Strait of Hormuz Dispute and Negotiations

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Iran have reported ly putting the brakes on their latest military confrontation , agreeing to halt further strikes while negotiations continue or supposedly continue. Perhaps we'll have the latest. But first, today 's afternoon's spotlight. For months, Ukraine has steadily expanded its campaign of long range strikes inside Russia, targeting oil refineries and fuel depots, air bases and defense factories in an effort to raise the cost of the war for Moscow . But this week, President Zelenskyy revealed something relatively new. Those attacks are now part of a forty day operation designed to pressure Russia into ending the war. Speaking after a meeting with the head of Ukraine's security service known as the SBU, Zelenskyy announced that he'd approved a campaign of medium and long range strikes aimed at increasing military, economic and political pressure on the Kremlin. Now, he did not offer a lot of operational details, as you would expect, but he made the objective clear. Rather than relying solely on battlefield gains, Ukraine intends to steadily raise the cost of continuing the war by striking the infrastructure that keeps Russia's military running. In many ways, Ukraine is just codifying existing strategy. Over the past several months, Ukrainian drones and missiles have repeatedly struck key energy and military infrastruct ure deep inside Russian territory. Those attacks have disrupted fuel production, temporarily closed airports around Moscow and forced Russia to devote increasing resources to protecting infrastructure that was once considered safely beyond Ukraine's reach. Ukrainian officials also say the campaign is forcing Moscow into difficult strategic decisions. According to Keev, Russia has redeployed valuable air defense systems to protect two of its highest priority assets, that would be the capital, Moscow, and the Kerch Bridge, connecting mainland Russia to occupied Crimea. Every air defense battery, of course, moved to protect those locations is one that can't be used elsewhere, leaving other military facilities and industrial sites more vulnerable to future attacks. Crimea, meanwhile, appears to be a central focus of the operation. As we've reported on the PDB, Ukrainian strikes across the occupied peninsula have damaged railway infrastructure, fuel facilities, electrical systems, and military installations. Kyiv says its objective is to isolate Crimea by systematically disrupting the roads and rail lines, ports, and fuel supplies that sustain the Russian troops there. Ukrainian officials have even suggested that Russian troops on the peninsula could eventually face what amounts to a logistical siege if those supply routes continue to deteriorate. Early Saturday morning, Ukraine announced that it had struck the Titan Barakadi defense plant in Russia's Volga Grad region using its domestically produced FP Flamingo cruise missiles. Now, the facility is one of the crown jewels of Russia's defense industrial base, producing mobile launch systems for the YARs and Topol M Strategic Missile Forces, along with launchers for the Iskander missile system and other heavy artillery platforms. At roughly the same time, Ukraine's security service announced a separate drone strike against the Vitorovol Oil pumping station in Russia's Vladimir region. According to Ukrainian officials, that facility serves as a key logistics hub for transporting petroleum products across Western Russia and for export abroad, making it another high value target in Kiev's effort to disrupt Russia's military logistics and energy infrastructure. Taken together, these strikes offer perhaps the clearest picture of what Ukraine's forty day campaign is intended to accomplish. The goal is to steadily force the Kremlin to spend more resources defending its own territory while making it increasingly difficult and expensive to sustain offensive operations inside Ukraine. Whether forty days of sustained pressure will be enough to change Moscow's calculus. Well, that remains an open question. Russia still enjoys significant advantages in manpower and industrial capacity, and there's no guarantee that this campaign will force the Kremlin to the negotiating table . But one thing is now clear. Ukraine has formalized a strategy that's been taking shape for months, and over the coming weeks, some of the most important battles in this conflict may be fought not along the front lines , but hundreds of miles inside Russia . All right, coming up next, the US and Iran appear to be stepping back from the brink again , with both sides agreeing to stop trading missile and drone strikes and to resume diplomatic talks. 