ZAGROS MOUNTAINS, Iraq — About 5 kilometers from Iran, aircraft roar overhead. Are the planes American, Israeli, Iranian? The Kurdish fighter shrugged and urged haste. The final stretch to his militia’s base could be reached only on foot, along a steep path covered in loose rock. Out in the open, everyone is vulnerable. A tunnel leads to the underground base in a sliver of the Zagros Mountains in northeastern Iraq. The Iranian-Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, is careful to keep its exact location secret. Visitors must switch their smartphones to flight mode before handing them over upon entry. The Kurdistan Free Life Party is in waiting mode, poised along Iran’s western border to move in if a weakened regime opens up a path to strike it. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, was granted rare access to the group’s base and its members, who discussed its ideology, goals and under what conditions they’d go into Iran. Militia representative Bahar Avrin said in an interview inside the base that the organization already has elements “inside” Iran, and that deploying a larger force against Tehran is ultimately a question of the right timing and conditions. The border between northern Iraq and Iran runs through the Zagros Mountains and is considered porous — for smugglers, locals and the handful of militias operating there. The Kurdistan Free Life Party, often referred to by its Kurdish acronym PJAK, is part of a coalition of six Kurdish militia groups that want to topple Iran’s Islamist regime and usher in a government that is more democratic and grants more rights and autonomy to Iranian Kurds in Iran. President Donald Trump has said Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish groups are “willing” to participate in a ground offensive against Tehran — but he has said he ruled out the idea to avoid making the war “any more complex than it already is.” A Kurdish assault could spark a sectarian power struggle that destabilizes Iran. And key U.S. allies with their own Kurdish minorities — Iraq and Turkey — have warned the idea could spread unrest elsewhere in the Middle East. The idea could nonetheless prove tempting for Trump as the war, now in its third week, drags on. The ruling regime in Tehran has not capitulated despite punishing airstrikes that have killed scores of its top leaders. Trump could find himself looking for military options that do not trigger the political risk that would accompany deployment of U.S. ground troops. “The president never takes anything fully off the table,” said Victoria Coates, who served as deputy national security adviser for the Middle East in Trump’s first term. “And if you were considering this, this is the last thing you would want the Iranians to know.” TUNNEL VISION PJAK looks ready to go into a fight, with a base that suggests an organized military operation. It consists of a tunnel system running through the mountain’s interior, with electricity and running water. On the walls hang photographs of fallen fighters — many of them young, women and men in their 20s and 30s. Four monitors mounted to the walls display the surrounding terrain outside. Motion sensors control the cameras; when a bird flutters across the screen, the image switches to it automatically. In a dark tunnel, a 20-year-old fighter holding an assault rifle introduced herself as Zilan. Her day begins at 5:30 a.m. and follows a strict schedule. “Our daily life is based on discipline,” she said. Ideological instruction aims at building a democratic society; military training focuses on defending the Kurdish people.Watch: The Conversation “We never want the help of foreign powers like Israel and the United States,” she said. “We are an independent party.” The Kurdistan Free Life Party is one of several Iranian-Kurdish groups in Iraq. In 1979, Kurds in Iran supported the revolution against the shah. When the new Islamic Republic rejected their demands for autonomy, heavy fighting broke out in Iranian Kurdistan. Numerous groups relocated to Iraq, where they now operate freely in northern Iraq, which is largely autonomous from the rest of the country and detached from the central government in Baghdad. The six members of the political and military alliance are not in agreement about whether to invade if called on, and under what conditions they would embark on a full-scale war for their political goals. Some parties appear eager to take on a ground offensive in Iran. Reza Kaabi, secretary-general of the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, has even set out a blueprint, declaring a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone to be a prerequisite for any Kurdish invasion. There is a general sense in the region that PJAK — given its proximity to the Iranian border and its relatively strong military presence — would be one of the first of the six Kurdish militias in the coalition to go into Iran if given U.S. military support. But PJAK publicly rejects the idea that they would do so at the bidding of Washington. It’s a stance rooted in distrust of the U.S. — not least because the United States abruptly withdrew support from the Kurds in Syria in January. Asked under what conditions PJAK would launch an offensive across the Iraqi-Iranian border, Avrin declined to answer. But, she said, her organization has “never waited for any force to bring about change.” CNN recently reported that just a few days into the Iran war, Trump spoke with Mustafa Hijri, the secretary-general of another group in the Kurdish-Iranian opposition alliance: the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, or PDKI. It is one of the oldest Iranian-Kurdish opposition parties and has maintained armed units operating from exile in northern Iraq. PDKI executive committee member Hassan Sharafi said in an interview that he could “neither confirm nor deny” whether such a conversation had taken place, in part because of the limited contact among the group’s leadership maintained for security reasons. Sharafi said the PDKI had “no operational relations” with the United States on the ground in Iraq. At the political level, however, contacts exist: “In Washington, Paris, and London we have contacts, and our representatives there maintain relations. Our relations are diplomatic and political.” Such links, he said, were long-standing: “For more than 20 years we have had relations with the United States and with all European countries. We have contacts with all of them.” THE ROAD TO TEHRAN