes on Israel last June had already delayed some deliveries. In the Kremlin, the prevailing mood is one of “wait and see,” one Moscow insider said. “The world is in turmoil, but this time we’re not at the epicentre,” the source said. Vladimir Putin has been careful not to criticise Donald Trump too harshly over the bombing of Iran, wary of antagonising a US president he sees as pivotal in putting pressure on Ukraine to accept peace terms on Moscow’s conditions. Instead, with every increase in oil prices, there is barely concealed satisfaction among Russia’s elite. “$100+ oil per barrel soon,” Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, wrote on X.

US compares opening strikes to ‘shock and awe’ of Iraq war: what we know on day five of Iran conflict

The US military has claimed that the number of strikes carried out on Saturday in the first 24 hours of its war on Iran was nearly double that of the “shock-and-awe” strikes on Iraq in 2003, and that nearly 2,000 targets had been hit so far in Iran. Cooper also said the US was also sinking “all of the Iranian navy” and had already destroyed 17 Iranian ships. The US navy could begin escorting oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz if necessary, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, in one of the administration’s most aggressive steps yet to attempt to contain soaring energy prices sparked by the war. Global oil and gas prices have spiked as the war has halted energy exports from the Middle East. Iran has attacked ships and energy facilities, closing navigation in the Gulf and forcing production stoppages from Qatar to Iraq. The conflict has caused turbulence on global markets. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 continued to fall on Wednesday, and was down about 3.9% during early trading. In Seoul, the Kospi – which dropped 7.2% on Tuesday – fell by a further 8.1% before trading was suspended on Wednesday. But Wall Street looks set to open only marginally lower in New York, according to pre-market trading data. Israel said it had launched a “broad wave” of strikes on Iran early on Wednesday that were targeting launch sites, defence systems, and additional Iranian infrastructure. Trump said the US would cut off all trade with Spain over its refusal to let the US military use its bases for missions linked to strikes on Iran. Trump also vented his displeasure towards the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, who has not joined the attacks on Iran but did let US forces use UK bases. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” he said, referring to Starmer. Lebanon’s health ministry said on Wednesday that Israeli strikes on two towns south of Beirut killed six people and wounded eight. Aramoun and Saadiyat are both towns outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds. At least 30,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon, according to the UN, after heavy Israeli airstrikes. The US Department of Defense on Tuesday identified four of the six American soldiers who were killed Sunday during a drone strike on a US base in Kuwait. Donald Trump said there will probably be more service members killed before the war ends. Donald Trump has claimed Iran was going to attack before the US did, walking back Marco Rubio’s assertion that Israel triggered the war. “I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” he said. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 787 people had been killed since the conflict began. The worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli military assault so far has been the direct strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab on Saturday, which killed up to 168 people. Our visual guide on that attack is here. Emmanuel Macron ordered France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to move from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean to help protect allied assets. The Charles de Gaulle carrier will be escorted by frigates and its air wing. Iran has continued to fire dozens of ballistic missiles at Israel, though most incoming fire has been intercepted. Eleven people in Israel have been killed since the conflict began.

Trump says US will provide insurance for commercial shipping – as it happened

This live blog has now closed. You follow our continuing coverage of crisis in the Middle East here.

The Iran war has sparked travel chaos. How will flights be rerouted and can other airports meet the surge in demand?

