European Union
(Nicholas Vinocur – Politico) The European Union must move more quickly to include new members and expand the 27-member club, the bloc’s top diplomat said Monday in a nod to Ukraine, Montenegro and other candidate countries waiting to join. Enlargement must “remain merit-based but in the current context we need to step up the pace,” Kaja Kallas told an annual conference of EU diplomats in Brussels. “Enlargement is the antidote to Russian imperialism, and a sign that the most ambitious multilateral project in history, the European Union, is here to stay.”. Kallas’ push for faster integration of EU candidate countries lands amid tense discussions between the European Commission, which advocates for speedy enlargement, and national capitals that have backed a more gradual approach. – Kallas throws her weight behind faster EU enlargement: ‘We should pick up the pace’ – POLITICO
European Union – Russia
(Marion Solletty – Politico) The rising price of oil is undermining the European Union’s efforts to rein in Vladimir Putin’s shadow fleet of sanctioned oil tankers. Russian oil is in high demand as the war in the Middle East and tensions around the Strait of Hormuz tighten global supply, sending benchmark crude prices above $100 per barrel on Monday. That risks weakening a central plank of the EU’s efforts to cut off funding for the Russian president’s war in Ukraine: making it harder and more expensive for Moscow to export oil through a network of aging vessels operating outside the Western shipping system. – Rising oil prices throw Putin’s shadow fleet a lifeline – POLITICO
Iran and beyond
(Al Arabiya) Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday declared his support for his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun in the latter’s effort to disarm Hezbollah. The Middle East war expanded to Lebanon on March 2, after Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of US-Israeli attacks on Iran, prompting Israeli retaliation. Since March 2, Israel has been conducting large-scale air raids on Lebanon and incursions with ground troops, killing at least 486 people according to the Lebanese health ministry. – Syrian president declares support for Lebanon’s effort to disarm Hezbollah
(Al Arabiya) Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday accused Hezbollah of working toward the “collapse” of the state for the sake of Iran’s interests, a week after the Tehran-backed militia launched an attack on Israel, starting a new war in Lebanon. “Whoever launched those missiles wanted to bring about the collapse of the Lebanese state, plunging it into aggression and chaos… all for the sake of the Iranian regime’s calculations,” Aoun told top European officials in an online meeting. – Aoun accuses Hezbollah of working toward ‘collapse’ of Lebanese state for Iran’s sake
(Al Arabiya) US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Iran of taking the world hostage through its retaliatory strikes and insisted that the United States was on track with its war objectives. “I think we are all seeing right now the threat this clerical regime poses to the region and to the world. They are trying to hold the world hostage,” Rubio said at an event at the State Department. – Rubio says Iran ‘trying to hold world hostage’ with its attacks
(AFP/Al Arabiya) Kuwait’s emir on Monday condemned Iran’s attacks on his country, where 12 people have been killed so far, as Tehran strikes out at the Gulf in response to US-Israeli attacks. – Kuwait emir lambasts ‘brutal’ Iran attacks, affirms right to self-defense
(Reuters/Al Arabiya) President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was “nowhere near” deciding whether to send US troops into Iran to secure the stockpile of highly enriched uranium there. “We haven’t made any decision on that. We’re nowhere near it,” Trump told the New York Post when asked about reported discussions between Israel and the United States on possibly deploying special forces to Iran to seize and secure the material. – Trump says ‘nowhere near’ deciding to send troops to Iran: Report
(AFP/Al Arabiya) Israel announced on Monday that its military had killed the head of Hezbollah’s Nasr unit operating in part of southern Lebanon during renewed fighting with the Iran-backed armed group. – Israel says killed head of Hezbollah unit in south Lebanon
(Reuters/Al Arabiya) About half Iran’s uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, a short step from weapons grade, was stored in an underground area at Isfahan that seems largely unharmed by US and Israeli bombing, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday. – About half of Iran’s most highly enriched uranium was at Isfahan, IAEA’s Grossi says
(AFP/Al Arabiya) Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday again warned Tehran against taking “provocative steps” after NATO defense systems intercepted a second Turkey-bound ballistic missile launched from Iran. – Erdogan warns Iran against ‘provocative steps’ after second missile intercepted
(Tim Zadorozhnyy – The Kyiv Independent) NATO air and missile defense systems intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran after it entered Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on March 9. No casualties were reported, though debris fell in Gaziantep, a major city in southern Turkey. The incident marks the second time in recent days that an Iranian ballistic missile has been launched toward Turkish territory. Ankara previously warned that it reserves the right to respond to any hostile actions against the country. – NATO intercepts another Iranian ballistic missile entering Turkish airspace
(Ben German – Axios) No matter how long the current Middle East upheaval lasts, it could spark or accelerate lasting changes to global energy flows and policies. Analysts are starting to look beyond the immediate market shock — which is indeed quite shocking. Oil soared past $100 per barrel on Sunday night. The spreading conflict is “by far the largest oil disruption in history,” Rapidan Energy Group said in a note. – How the Iran energy shock could bring lasting geopolitical change