From Tehran’s perspective, the militias represent a serious threat. Iranian artillery has struck in the border region multiple times in recent days, hitting villages near the frontier. These attacks primarily affect civilians. The Kurdish guerrillas sheltered inside the mountain remain protected. Other militia groups, whose positions are located in more exposed terrain, have also come under fire. A 2023 security agreement between Iran and Iraq obliged Baghdad to disarm Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups, dismantle their bases and relocate them deeper into Iraqi territory. Now that the Kurdish groups are openly considering an offensive in Iran, Tehran has concluded that the agreement has failed, according to Kamaran Osman, an Iraq-based human rights officer with a nonprofit organization called Community Peacemaker Teams that monitors human rights abuses in conflict zones. “Now it believes it must target, destroy and defeat these groups,” Osman said, speaking in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, about a two-hour drive from the PJAK base. As of Monday, his organization had recorded 307 Iranian attacks on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, leaving eight people killed and 51 injured. He sees only grim scenarios for the Kurdish people in Iran. “If the regime falls, there is a risk of civil war in Iran,” he said. If the regime survives, he fears more retaliation from Tehran against Kurds in Iraq — both Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Should northern Iraq become destabilized, a power vacuum could emerge. The last time order eroded here, in 2014, ISIS militants seized control of a swathe of territory stretching from Iraq to Syria, a landmass nearly as large as the United Kingdom. PJAK has ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant group that has fought against the Turkish government, and is listed as a terrorist organization there — as well as in the EU and the U.S. The United States has a troubled history of making big promises to ethnic Kurdish groups — and then abandoning them at the worst possible moment. After calling on Iraqis to rise up and overthrow then-dictator Saddam Hussein in 1991, President George H.W. Bush declined to intervene when Hussein began slaughtering Iraqi Kurds who took up the U.S. president’s call. And as recently as this January, the Trump administration stood by as a Syrian Kurdish militia that led the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat ISIS just a few years ago was attacked by Syria’s new government. The big question for U.S. policymakers may be how much they would need to support a Kurdish assault on Iran to make it successful. Former U.S. intelligence and special forces experts believe it would require the type of commitment he might prefer to avoid: large infusions of cash and weapons, close air support, and potentially even on-the-ground aid from U.S. special forces. Even then, a Kurdish-led attack could fizzle, leaving Trump with two grim choices: Abandon the Kurds, or come to their rescue with even greater U.S. combat support. “It would require a lot of commitment on the U.S. side with a very unclear end state,” said Alex Plitsas, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on special operations and counterterrorism policy in the Middle East. While Coates cautioned that Trump had other, better options at hand, she argued that even modest U.S. military support for the Kurds — such as small arms shipments and limited air support — could threaten Iran’s increasingly brittle regime. The key, she said, was arming the exiled Kurds in Iraq in conjunction with other Iranian resistance groups inside the country to avoid the perception it was coming from outside. “The way this is going to be effective,” Coates said, “is not by a bunch of Iraqis invading Iran.” Drüten of WELT reported from Iraq. Sakellariadis reported from Washington. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network is a multi-publication initiative publishing scoops, investigations, interviews, op-eds and analysis that reverberate across the world. It connects journalists from Axel Springer brands — including POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, and Onet — on major stories for an international audience. Their ambitious reporting stretches across Axel Springer platforms: online, print, TV and audio. Together, the outlets reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

American allies are watching in disbelief as the Pentagon reroutes weapon shipments to aid the Iran war, angry and scared that arms the U.S. demanded they buy will never reach them. European nations that have struggled to rebuild arsenals after sending weapons to Ukraine fear they won’t be able to ward off a Russian attack. Asian allies, startled by America’s rate of fire, question whether it could embolden China and North Korea. And even in the Middle East, countries aren’t clear if they will get air defenses from the U.S. for future priorities. Nearly a dozen officials in allied nations in Asia and Europe say they can’t win. The Trump administration has put them under extreme political pressure to raise defense budgets and buy American weapons — from air defense interceptors to guided bombs — only to quickly burn through those munitions in a war of its own. “It shouldn’t be a secret to anyone that the munitions that have been and will be fired are the ones that everybody needs to acquire in large numbers,” said one northern European official. Weapons production is a complex process that takes years of planning and runs through a supply chain riddled with bottlenecks. Trump’s reassurances that the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited supply” of munitions to fight Iran has done little to soothe allies’ fears. “It is very frustrating, the words are not matching the deeds,” said an Eastern European official, who like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It is pretty clear to everyone that the U.S. will put their own, Taiwan’s, Israel’s, and hemisphere priorities before Europe.” The joint U.S.