The Week

The Iran war ended on paper, nearly died twice before Saturday — and Ukraine’s drone campaign put Moscow itself on fuel rations.

The 14-point Memorandum of Understanding dominated the week, and it arrived in stages that never quite agreed with each other. Wednesday reported the deal signed, with a $300 billion reconstruction fund and restored oil-sale rights; Thursday had Trump and Pezeshkian signing at Versailles while Trump flatly denied the fund (“We’re not putting up 10 cents”) and threatened to “go back to shooting”; by Friday the naval blockade was lifted and a 60-day clock toward a formal peace agreement had started. Then Saturday showed how thin the paper is: 24 hours of Israel–Hezbollah violence killed four Israeli soldiers, the Switzerland talks were scrapped with Vance’s team already en route, and Washington had to pressure Israel directly into a renewed Lebanon ceasefire, announcing fresh talks in Washington next week. The Strait of Hormuz is “reopened” only as a framework — Iran promises tolls rather than prewar conditions, and Saturday’s markets note still counted 80 mines blocking the strait.

The record also disagrees with itself on a point it never resolves: Wednesday’s leader stated that Supreme Leader Khamenei was killed during the campaign, yet Friday reported “Khamenei approved the deal”, saying Trump signed out of desperation. Either the death reports were wrong or the title has quietly passed to a successor; the week’s coverage says neither. What it does say clearly is the strategic verdict: BBC’s analysts note the regime not only survived a war fought partly for regime change — it may have been empowered by it, and Western powers pivoted to bankrolling its rehabilitation within weeks.

Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign, which last week’s review said had graduated from promise to accounting, this week graduated from accounting to consequence. The Kapotnya refinery — roughly 40% of Moscow’s gasoline — was struck Wednesday, again Thursday, and by Saturday had fully halted, forcing fuel rationing in the capital itself. Thursday night brought the largest drone offensive of the war — Russia claimed ~555 downed nationwide, ~194 over Moscow, residents reporting “oil rain” — and for the first time Ukraine surpassed Russia in daily drone volume. The macroeconomy registered it: refining capacity down 30%, Russia preparing seaborne gasoline imports for the first time in years, and a central-bank rate cut to 14.25% that ISW reads as the Kremlin eroding the bank’s independence to prop up the war industry. Russia’s answer was a missile strike that killed 11 in Kyiv and set the Pechersk Lavra cathedral ablaze.

Diplomatically, the Iran settlement freed Trump’s attention for Ukraine, and Europe got a result it didn’t expect while acquiring a worry it did: at the G7 in Évian, Macron won Trump’s signature on a declaration of “unwavering support” for Ukraine, expanded air-defence deliveries, possible interceptor-production licences for Kyiv, and a signalled return of Russian-oil sanctions — while allies fret that a freshly unburdened Trump will run the peace process himself and trade away Ukrainian sovereignty. The alliance’s own seams showed on Saturday, when Poland’s President Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle over UPA commemorations, PM Tusk publicly calling the move a gift to Putin.

At home, the week’s most durable item: Høyesterett enstemmig kjente ugyldig statens tillatelse til å deponere 26,5 millioner tonn gruvemasse i Førdefjorden — the end of an 18-year fight, a precedent grounded in the EU water directive’s non-deterioration principle, with direct implications for Repparfjorden. Markets spent the week draining the war premium — gold fell every day it was quoted, ending −1.72% Saturday with the VIX under 17 — pricing peace faster than the mines in Hormuz justify. Three of last week’s threads — the Fable/Mythos suspension, Russia’s NATO-border buildup, Long COVID autoimmunity — received no coverage at all this week.

Threads

Questions

From last week:

• “Does Trump’s claimed Iran peace deal produce an actual signed or announced agreement, and does the Strait of Hormuz reopen to shipping?” — Resolved, in halves. The 14-point MOU was signed — prediction number 38 was the one that landed (Thursday) — and the blockade lifted Friday. But Hormuz reopened only as a framework: Iran promises tolls, not prewar passage, and 80 mines were still in the water on Saturday.
• “Is the US suspension of Fable 5 and Mythos 5 lifted, narrowed, or extended?” — Open. No coverage this week. (That this review is again written by the model in question is evidence of something, but not evidence the coverage supplies.)
• “Does Ukraine’s $20 billion Ramstein request get a concrete commitment — and does the ‘high probability’ Oreshnik launch from Kapustin Yar materialize?” — Open. Neither Ramstein nor the $20 billion figure appeared this week; the nearest event was the G7’s Évian pledge of expanded deliveries, no dollar figure attached. No Oreshnik launch in the record.

Posed this week:

• Do the Israel–Lebanon talks announced for next week in Washington convene, and do US–Iran negotiations resume after the scrapped Switzerland round?
• Does commercial shipping actually transit the Strait of Hormuz — mines cleared — or do Iran’s promised tolls and closures remain the operative reality?
• Does Russia begin the seaborne gasoline imports it was reported preparing, and does Moscow’s fuel rationing persist or spread?