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Use Polymarket to trade the USA Bosnia Herzegovina match, delete that sportsbook app that's robbing you and join the millions using polymarket polymarket is a prediction market, not a sports book. You trade against other fans, not the house. Your go to prediction market for soccer's biggest stage, available in all fifty states. Download the polymarket app, use promo code F toE unLlDock fifty dollars free for your first trade. That's promo code Field, trading not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading. Restrictions and eligibility apply. Welcome back to the PDB afternoon bulletin . After several days of military exchanges that threatened to completely unravel America's ceasefire with Iran , which by the way has been the worst ceasefire in the history of ceasefires, the shooting has , at least for the moment again, subsided. An unnamed U. S. official told CNN that both countries will stand down following the recent fighting around the Strait of Homuz. While President Trump announced early Monday on Truth Social that American and Iranian officials are expected to meet in Doha on Tuesday for another round of negotiations . However, Iran has not yet officially confirmed that meeting . But that development from the White House does suggest that despite the weekend's exchanges of strikes, Washington does not appear ready to fully abandon diplomacy. In fact, a senior U. S. official familiar with the situation, says technical talks aimed at implement ing this month's memorandum of understanding remain quote on track. Hm m, I don't think on track means what he thinks it means. According to the unnamed U. S. official who spoke with CNN, communications channels established to prevent incidents from spiraling out of control also remained active throughout the fighting, helping keep both sides engaged, even as missiles and drones were exchanged. Now, if you think that sounds odd, well, yeah , it is. But in reality, it reflects what this conflict increasingly appears to be, an armed negotiation in which military force and diplomacy are unfolding simultaneously. The settlement dispute, as we've discussed, remains the strait of Hormuz. The recent missile and drone exchanges that we've been tracking were fueled by fundamentally different interpretations of the agreement governing one of the world's most strategically important waterways. Washington maintains that the memorandum of understanding that MOU guarantees the free movement of international commercial shipping. Apparently not. The Islamic Republic, the Iranian regime, meanwhile, continues to insist that it has the authority to direct maritime traffic through the designated corridors under Tevran's control and has demonstrated a willingness to enforce that claim against ships that it believes are ignoring its instructions . In other words, the two sides have a fundamental difference of opinion here. There is a failure to communicate. Neither side appears to be backing away from their position. Even after absorbing American strikes on military infrastructure near the strait, Techran continues signaling that preserving its leverage over the strait remains one of its highest priorities. Commercial shipping through the strait has begun picking up again after slowing during the wee kend's fighting. Vessels, however, are still moving cautiously, but there are some larger tankers that once again have begun moving through the waterway. Monday also brought another small but noteworthy development, a commercial passenger flight traveled directly between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the UAE, for the first time since the missiles began flying four months ago. Back in Washington, the Trump administration is briefing lawmakers on where negotiations now stand. Secretary of State Markubio met with House members from both parties this afternoon, giving many of them their first direct update from the White House on its effort to preserve the tentative agreement. Now, the technical meetings scheduled for Doha on Tuesday are expected to focus on implementing the memorandum of understanding, but of course, the issues that triggered the weekend's fighting remain unresolved. Questions surrounding freedom of navigation, Iran's claims over traffic to the strait, its nuclear program, sanctions relief, and the broader regional security framework . Well, they're all still on the negotiating table. And to be fair, it's really just a table. It's not so much a negotiating table. There's no visible evidence at this stage that the Iranian regime has shown through their actions that they're negotiating in good faith. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Monday, the twenty ninth of June. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at the firsttv dot com. And of course, to listen to the show add free, well it is simple. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbremium dot com dot I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe . Stay cool. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, here's the thing, getting high quality seafood , right used to mean well, settling for whatever the grocery store managed to stock, or maybe if you were very lucky, perhaps there was a fish market somewhere nearby. But let me tell you about a much better option now. I'm talking about the Wild Alaskan Company. Wild Alaskan Company delivers wild caught premium seafood straight to your door on whatever customized schedule you want. It is really that simple . Look unboxing that first delivery. It's a total game changer . 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