-Israel war, officials warn, could accelerate the distancing between America and its allies when it comes to defense. The European Union already has approved rules to favor its own arms-makers over American contractors — risking tens, if not hundreds of billions in future U.S. sales. Even major companies, such as the German drone-maker Helsing are touting “European sovereignty.” Poland, a longtime American ally, has bought tanks and artillery from South Korea instead of U.S. contractors such as General Dynamics. It’s been a wake-up call for officials in Asia and Europe who once took Pentagon arms sales for granted. “The Europeans still live in a dream world in which the U.S. is a gigantic Walmart, where you buy the stuff and you get it immediately, and that is simply not true,” said Camille Grand, a former top NATO official who now heads the Brussels-based Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe. Allies in the Pacific — where China has built the world’s largest Navy and now has missiles that can attack American troops on Guam — are worried that the Pentagon will run out of ammunition in Iran and won’t have any left to deter a war in Asia. “It’s natural that the longer the conflict, the more urgent the supply of munitions and its inevitable for the U.S. to mobilize its foreign assets to maintain the operation,” said a Washington-based Asian diplomat, who warned it would affect “readiness” in the region. The fears of depleted weapons stockpiles extend to the U.S., where some Pentagon officials are warning about the state of the military’s munitions stockpiles, according to a congressional aide and two other people familiar with the dynamic. Defense Department officials warned Congress this week that the U.S. military was expending “an enormous amount” of munitions in the conflict, according to two of the people familiar with the conversations. The congressional aide briefed by the Pentagon said the U.S. was using precision strike missiles and cutting-edge interceptors in “scary high” numbers despite the Iranian military’s relative weakness. The weapons also include Tomahawk land-attack missiles, Patriot PAC-3 and ship-launched air defenses fired by the Navy. “The idea of doing a larger campaign with Iran was not on anyone’s mathematical bingo card as we were looking at munitions implications,” said a former defense official. “I struggle to see a way that layering on the Iran element makes the math problem get any better.” The Pentagon referred questions to the White House. Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attacks had fallen by 90 percent because of U.S. strikes. “President Trump is in close contact with our partners in Europe and the Middle East, and the terrorist Iranian regime’s attacks on its neighbors prove how imperative it was that President Trump eliminate this threat to our country and our allies,” she said. But some defense hawks in Congress are worried. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned Wednesday on the Senate floor that the military is “not prepared” to deter aggression from both Russia and China at once due to the munitions shortfall. McConnell did not reply to a request for comment. Trump said in a social media post that he met with defense executives on Friday, including Boeing, Northrop Grumman, RTX, and Lockheed, who agreed to quadruple their production of “Exquisite Class” weapons. He did not explain which systems that entailed or how the U.S. planned to rapidly build factories, hire workers and increase weapons production. Some allies worried about weapons are hoping that’s more than an empty promise. “It seems that U.S. defense primes are still challenged to produce at the speed of demand,” said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, a Lithuanian member of Parliament who is also a former deputy Defense minister. “We welcome any effort by the administration to incentivize defense companies to get into war mode of production.” Others cautioned that the defense industrial base can’t be turned on with a switch to start mass producing the sophisticated missiles and air defenses that the U.S. and its allies desperately need. “There’s always this idea that there is a world in which we just have to go World War II,” said Grand, the former NATO official. “But [in] World War II, producing Sherman tanks was pretty close to producing tractor engines. Producing a Patriot is not pretty close to producing a Tesla.” Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

The Trump administration is making the case that it ordered expansive, deadly strikes to stop an imminent threat from Tehran, but is providing no evidence Iran had such plans. The White House, amid the largest military buildup in the region in decades, has yet to explain to the public or to Congress what Iranian threat prompted the massive attacks that have upended the region and could draw the U.S. into another Middle East war. The administration first tested out its justification more than 12 hours after the U.S. began bombarding Iran with missiles, drones and long-range artillery. A senior Trump administration official told reporters Saturday that the U.S. had determined American troops would have suffered far more casualties by waiting for an impending Iranian strike. In the same briefing, two other officials said the president ordered the strikes after he determined Iran would not agree to stop uranium enrichment altogether. But the administration’s efforts to construct a case for war only after the shots have started flying has few historical parallels. The Pentagon has held no briefings nearly 36 hours after the U.S. military strikes, bucking a practice of doing so after attacks that goes back to the Vietnam War. And unlike past presidents embarking on major military campaigns, Trump made little effort to drum up support from Congress, U.S. allies or the American people. The administration did not try to convince the Senate to authorize the war, as President George W. Bush did in Iraq, or plead to the United Nations, as George H.W. Bush did to build a coalition against Saddam Hussein’s attack on Kuwait. “Whatever imminent threat they’re posing was likely in reaction to our unprecedented military buildup in the region,” said Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). “This is an example of the president deciding what he wanted to do, and then making his administration go and find whatever argument they could make to justify it.” The administration briefed some Hill staffers Sunday on the operation. But officials did not present clear evidence the Iranians were preparing an imminent attack on U.S. troops, said two people who attended. They, like others in this report, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will give an Iran briefing to House members on Tuesday, according to four people with direct knowledge of the meeting. They will also meet with