iftttwall

There’s been yet another major attack on Russia’s major Black Sea energy hub and port of Tuapse, after just a few days prior a drone wave had unleashed a fire so big it cold be seen from space, given the over 100-mile smoke plume that had spread over the Black Sea. 

In this latest overnight Ukrainian assault reported Monday, the drone attack killed least one person and resulted in more major fires, and now emergency crews are battling their second huge blaze at the site in under a week. There’s been a massive oil spill into coastal waters to boot.

Last week’s fires (which began with the last Thursday strike) had only just been extinguished at the Rosneft-owned refinery.

The prior drone wave had damaged residential areas, while this fresh attack has damaged a gas pipeline, a church and two schools – according to regional reports.

“Fire crews and rescue services are currently engaged at every site,” Tuapse Mayor Sergei Boyko said, confirming that several locations along the export terminal were struck.

Ukraine’s military took responsibility for the attack, as well as hits on two oil depots in nearby Crimea.

As for last week’s initial assault, Russian media says it resulted in a significant oil spill into the waters of the Black Sea, with TASS providing the following details:

• An oil product spill into the Black Sea waters occurred in Tuapse after the UAV attack carried out by Ukrainian forces on the night of April 16, according to the regional operational headquarters’ Telegram channel.
• On April 19, an oil slick was detected in the sea on a satellite image.
• The oil slick is located about one and a half miles from the port of Tuapse.
• The area of contamination of the Black Sea with oil products amounts to 10,000 square meters, according to the Telegram channel of the Krasnodar Region operational headquarters.
• Specialists have also contained the oil spill in the Tuapse River following the UAV attack on the night of April 16.
• A total of 750 meters of containment booms and five specialized oil recovery devices have been deployed, and an oil trap has been installed.

These daily and nightly cross-border attacks have however largely slipped from mainstream headline coverage, given their frequency – to the point of being ‘routine’ (a grim reality).

Rosneft’s Tuapse Oil Depot and Export Facility in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, is currently ablaze, with dozens of tanks seen burning as thick black smoke pours into the sky, following a large-scale drone attack tonight by Ukraine against oil infrastructure across Southern Russia. pic.twitter.com/ZmtlLljYiI

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 20, 2026

Often even when refineries or major infrastructure is hit in either country, the event barely gets coverage in Western media at this point. With the globe’s attention focused on the Iran war and blockaded Hormuz Strait, and Russia-Ukraine negotiations having long effectively collapsed, the war in eastern Europe is expected to grind on for some time to come.

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

This might be the US’ final warning before it takes drastic action to punish those who continue to reject Trump’s demands.

Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby gave an important speech at mid-April’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group in which he urged the Europeans to step up their transition to something that he described earlier this year as “NATO 3.0”.

As was explained here, “The idea is that NATO should return to focusing on defending itself instead of overextending itself in the Indo-Pacific, West Asia, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere”, and the preceding hyperlinked analysis explains how it aligns with Trump 2.0’s policies.

Circling back to Colby’s speech, he demanded that “Europe must accelerate its assumption of primary responsibility for the conventional defense of the continent”, including arming Ukraine through the “Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List” (PURL) program in which the US plays the most significant role.

To that end, “The need to quickly rebuild European munitions stocks is paramount, as is the need to remove protectionist trade barriers that stifle the continent’s industrial potential.”

He added that “Developing a robust, capable, and integrated European defense industrial base cannot simply be an aspiration, but an absolute pre-requisite for credible deterrence and defense.”

Knowing how obsessed they are with Ukraine, Colby then threw in that “This will be critical to achieving an end to the war in Ukraine, on terms that support an enduring peace.”

He then called for more “deeds and a fundamental change in attitude” from them to “accelerate this transition to a ‘NATO 3.0’”.

Colby concluded that “If Europe rises to this moment – truly embracing primary responsibility for the defense of the continent in line with our vision of a rebalanced ‘NATO 3.0’ – we will all be stronger and more credible in defending our people and our national interests.”

He also ominously warned them midway through his speech that “I underline the criticality of [NATO stepping up to help secure the Strait of Hormuz per Trump’s expectation] for our relationship going forward.”

As was assessed here last month and was just implicitly reaffirmed by Colby, the US might speed up its planned military reprioritization away from Europe to the Americas and the Indo-Pacific if they reject Trump’s request by ending its significant PURL contributions before NATO can replace them. That would facilitate a full Russian victory in Ukraine, or at least spook the Europeans into fearing that this is inevitable if they don’t step up right after he cuts off arms again, thus getting them to do what he wants.

If some members of the bloc refuse to contribute while others do, then Trump might impose his reportedly considered pay-to-play model that was described here, which would remove “dissidents” from decision-making processes and withdraw the US’ Article 5 support from them. These punishments could also be imposed for refusing to spend 5% of GDP on defense. It’s very likely that Colby conveyed these punitive plans to his counterparts on the sidelines of the event even if he only hinted at them.