(Nicholas Vinocur and Zoya Sheftalovich – Politico) The EU welcomes the hobbling of Iran’s theocratic regime but remains concerned about “chaos” stemming from the war, and has no intention of joining in. Those were the key messages from two of the bloc’s most powerful officials, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and top diplomat Kaja Kallas, as a U.S.-Israeli campaign of airstrikes against the Iranian regime entered its second week. Addressing an annual conference of EU ambassadors in Brussels, von der Leyen discussed internal EU debates about how to approach the war, advising diplomats to focus on practical realities stemming from the war rather than moralizing about its merits. – Top EU officials say no tears shed over fall of Iranian regime, but warn of ‘chaos’ ahead – POLITICO
(Victor Goury-Laffont – Politico) President Emmanuel Macron said France wants to set up military escorts for container ships and tankers into the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as possible,” though he cautioned such an operation can’t get underway until the fighting in the Middle East subsides. The disruption of maritime traffic in the strategic chokepoint, through which about 20 percent of the world’s crude passes each day, has sent oil prices skyrocketing in recent days. Macron said the potential mission would be a “purely defensive mission” including both European and non-European states. – Macron wants escorts for container ships and tankers in Strait of Hormuz ASAP – POLITICO
Russia – Ukraine
(Eva Hartog – Politico) Russian President Vladimir Putin entered the new year facing a painful choice — limit his so-called special military operation in Ukraine or risk serious damage to his economy. Almost overnight, U.S. President Donald Trump handed him the solution. U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran have sent oil prices soaring, boosting the Kremlin’s main source of revenue and making it easier for Putin to sustain his war effort. After Israel bombed Iranian oil facilities this weekend, benchmark crude prices soared to above $100 per barrel, hitting their highest mark since the summer of 2022, when markets spiked following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. – Why Vladimir Putin is the biggest winner from the war in Iran – POLITICO
(Kollen Post – The Kyiv Independent) At the end of December, the person manning the digital boards at PSE, Poland’s national electricity operator, noticed a flurry of solar stations suddenly flicker off grid. Poland in the dead of winter can be a gloomy place. But the grid wasn’t seeing a drop-off in generation in line with the recent solstice. These were full disconnections, synchronized, at a time when the grid needed the power. “They thought it was just a malfunction of the device because the plant was still producing power, they just couldn’t get the remote connection,” Marcin Dudek, head of CERT Polska, Poland’s national cybersecurity authority, told the Kyiv Independent. “But we got the information that something was happening from the operator, who’s monitoring all the plants.”. Only once the operators stabilized the grid did the Polish cyber authorities get the breathing space to ask who exactly attacked their solar grid. A subsequent investigation by CERT-PL found that the attacker had also gotten into the systems of a major combined heat and power plant, where it had spent most of 2025 wiping firmware. The hackers used code and methodology largely descended from Sandworm, a hacker group operating under Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that since a massive attack on the Ukrainian power grid back in 2016, has become one of the most infamous such groups in the world. The attack was related but different. CERT-PL stopped short of naming their suspected hackers. But simultaneous reports from Google Cloud identified them as a group within Russia’s Federal Security Bureau, or FSB, that was analogous to the GRU’s Sandworm unit. – Russia forged new cyber weapons to attack Ukraine. Now they’re going international
(Francis Farrell – The Kyiv Independent) Ukrainian forces are continuing a “counteroffensive” on the southern front line, the country’s top general Oleksandr Syrskyi said on March 9. The comments come several weeks after Ukrainian counterattacking operations in the east of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts were first reported on. According to Syrskyi, one main attack grouping of Air Assault Forces alone regained control of 285.6 square kilometers. – Ukrainian counteroffensive on southern front line ongoing, Syrskyi says
US
(Courtenay Brown – Axios) The Iran conflict has a new economic front: oil topping $100 a barrel, with a near-immediate impact for drivers, travelers and grocery shoppers — while the benefits will flow more slowly to a handful of oil patch states. Americans were already fed up with high prices. The effects of a widening conflict will ripple across the economy, with uncertainty about how high prices will rise and how long the surge will last. Fears about a stagflationary scenario are back, with a fresh inflationary shock coming alongside new signs of labor market weakness. While higher oil prices should mean higher revenue for America’s energy extraction industries and limit the damage to GDP, the cost for already-strained households and key industries is likely to be immediate and visible. – Iran war oil, gas price shock is likely to spiral economy-wide
(Maria Curi – Axios) Anthropic on Monday sued the Pentagon, alleging its designation as a “supply chain risk” violates the company’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the government’s authority. Supply chain risk designations are usually reserved for foreign adversaries that pose a national security risk — a punishment that could be hard for the government to square as it relied on Claude for operations in Iran. The Pentagon last week designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, meaning companies must stop using Claude in cases directly tied to the department. – Anthropic sues Pentagon over rare “supply chain risk” label