senators, according to two people familiar with the plans. Trump, in an eight-minute video on Truth Social after the first wave of attacks, said Iran had continued to develop long-range missiles that could threaten Europe and U.S. troops — although American intelligence agencies have assessed Tehran won’t acquire those weapons for years. The president, in a second video posted online Sunday, said operations will continue and U.S. casualties will likely mount. But Trump has not formally addressed the country or taken questions about his decision to deploy force, other than brief one-on-one calls with several media outlets. His actions are a surprising reversal from campaign promises he made to end forever wars and from his criticism of longstanding American nation-building in the Middle East during a speech last year in Saudi Arabia. “The interventionists,” Trump said, “were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.” U.S. Central Command has said the strikes were “prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat,” including Iranian air defense, drone and missile launch sites and military airfields. But it has not mentioned anything specific about a time-sensitive threat to U.S. troops. “The United States did not start this conflict,” Hegseth said Saturday evening in an X post, “but we will finish it.” The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment. The CIA had spent several weeks making inroads with some Iranian officials, according to a person familiar with the covert effort. The intelligence informed the timing and location of Saturday’s strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials, the person added. The CIA did not respond to a request for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred questions to the White House. The White House, in a statement, said diplomacy had been Trump’s preferred course of action and that “his representatives worked extensively, and in good faith, to make a deal that would ensure that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities posed no threat to our homeland. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime refused to engage realistically with the United States.” But a growing number of skeptics of the administration’s justification are emerging, especially after the first U.S. troops were killed Sunday in an Iranian retaliatory strike. Senate Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.), who was among committee leaders briefed by senior officials last week, told CNN he had seen no intelligence “that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America.” The president, he said, has “started a war of choice.” Iran, and its proxies Hezbollah and the Houthis, presented ongoing threats, and U.S. bases in the region faced real risks, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Senate Armed Services member, said in an interview. But he argued those dangers were being managed with existing U.S. and allied air and missile defense systems. “They simply don’t have a missile that can reach the United States, and probably won’t for years, ” he said. The administration’s defenders in Congress also shied away from discussing any Iranian plans. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) on Sunday repeated the word “imminent” to describe the threat in a CBS interview, but resisted getting more specific. Experts did not see immediate danger ahead of the strikes. Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, a membership organization dedicated to nonproliferation, noted last week that it would take Iran months to enrich sufficient material for a weapon and years to rebuild nuclear facilities the U.S. military damaged last year. Richard Haass, the Council on Foreign Relations president and a former State Department official under George W. Bush described the threat posed by Iran as manageable. That, he said, makes this a “preventive, not a preemptive war.” Jordain Carney and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

“All we’ve got left now,” the Russian soldier said, “are radios, cables and pigeons.” A decision earlier this month by SpaceX to shut down access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals caused immediate chaos among Russian forces who had become increasingly reliant upon the Elon Musk-owned company’s technology to sustain their occupation of Ukraine, according to radio transmissions intercepted by a Ukrainian reconnaissance unit and shared with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, to which POLITICO belongs. The communications breakdown significantly constrained Russian military capabilities, creating new opportunities for Ukrainian forces. In the days following the shutdown, Ukraine recaptured roughly 77 square miles in the country’s southeast, according to calculations by the news agency Agence France-Presse based on data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. SpaceX began requiring verification of Starlink terminals on Feb. 4, blocking unverified Russian units from accessing its services. Almost immediately, Ukrainian eavesdroppers heard Russian soldiers complaining about the failure of “Kosmos” and “Sinka” — apparently code names for Starlink satellite internet and the messaging service Telegram. “Damn it! Looks like they’ve switched off all the Starlinks,” one Russian soldier exclaimed. “The connection is gone, completely gone. The images aren’t being transmitted,” another shouted. Dozens of the recordings were played for Axel Springer Global Reporter Network reporters in an underground listening post maintained by the Bureviy Brigade in northeastern Ukraine. Neither SpaceX nor the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to requests for comment. “On the Russian side, we observed on the very day Starlink was shut down that artillery and mortar fire dropped drastically. Drone drops and FPV attacks also suddenly decreased,” said a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance operator from the Bureviy Brigade who would agree to be identified only by the call sign Mustang, referring to first-person view drones. “Coordination between their units has also become more difficult since then.” The satellite internet network has become a crucial tool on the battlefield, sustaining high-tech drone operations and replacing walkie-talkies in low-tech combat. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, which destroyed much of Ukraine’s traditional communications infrastructure, Western governments have provided thousands of the Starlink units to Kyiv. With the portable terminals, there is no need to lay kilometers of cable that can be damaged by shelling or drone strikes. Drone footage can be transmitted in real time to command posts, artillery and mortar fire can be corrected with precision, and operational information can be shared instantly via encrypted messaging apps such as Signal or Telegram. At the outset of the Russian invasion, Starlink access gave Ukraine’s defenders a decisive operational advantage. Those in besieged Mariupol sent signs of life in spring 2022 via the backpack-size white dishes, and army units used them to coordinate during brutal house-to-house fighting in Bakhmut in 2023. Satellite internet became “one of, if not the most important components” of Ukraine’s way of war, according to military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, an adviser to European governments and security agencies who regularly visits Ukrainian units. “Starlink constituted the backbone of connectivity that enabled accelerated kill chains by helping create a semi-transparent battlefield.” The operational advantages of Starlink did not go unnoticed by Russian forces. By the third year of the war, Starlink terminals were increasingly turning up in Russian-occupied territory. One of the first documented cases surfaced in January 2024 in the Serebryansky forest. Month by month, Ukrainian reconnaissance drones spotted more of the devices. The Ukrainian government subsequently contacted Musk’s company, urging it to block Russian access to the network. Mykhailo Fedorov, then digital minister and now defense minister, alleged Russian forces were acquiring the devices via third countries. “Ukraine will continue using Starlink, and Russian use will be restricted to the maximum extent possible,” Fedorov pledged in spring 2024. Yet Russian use of the terminals continued to grow throughout 2025, and their use was not limited to artillery or drone units. Even Russian infantry soldiers were carrying mini Starlink terminals in their backpacks. “We found Starlink terminals at virtually every Russian position along the contact line,” said Mustang. “At some point, it felt like the Russians had more devices than we did.” In the listening post this month, he scrolled through more than a dozen images from late 2025 showing Russian Starlink terminals set up between trees or beside the entrances to their positions. “We targeted their positions deliberately,” Mustang continued. “But even if we destroyed a terminal in the morning or evening, a new one was already installed by the next morning.” In the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Kreminna, there was even a shop where soldiers could buy Starlink terminals starting in 2024. According to Ukrainian officials, these devices were not registered in Russia. SpaceX’s move in early February to enforce a stricter verification system effectively cut off unregistered Starlink terminals operating in Russian-occupied areas. Only devices approved and placed on a Ukrainian Ministry of Defense “whitelist” remained active, while terminals used by Russian forces were remotely deactivated. “That’s it, basically no one has internet at all,” a Russian soldier said in one of the messages played for Axel Springer reporters. “Everything’s off, everything’s off.” The temporary shutdown allowed Ukraine to slow the momentum of Vladimir Putin’s forces, although the localized counteroffensives do not represent a fundamental shift along the front. Soldiers from other Ukrainian units, including the Black Arrow battalion, confirmed the military consequences of the Starlink outage for Russian forces in their sectors in interviews with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. By mid-February, Russian shelling had increased again, though largely against frontline positions that had long been identified and precisely mapped — suggesting that Russia has yet to fully restore all of its lost capabilities. Now, analysts from the Bureviy Brigade say Russian forces are scrambling for alternatives. They have been forced to rely far more heavily on radio communication, according to Mustang, which creates additional opportunities for interception. Russian units will likely attempt to switch to their own satellite terminals. But their speed and connection quality are significantly lower, Mustang says. And because of their size, the devices are difficult to conceal.”The shutdown of Starlink, even if only of limited effect for now, highlights the limited ability of the Russian armed forces to rapidly implement ongoing cycles of innovation,” said Col. Markus Reisner of the Austrian Armed Forces. “This could represent a potential point of leverage for Western supporters to provide swift and sustainable support to Ukraine at this stage.“ The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network is a multi-publication initiative publishing scoops, investigations, interviews, op-eds and analysis that reverberate across the world. It connects journalists from Axel Springer brands — including POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, and Onet — on major stories for an international audience. Its ambitious reporting stretches across Axel Springer platforms: online, print, TV, and audio. Together, these outlets reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The U.S. has launched a series of large-scale air and missile strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria in retaliation for the killing of two U.S. soldiers in the country this month. The strikes are being conducted by F-15 and A-10 aircraft and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System rockets, and have already hit over 70 targets, according to a U.S. military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation. The operation is being called “Hawkeye Strike” in acknowledgement of the two Iowa Army National Guard soldiers and a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter who were killed Dec. 13 in an ambush the U.S. has blamed on ISIS. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X late Friday that “this is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance.” U.S. Central Command said in a statement this week that operations against ISIS over the past six months have killed 14 insurgents and captured 119. While the official wouldn’t comment on a timeline for the strikes, Hegseth wrote that “today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.”