It will likely be a “messy” month for airlines operating throughout the Middle East as travellers stuck in major transit hubs are slowly rerouted and repatriated after days of turmoil due to the ongoing conflict in Iran. Experts say airlines are well-versed in disruptions, with entire teams dedicated to what is known as “irregular operations”. But while minor issues can be resolved in a matter of days, the sheer scale of the airline industry that operates in the region will be a complex puzzle that will take much longer to work through. Dubai international airport is one of the busiest in the world, with more than 95 million passengers transiting through in 2025 alone. Doha’s Hamad international airport handled more than 54 million. Both have been shuttered for days. Sign up: AU Breaking News email John Cox, an aviation expert and retired airline pilot with more than 14,000 hours of flight time, said there are processes for disruptions in flight plans. Teams coordinate behind the scenes to find aircraft, source the teams to fly them, make sure the planes undergo necessary maintenance and, ultimately, see passengers on their way. “This is not unprecedented. The scale of it is,” Cox said. The former pilot pointed to conditions in the United States, where weather events such as blizzards will regularly take out major airports for two or three days at a time. Operations centres will run for 24 hours a day, for days at a time, “reassembling the airlines” to get things back on track. “With a two- or three-day blizzard it takes generally four or five days to return to regular operations,” he said. “But, you can generally, in 48 hours or so, have most of it put back together, meaning you’re starting to move passengers again and get them where they need to go.” The situation in the Middle East, however, is much more complicated. Air travel is more popular than ever and many planes do not have many extra seats in the best of times. “We’re talking about Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai, they’re major hubs internationally … with major airlines that move people from Europe to Asia,” Cox said, adding many travellers had no reason to be in those cities except to transit through large airports. Travellers are now stuck on either side of the Middle East with limited options to return home. Some flights have begun to ferry some of those passengers on once more, although the situation could change at a moment’s notice. An Emirates plane took off on Wednesday morning, the first to leave Dubai to Sydney since Saturday. The airline is now running limited flights to deal with the backlog of stranded passengers. And Qantas will operate a flight from Perth to London, usually a direct route, with a short fuel stop in Singapore instead. That will allow the plane to carry up to 60 more passengers. The flag carrier may continue to do so for the foreseeable future to help deal with a backlog. Other airlines in the region, including Qatar Airways and Etihad, remain suspended until at least Thursday. Dr Ian Douglas, an expert in aviation and airline management, said the situation will be “messy for the next month” at best as airlines work to rebook people, coordinate with partners and figure out other routes to avoid problematic airspace. “There are people stuck in the Middle East, so you want to get rid of that problem first, you don’t want people sitting in the airport. Maybe it takes a week, or two, or three,” Douglas said, while noting the constraints that many airlines face. “There aren’t many spare aircraft, there aren’t spare crews, so it really is down to what can I fit on my network.” Douglas added the ongoing conflict would be hugely expensive for airlines. “Just think about the crews who are dislocated, sitting in hotels,” he said. “Aircraft that are a couple of million dollars a month to lease that are sitting on the ground doing nothing, generating no income. “All of the passengers who need accommodation and feeding, and just pulling the network back together. It’s enormously expensive. “You look at the size and scale of Emirates or Qatar, they’re multibillion-dollar businesses. You’re talking millions of dollars an hour in fares that are not happening.” Ahmed Abdelghany, a professor of operations management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the United States, said the closure of so much airspace, with effectively no alternatives for airlines to reroute, was an exceedingly unique situation. “Nobody can predict when this war will end. So there’s a lot of uncertainty in the system, not only on the demand side but on the supply side. Airlines will be asking: can I put my airplane in danger?” “They will test the market piece-by-piece, day by day … hour by hour actually.” For passengers, the impact for Middle Eastern hubs and airlines could linger far beyond the end of the conflict, Abdelghany added. “People might still say ‘I’m not going to travel in risky airspace, missiles are flying, you know? I’m going to stay home.’” Cox said airlines are able to recover after periods of uncertainty, even though the process can be immensely frustrating for passengers. “Irregular ops” teams, he said, are experts at choreographing the web of decisions needed to get back to normal. “These folks are so good at it,” Cox said. “They’re extremely professional … There’s a saying: ‘It’s the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes slightly longer. We’re going to rebuild the airline and we’re going to rebuild it quickly.’” He described the airline industry as a “a symphony of motion” that takes a dedicated workforce. “Now, you’ve got everything out of tune.”

Ukraine war briefing: Merz tells Trump Ukraine must not give up more territory

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in Washington for talks with Donald Trump, said he stressed that Ukraine should not have to accept further territorial concessions during his conversation with the US president. He said he also underscored the need for continued support for Ukraine, which last week marked the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. “We all want to see this war coming to an end as soon as possible. But Ukraine has to preserve its territory and their security interests,” Merz said at the start of his third visit to the Oval Office. He told reporters he thought Trump had understood the point after he showed him a map of the war-torn country. Trump ensured Merz that negotiating a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine remained “very high” on his priority list, and said he believed the US had plenty of munitions to fight Iran and sell them to Europe for use in Ukraine. Merz also urged Trump to put pressure on Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. “Russia is playing for time here, and in doing so is also acting against the will of the American president. In today’s talks, I called for increasing the pressure on Moscow,” the German chancellor told reporters. The US, Russia and Ukraine are taking part in trilateral talks aimed at securing a peace deal. Merz, however, said only a pact supported by Europe could be lasting. “We are not prepared to accept an agreement that is negotiated over our heads,” he said. A suspected Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker seized by Belgium is being held on a €10m ($12m) bond, after inspections revealed infractions, Brussels said on Tuesday. The Ethera, which Belgium alleges is part of a flotilla of ageing vessels Moscow uses to avoid western sanctions, was seized by Belgian special forces in the North Sea on Sunday. Investigations carried out after it was brought to the port of Zeebrugge confirmed it had been sailing under a false Guinean flag, the Belgian government said. In total inspectors found 45 infractions, including technical defects, leading to the ship being impounded, it added. The tanker’s Russian captain and its 20-strong crew were ordered to remain on board. “The ship will only leave the port once it is compliant and the deposit has been paid,” said Belgium’s mobility minister, Jean-Luc Crucke. Russia has previously described the seizure of its tankers and other vessels carrying its cargoes as acts of piracy. The US has deployed a low-cost combat drone in Iran modelled on the Iranian Shahed, as it pushes to accelerate weapons programmes because the Ukraine war. The Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (Lucas) drone was deployed just eight months after its Pentagon unveiling. Defence officials said the compressed timeline reflected lessons learned from observing drone warfare in Ukraine, where both sides have employed thousands of low-cost unmanned systems. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, discussed the Druzhba pipeline, which is at the centre of a dispute with Hungary and Slovakia and has held up approval of a €90bn EU loan to Kyiv. A commission spokesperson said the two leaders had discussed the matter during a call but could not share any details of the conversation. Earlier von der Leyen said on X that they had discussed topics including the loan, sanctions on Russia and “the wider impact of the developments in the Middle East on energy prices, on energy security and on availability of badly needed defence materials”.