His urging of them to step up their transition to “NATO 3.0”, which is his brainchild, can therefore be considered the US’ final warning before it takes drastic action to punish those who continue to reject Trump’s demands.

Imposing the pay-to-play model is one form that this could take while cutting off arms to Ukraine once again could be another.

Both could also happen together.

It’s unclear what NATO as a whole will do, let alone its individual members, but it’s obvious that Trump is losing patience with them.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Federal officials arrested an Iranian woman at the Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night for allegedly brokering weapons for the Iranian regime, officials said Sunday.

Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, California, is a green card holder, according to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in a post on X on Sunday.

Mafi was arrested at the Los Angeles airport “for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran” and was charged in connection to the alleged selling “of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan,” he said.

“If convicted, she faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison,” Essayli wrote. “Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016.”

She is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, he said.

A criminal complaint filed by federal officials in connection to the case said that Mafi allegedly facilitated a contract valued at more than 60 million Euros (around $70 million) for the sale of Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drones manufactured for the regime that were commissioned to be sold to Sudan. She also coordinated a Sudanese delegation to Iran and received around $7 million in payments.

She was also accused of brokering the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, according to prosecutors, who stated that Mafi did not attempt to obtain a license from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for the sales.

“During interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Control officers and the FBI, Mafi acknowledged communicating with an officer of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security,” prosecutors said.

Mafi also allegedly told the FBI that she could provide “extensive information about the Iranian financial system and money laundering channels” that the Iranian regime uses, according to the complaint.

The arrest was made as the U.S. government increases economic pressure on Iran in the wake of a U.S.-Israeli campaign that included thousands of strikes inside the country since Feb. 28. The Trump administration, which initiated a naval blockade of Iranian ports last week, is sending a team to Pakistan Monday to hold more talks about a possible peace deal.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at a White House briefing on April 15 that the United States plans to ramp up economic pain on Iran, and said the new moves will be the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign.

Bessent said the Trump administration has “told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure. And the Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”

That same day, the Treasury Department said it placed new sanctions on an Iranian oil smuggling network, including around two-dozen individuals, companies, and vessels that were using front companies to evade previous U.S. sanctions.

It’s not clear if Mafi has legal representation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

One year ago, in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, there was a flurry of discussion over who is more reliant on whom: the US on Chinese rare earth materials, or China on US ethane output (see “Chinese Plastics Factories Face Mass Closure As US Ethane Supply Evaporates” and “Who Blinks First? China May Exempt Tariffs On US Ethane & Other Goods“). Following the detente in the US-China trade war, that discussion was quietly relegated to the back of the line, however the time has come to bring it up again.

That’s because with the Iran war choking off traditional – and crucial – supplies, China is set to import a record volume of US ethane this month as petrochemical producers desperately seek alternative feedstocks for their operations. 

Shipments of US ethane are expected to rise to an all-time high of 800,000 tons in April, according to Chinese consultant JLC, which would be around 60% higher than the monthly average. Some companies can switch to using ethane, helping them offset disruptions to the supply of naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas from the Middle East after the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Ethane is a natural gas liquid primarily used to produce ethylene, a key building block for plastics, and China depends almost entirely on the US for supply. The product became a political flashpoint between Beijing and Washington last year after the US tightened export controls during a bitter trade war.

Of course, this means that if Xi plays the rare earth cards in his upcoming summit with Trump, the US president can retaliate by simply shutting down China’s plastics industry. 

US ethane has become the preferred alternative for China’s ethylene makers due to stable supply and lower cost, said Shi Linlin, an analyst with JLC. Profits to produce ethylene from ethane was tenfold that of naphtha as of April 15, which has been inflated by crude-linked pricing, JLC said.

A ramp-up of downstream production capacity has also lead to a pickup in demand for the gas. A new ethane unit developed by Wanhua Chemical Group and a multi-feed cracker unit by Sinopec Ineos (Tianjin) Petrochemical Co., have both supported higher imports this year, Shi added.

The International Energy Agency said last week that “petrochemical feedstocks display the most immediate effects of the war by far,” and that supply chains to Asia have been thrown into “disarray.” Japan has been forced to scramble for naphtha, tapping a range of suppliers including from the US and Africa.

In February, just before the war started, more than 50% of China’s naphtha imports and over 40% of its LPG purchases originated from Persian Gulf nations, according to Chinese government data. That supply chain has now been cut off for as long as the Strait of Hormuz is blocked. And while China may have a massive 1.5 billion oil barrels in strategic petroleum storage, it has no naphta or ethane, meaning its plastic industry is suddenly very much exposed. 

“The disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has really highlighted how exposed Asia is to Middle Eastern naphtha,” said Amber Liu, the head of Asia Petchem Analytics at ICIS. This year, naphtha-fed crackers have accounted for about 57% of China’s ethylene capacity, compared with 16% for ethane, she said.

China’s ethane buying spree comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing in mid‑May, and US energy is expected to be part of the agenda. It could feature prominently if the Iran war continues to drag on.