A Belgian soldier participating in a NATO mission in Lithuania died during an exercise on Friday, Belgian officials said late Saturday. Belgium’s federal public prosecutor has launched an investigation into the incident. The soldier sustained an injury during a mortar exercise and died in hospital on Saturday, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken and Chief of Defense Frederik Vansina confirmed in a joint statement. Francken said in a post on X that he is “deeply saddened by the tragic accident,” sending “thoughts and solidarity” to the soldier’s friends and colleagues. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda also offered his condolences in a post, saying Belgian troops serving with NATO in Lithuania “make an invaluable contribution to the security of our nation and the entire Alliance,” adding: “Their dedication and sacrifice will never be forgotten.” The Belgian national, who was not identified, was part of the Artillery Battalion in Brasschaat. Nearly 200 Belgian soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania since the summer, as part of NATO’s Forward Land Forces mission, a series of multinational battle groups stationed in eight Eastern European countries. The Belgian federal public prosecutor’s office said it has opened an investigation into the soldier’s death without providing more information on the case, Belga newswire reported. A federal magistrate and two detectives from the federal police, specializing in military affairs investigations, visited the scene on Saturday, VRT reported.  Belgium’s defense ministry also has launched an internal investigation to determine the exact circumstances of the accident, according to media reports.

KYIV — The fighting in Ukraine no longer resembles the trench warfare of World War I — instead, drones have erased the solid front line by creating a killing zone. The skies over battlefields are now blackened by drones. Some carry cameras and thermal detectors, others are equipped with bombs and guns; some merely lie on the ground beside paths and roads until stirred to life by a passing soldier or vehicle. They use electronic signals or are steered by impossible-to-jam fiber-optic cables. Counter-drones aim to block them while also hunting for the drone pilots hunkered down dozens of kilometers from the front. The result is a gray area of chaos stretching some 20 kilometers from the front, where drones hunt for soldiers, the wounded are left to die because it’s so difficult to evacuate them, and supplies of ammunition, food and water are almost impossible to move up to the fighting troops. “We have now switched to a drone-versus-drone war,” Col. Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the President’s Office of Ukraine and a former battlefield commander, told POLITICO. “Drones are now able to sit in ambush, intercept enemy logistics and disrupt supplies. They have also made it more difficult to maintain positions: If you are detected, every weapon in the area will immediately rush to destroy you.” A NEW WAY OF WAR Drones played a key role in the fighting from the earliest days of the war in 2022, when Ukraine celebrated the successes of Turkish Bayraktar drones against Russian armored columns. Despite that, both Ukraine and Russia initially prepared to fight a classic war marked by artillery duels, mechanized columns and defensive trenches, Palisa said. In 2023-2024, however, the war changed and trenches started disappearing, said Ivan Sekach, spokesperson for the Ukrainian army’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which is fighting in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. Instead of long lines of trenches, the outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian army created strongpoints and observation posts and relied on drones to make up for a shortage of 155-millimeter artillery ammunition. In response, the Russian army began to reduce the size of its assault units because Ukrainian drones proved capable of pinpointing and destroying larger troop concentrations. Rather than the large-scale “meat-wave” attacks that characterized earlier Russian assaults, when large numbers of men were hurled at Ukrainian defenders, Russia is now attacking in small groups, said Col. Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for the Ukrainian army’s South command. “It takes time for Russians to assemble a storming group. They are crawling, hiding. It takes two to three days for them to gather a group able to storm our positions,” Voloshyn said. Usually, two Russian soldiers pave the way but only one survives, he explained. Smaller groups are harder to spot for Ukrainian drone operators, especially during fog or rain. “As the result, we got a deep gray zone, where Russians infiltrate behind Ukrainian positions and are hiding there, multiplying in case not spotted and destroyed,” Sekach said. Foul weather helped Russian soldiers break through Ukrainian defenses in Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region earlier this month after a year of attempts, as well as at other points along the front like Novopavlivka village in Dnipropetrovsk and in the central Zaporizhzhia region. For now there appears to be no quick fix to the kill zone created by drones. | Jose Colon/Anadolu via Getty Images “Fog or rain hinders flights of drones, creating the opportunity for safer logistics, rotation or local operations. Therefore, weather windows are used for infiltration or repositioning forces,” Palisa said. Russia is working to make defending Ukraine even more difficult. “The Russian army is trying to make a kill zone as wide as possible, destroying all buildings and shelters with pinpoint strikes, to make it completely bare wasteland