Iran and Russia Launch Naval Drills in Challenge to US
Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. State Department and the Iranian and Russian foreign ministries for comment.
The naval drills send a message on cooperation between Iranian and Russian armed forces to the United States weeks after it joined Israel in attacking Iranian nuclear sites.
Iran has sought to bolster its military capabilities following the 12-day conflict with Israel during which the U.S. launched strikes on key nuclear sites. Stalled diplomacy has increased the risks for a renewed conflict, as Tehran sought backing from Russia and China to counter U.S. military and economic pressure.
The joint maritime rescue and security drill, codenamed CASAREX 2025, includes the participation of the Iranian Navy, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy, the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Navy of the Russian Federation, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
On Monday, Mehr news agency published photos of what it said was the Russian Navy's SB738 vessel entering the Caspian Sea 2025 to join the exercise hosted by Iran's Navy.
Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Russian and Chinese officials at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization security forum (SCO), where he called for united opposition to U.S. military actions and urged deeper strategic coordination.
Earlier this year, U.S.-sanctioned Iran and Russia deepened ties with a defense pact covering joint drills, tech sharing, and coordination against common threats-but without a mutual defense clause. China is also emerging as top candidate to provide advanced weaponry that could help Tehran reestablish deterrence
In June, seven U.S. B-2 stealth bombers dropped GBU‑57 bunker-busters on Iran's Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites. Iran's army commanders have warned both Israel and the U.S. of a "crushing" response against renewed attacks.
Iran has agreed to hold talks in the coming week with Germany, France, and Britain to discuss its nuclear program, a German diplomat told Newsweek.
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA): "The event will be held under the slogan "Together for a Safe and Secure Caspian Sea." The primary goal of the operation is to reinforce maritime safety and security while fostering greater cooperation among the naval forces of these countries."
Department of Defense Chief Spokesman Sean Parnell in statement Saturday: "On July 18, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hosted Israel Minister of Defense Israel Katz to congratulate the Minister on Israel's remarkable performance in the 12-Day War that paved the way for the resounding success of Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER."
The exercise kicks off Monday and will take place for three days.
Related Articles
Iran to Hold Nuclear Talks With 3 European CountriesIran Boasts of New Air Defenses After Attacks From Israel, USDonald Trump Sends Message To Iran Over Nuclear AmbitionsIran Pivots From Russia to China in Quest for New Weapons After Israel War
2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
21 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump ‘really likes' TikTok— but admin warns Chinese ownership not acceptable as dead deadline looms
President Trump likes TikTok but the Chinese-owned short video app, used by some 170 million Americans, has to move to US ownership, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said on Sunday. 'The President really likes TikTok, and he said it over and over again, because, you know, it was a good way to communicate with young people,' Lutnick said in an interview on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream. 'But let's face it, you can't have the Chinese have an app on 100 million American phones, that is just not okay. So, it's got to move to American ownership, it's got to move to American technology, American algorithms,' he said. 'I know the President is positive towards TikTok, if it can move into American hands.' Advertisement 3 Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that President Trump likes TikTok because 'it was a good way to communicate with young people.: FOX NEWS Lutnick's comments follow his warning last week that TikTok will have to stop operating in the U.S. if China does not approve a deal for the app. He told CNBC on Thursday that US must control the algorithm that makes the social media platform work. Advertisement TikTok parent ByteDance has a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform's US assets. Last month, President Trump extended by 90 days to Sept. 17, a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US assets of TikTok. Trump's action took place despite a 2024 law that mandated a sale or shutdown by Jan. 19 of this year if there had not been significant progress. 3 President Trump has set a Sept. 17 deadline for Chinese firm ByteDance to divest TikTok's US assets. Getty Images 'China can have a little piece or ByteDance, the current owner, can keep a little piece. But basically, Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm,' Lutnick said. Advertisement 'If that deal gets approved, by the Chinese, then that deal will happen,' he added. 'If they don't approve it, then TikTok is going to go dark, and those decisions are coming very soon.' 3 A deal that was in the works this spring that would spin off TikTok's US operations into a new US-based firm stalled. Chidori_B – A deal had been in the works this spring that would spin off TikTok's US operations into a new US-based firm, majority-owned and operated by US investors. This stalled after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump's announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump has three times granted reprieves from federal enforcement of the law that mandated the sale or shutdown of TikTok that was supposed to take effect in January.
CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
Qatari plane that could be new Air Force One will be ‘unconditional' gift to the Pentagon, agreement says
Federal agencies US military The Middle East Donald Trump FacebookTweetLink Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his Qatari counterpart have signed an agreement outlining the terms of Qatar's 'unconditional donation' of a Boeing jet to the Pentagon, confirming that the US will pay nothing for the plane, according to a copy of the memorandum of understanding reviewed by CNN. The agreement, signed by Hegseth and Qatar's deputy prime minister and minister of state for defense affairs, Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, on July 7, says the plane — which is expected to be used by President Donald Trump as Air Force One once it is upgraded — is a 'bona fide gift' to the Defense Department. 'This donation is made in good faith and in the spirit of cooperation and mutual support between the parties,' the document says. 'Nothing in this MoU is, or shall be interpreted or construed as, an offer, promise, or acceptance of any form of bribery, undue influence, or corrupt practice.' The memorandum, while signed by both parties, could still be tweaked ahead of a formal announcement, a source familiar with the matter said. The aircraft is parked in San Antonio awaiting upgrades, CNN has reported. CNN has reached out to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Air Force and the Qatari Embassy for comment. The MOU was first reported by The Washington Post. The transfer of the jet from Qatar to the Trump administration sparked a political firestorm in the spring as Democrats and several influential Republicans, including supporters of the president, said they opposed the potential deal on ethics grounds. It also caught Air Force officials off guard, CNN has reported. While the Air Force was exploring options for getting a replacement plane for Air Force One faster than Boeing could deliver the new jets it had been contracted to build, the Air Force was initially under the impression that any transaction with the Qataris would involve a sale of the plane — not a donation, defense officials said. But after news of the US-Qatar discussions became public, Trump repeatedly described the plane as a 'GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE.' The memorandum signed by Hegseth and Al-Thani emphasizes the transfer of the plane is 'unconditional' and that it is 'not connected or otherwise related to any governmental decision and, as such, is not made, offered, promised or accepted because of any past, present or future official act or decision and is not intended to obtain or retain any improper advantage or to influence any official decision.' But beyond the ethical and legal questions, retrofitting and installing the required security and communications equipment on a second-hand plane from another government, even a friendly one, is a monumental task. To fund the upgrades, the Air Force has sought to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from the vastly overbudget Sentinel program to an unspecified classified project, according to sources familiar with a congressional notification about the transfer. Sentinel is a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile system that is being developed to replace the US' aging Minuteman III missiles. Officially, the price tag to retrofit the Qatari plane for use by the president is classified, the Air Force previously told CNN. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers last month that it will 'probably' cost less than $400 million. An addendum to the Defense Department-Qatar agreement reviewed by CNN says the Air Force 'is in the process of finalizing the transfer of registration and will immediately begin execution of the required modifications.'
Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
Zelensky Went Soft on Corruption Because the U.S. Did
Volodymyr Zelensky built a mythic reputation as a lonely bulwark against global tyranny. On Tuesday, the president of Ukraine signed that reputation away, enacting a law that gutted the independence of his country's anti-corruption agencies just as they closed in on his closest political allies, reportedly including one of his longtime business partners and a former deputy prime minister. To justify the decision, he cloaked it in an invented conspiracy, insinuating that Russian moles had implanted themselves in the machinery of justice. This is a scoundrel's playbook. Despite the ongoing war, Ukrainians swamped the streets of Kyiv in protest of their president's betrayal of democracy, forcing Zelensky to introduce new legislation reversing the bill he had just signed into law. It was a concession of error—and possibly an empty gesture, because the new bill is hardly a lock to pass the legislature. That Zelensky brazenly weakened Ukraine's anti-corruption guardrails in the first place shouldn't come as a shock. They were erected only under sustained pressure from the Obama administration as part of an explicit bargain: In exchange for military and financial support, Ukraine would rein in its oligarchs and reform its public institutions. Over time, the country drifted, however unevenly, toward a system that was more transparent, less captive to hidden hands. But in the Trump era, the United States has grown proudly tolerant of global corruption. In fact, it actively encourages its proliferation. Beyond the president's own venal example, this is deliberate policy. Brick by brick, Donald Trump has dismantled the apparatus that his predecessors built to constrain global kleptocracy, and leaders around the world have absorbed the fact that the pressure for open, democratic governance is off. Anne Applebaum: Kleptocracy, Inc. Three weeks into his current term, Trump paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—loudly declaring that the United States wasn't going to police foreign bribery. Weeks later, America skipped a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's anti-bribery working group for the first time since its founding 30 years ago. As the head of the anti-corruption group Transparency International warned, Trump was sending 'a dangerous signal that bribery is back on the table.' For decades, the more than prosecute bribery cases; it tried to cultivate civil-society organizations that helped emerging democracies combat corruption themselves. But upon returning to the presidency, Trump destroyed USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, dismantling the constellation of government agencies that had quietly tutored investigative journalists, trained judges, and funded watchdogs. These groups weren't incidental casualties in DOGE's seemingly scattershot demolition of the American state. Trump long loathed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which he described as a 'horrible law,' an animus stoked by the fact that some of his closest associates have been accused of murky dealings abroad. Crushing programs and organizations that fight kleptocracy meshed with the 'America First' instincts of his base; the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon abhor the export of liberal values to the world. From the wreckage of these institutions, a Trump Doctrine has taken shape, one that uses American economic and political power to shield corrupt autocrats from accountability. Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, has been a prime beneficiary. Just as he was preparing to testify under oath, Trump denounced the prosecution as a 'political witch hunt' and threatened to withhold U.S. aid if the trial moved forward. Given Israel's reliance on American support, the threat had bite. Not long after Trump's outburst, the court postponed Netanyahu's testimony, citing national-security concerns. Trump acts as if justice for strongmen is a moral imperative. No retaliatory measure is apparently off limits. To defend his populist ally in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who faces charges related to an attempted coup, Trump revoked the visa of Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case. Last month, Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian steel, aluminum, and agricultural exports to punish the country for Bolsonaro's prosecution. This is hard-nosed realism, not just ideological kinship. To protect himself, Trump must defend the rights of populist kleptocrats everywhere. He must discredit the sort of prosecution that he might someday face. That requires recasting malfeasance as perfectly acceptable statesmanship. Listen: The kleptocracy club By stripping anti-corruption from the moral vocabulary of American foreign policy, Trump is reengineering the global order. He's laying the foundation for a new world in which kleptocracy flourishes unfettered, because there's no longer a superpower that, even rhetorically, aspires to purge the world of corruption. Of course, the United States has never pushed as hard as it could, and ill-gotten gains have been smuggled into its bank accounts, cloaked in shell companies. Still, oligarchs were forced to disguise their thievery, because there was at least the threat of legal consequence. In the world that Trump is building, there's no need for disguise—corruption is a credential, not a liability. Zelensky is evidence of the new paradigm. Although his initial campaign for president in 2019 was backed by an oligarch, he could never be confused for Bolsonaro or Netanyahu. He didn't enrich himself by plundering the state. But now that Trump has given the world permission to turn away from the ideals of good governance, even the sainted Zelensky has seized the opportunity to protect the illicit profiteering of his friends and allies. Yet there's a legacy of the old system that Trump hasn't wholly eliminated: the institutions and civil societies that the United States spent a generation helping build. In Ukraine, those organizations and activists have refused to accept a retreat into oligarchy, and they might still preserve their governmental guardians against corruption. For now, they are all that remain between the world and a new golden age of impunity.