where it is impossible to hide,” Voloshyn said. SUPPLY NIGHTMARE Drones are also forcing artillery to move farther from the front and make it almost impossible to use armored vehicles to supply troops. “Drones became handy when it comes to delivery and evacuation, battle reconnaissance and distance mining — tasks usually done by people at war before,” Palisa said. But as drones proliferate, even those uses are now becoming ever more difficult, turning the front into a hellscape. Drones make evacuation and rotation, as well as logistics, deadly exercises. “Most soldiers currently die during rotation,” Voloshyn said. “Any kind of delivery bears grave risks. So, we use drones more often.” As a result, commanders are forcing soldiers to spend weeks at the front — also called the zero line — without rotation. “Usually, during a rotation, a car comes as far as 5 to 6 kilometers from the positions. Soldiers have to walk the rest of the road, hiding in terrain from drones,” Sekach said. That creates problems for morale. “An infantryman who once sat at zero in a hole for 60 to 165 days will not go there again,” said Mykola Bielieskov, research fellow at the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at the Come Back Alive Initiatives Center.  VIDEO MEDICINE The wounded have it hardest, as drones critically undermine front-line medicine and evacuation, said Daryna, an anesthesiologist with the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion of the Ukrainian army, who asked to be identified only by first name. “Today an injured soldier frequently has to walk, be carried, or even crawl for up to 5 kilometers from his position until the point where an armored evacuation vehicle can pick him up,” Daryna said. “Then an evacuation vehicle has to make it through swarms of Russian drones that can reach as far as 20-40 kilometers from the front-line positions.” Drones also force Ukrainian combat medics to move their medical points farther from the front line, which prolongs the time it takes to stabilize the wounded. Injured soldiers have to stay at their positions for days or even weeks waiting for evacuation, which is sometimes now performed by land robotic systems. Their inability to reach the wounded has forced Ukrainian combat medics to turn to TV medicine, using a Mavic drone to talk to stranded soldiers. “On a video, we can see how the tourniquet was applied. Then we can contact the fellow soldiers of a wounded [soldier] and direct them how to properly help him,” Daryna said. “Drones also become useful for the delivery of necessary medicine to the positions.” There are also reports from open-source researchers of Russia’s abandoning wounded troops rather than trying to evacuate them. Enemy drones are also making life much more dangerous for the pilots flying them from behind the front. “I remember the times when you could safely go to smoke in a 10 kilometer zone from the contact line. Now we do not enter the zone without a shotgun. Fiber optic cable drones are reaching as far as 15 kilometers already, so you have to be extra careful,” said Sekach. For now there appears to be no quick fix to the kill zone created by drones. “There is currently no doctrine on how to build defense in depth when you have very few infantrymen on the front line, and the enemy is engaged in infiltration, and at the same time, when the enemy cuts off your connection between the front line and the rear and actively knocks out your drone operators on the front line,” Bielieskov said. “This is the recipe for Russian slow advances — the squeezing effect.”

BERLIN — Germany’s governing parties moved to provide Ukraine with €3 billion in additional funding, significantly upping military assistance at a time U.S. support for the embattled country is wavering.   During marathon negotiations on a draft 2026 budget that lasted into early Friday morning, coalition lawmakers agreed to increase Ukraine aid to €11.5 billion, bringing Germany’s support for Ukraine to its highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. The additional money is to be spent on artillery, drones, armored vehicles, and two Patriot air defense systems, according to German media reports citing the defense ministry. Germany is Ukraine’s largest donor of military aid, after the U.S., in absolute terms. But as U.S. aid flows to Ukraine stall, European countries have attempted to pick up the slack. Still, military aid to Ukraine dropped sharply over the summer despite a deal to allow European NATO countries to acquire weapons from U.S. stockpiles. Germany’s overall draft budget deal foresees total expenditure of around €524.5 billion in 2026 — €4 billion more than initially anticipated. Lawmakers on the coalition’s budget committee approved debt of more than €180 billion, a level made possible by a historic reform of spending rules passed earlier this year, which largely exempted defense expenditures and Ukraine aid from Germany’s constitutional “debt brake.” The draft budget must still be approved by lawmakers in Germany’s Bundestag. As Russia’s invasion grinds on, Ukraine’s war chest is running increasingly low. At the same time, European countries’ military aid to Kyiv declined by 57 percent this summer compared to the beginning of the year, according to a report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. This decline follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s suspension of new aid packages to Ukraine earlier this year. The European Commission wants to use sanctioned Russian cash to fund a €140 billion loan to Ukraine, but the plan is stalled due to Belgian objections. European leaders say they will attempt to reach an agreement to unlock the funds during a summit in December at the latest.

BERLIN — Germany’s top operational commander warned today that Russia could be capable of launching a large-scale attack on NATO “soon” if its military buildup continues unchecked. “Despite the war in Ukraine, Russia still possesses a very large military potential,” Lt. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank, head of the armed forces’ Operational Command, said at the Bundeswehr’s annual conference in Berlin. “That means Russia is already today capable of carrying out a regionally limited attack on NATO territory.” Sollfrank, who oversees all of Germany’s military operations and crisis deployments, warned that the Kremlin is rebuilding its land, artillery and drone forces and plans to expand its active troop strength to 1.5 million soldiers.  “After the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and if its rearmament continues unchecked, a large-scale attack on NATO could become possible — and soon,” he said. “That means we have to deal with the possibility of an attack against us, whether we like it or not. And beyond that, we have no time to lose.” The commander presented “Operation Plan Germany,” a new national defense plan aligned with NATO’s regional strategy, as the country’s blueprint for deterrence. The plan organizes how up to 800,000 allied troops could move through Germany within 180 days to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank if war looms. “It’s not a war plan, but rather a war-prevention plan at its core,” Sollfrank said. He pointed to a surge in hybrid attacks and sabotage targeting Germany and its neighbors — including drone sightings, naval incidents and undersea interference — as proof that Moscow is already testing Europe’s defenses. “Deterrence only works if it’s credible,” Sollfrank said. “We must be ready to fight so that we do not have to fight.”

Czechia — one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies — is considering cutting the flow of much-needed arms and ammunition to Kyiv’s forces when its new government takes control in the coming weeks, according to a key leader of the incoming coalition. Filip Turek, the president of the right-wing populist Motorists party that this week signed an agreement to help form a national government, said that his country will “maintain NATO commitments and adherence to international law.” However, he went on, “it will prioritize diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine and mitigate risks of conflict in Europe, shifting from military aid funded by the national budget to humanitarian support and focusing on Czech security needs.” The Motorists party was founded in 2022, and clinched six seats in parliament during last month’s nationwide election, making it a pivotal kingmaker in efforts by prime minister-designate Andrej Babiš and his populist ANO faction to form a government. Turek is under consideration to take on the role of foreign minister in the new administration. Babiš has previously publicly cast doubt on the future of a major program led by the current Czech government to provide tens of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine, but has avoided publicly committing to a position since the election. Responding to the comments, first reported in POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook, outgoing Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said, “the limitation of Czech military aid to Ukraine is news that will surely bring great joy to Russian soldiers on the front line. Let’s consider it a Christmas gift from Babiš to Vladimir Putin.” According to Lipavský, whose broad center-right platform suffered defeat in October’s election, the new coalition’s policy statements “do not mention the word Russia even once,” and fail to face up to the Kremlin’s aggression. “The new government will be undermining the security of the Czech Republic,” Lipavský said. Turek added that the new Czech government would deal with Moscow in a manner “guided by pragmatic protection of national interests” and avoid “escalation that could endanger Czechia’s energy security or economic stability.” A “broader focus on sovereignty and non-intervention suggests a cautious, interest-based approach,” he said. While the Czech government may change the types of aid it provides to Ukraine, the EU’s main plan to finance Kyiv next year hinges on the use of Russian frozen assets currently held in Belgium. Brussels is in the process of deciding whether to support those measures, and it’s unclear whether Prague would oppose such a move. Babiš, tasked with forming a government within the next month, may face opposition from President Petr Pavel over Turek’s nomination. The likely next foreign minister has faced police investigation over inflammatory social media posts, some of which he has apologized for and others of which he has denied authorship. EU STANCE At the same time, Turek said Prague would prioritize being “a sovereign, confident member of the EU and a firm ally in NATO,” but simultaneously “resist further transfers of powers to Brussels and advocate for a union based on unanimity, mutual respect, and pragmatic policies that avoid overburdening citizens with regulations.” The former racing car driver, who until last month served as a member of the European Parliament and campaigned on an anti-Green Deal platform, branded eco-conscious policies “unsustainable,” calling for a reversal of the 2035 ban on the sale of cars with combustion engines and for emissions trading systems to be dropped altogether. “Real change requires Brussels to prioritize factory floors and family budgets over ideological agendas that only accelerate the offshoring of sophisticated European production to China,” Turek said, “where less efficient plants and long-distance shipping generate higher global emissions, paradoxically contradicting the very climate objectives Brussels claims to pursue.” Babiš will have to present his proposed list of ministers to Czech President Petr Pavel in the coming days before a vote of confidence in the new government can be held.