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‘Shortcomings and failures’ could sink Aukus nuclear submarines plan, UK inquiry warns

“Cracks are already beginning to show” in the UK’s funding for the Aukus agreement that could derail the ambitious nuclear submarine plan, a British parliamentary inquiry has found, highlighting a threat to Australia’s security. UK shipbuilding has been under-funded for decades and the country’s submarine availability is “critically low”, the House of Commons defence committee’s report found. When the nuclear submarine HMS Anson visited Australia in February, it was Britain’s only attack-class submarine at sea. It had to be rapidly recalled to the northern hemisphere – ahead of schedule – when war broke out in the Gulf, undermining confidence in UK’s capacity and commitment to Aukus. The defence committee’s inquiry into Aukus “has revealed shortcomings and failings in the delivery of Aukus which threaten to prevent that promise becoming a reality”, the report said. “In the UK, political leadership – essential to secure the success of a programme of Aukus’s length, cost, and complexity – has faded. We call on the prime minister to take a more visible role in promoting and driving forward Aukus to counter the political drift that could see it derailed.” The Guardian put a series of questions to the Australian Submarine Agency, responsible for delivering the Aukus agreement. Australia is dependent upon the UK’s ability to design and build an entirely new class of nuclear submarine, the SSN-Aukus. Any delay or failure on the UK side could leave Australia exposed without any sovereign long-term submarine capability. While Australia will buy between three and five Virginia-class submarines from the US to cover the “capability gap” between the retirement of its existing Collins-class diesel-electric submarines and the arrival of the SSN-Aukus, the US capacity to deliver these is also in serious jeopardy. Australia has promised the UK A$4.6bn to uplift its submarine-building capacity and has sent nearly half a billion dollars to its Ministry of Defence. Prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday the trilateral deal had overwhelming support from both the British government, including UK prime minister Keir Starmer, and defence personnel. “Aukus is, to quote President Trump, full steam ahead. And I’m very confident that it will be so,” he said. Shadow defence minister James Paterson said while he was confident Aukus would still succeed, he did not believe it could be done so without an increase in defence spending and contingency planning. “I think we do need contingencies for potential capability gaps … should events get out of our control, should we find ourselves in conflict in our own region in the future, before Virginia class submarines or other capabilities arrive,” he said. Paterson suggested capability gaps caused by Aukus delays – the ability to deliver long range, stealth strike capability – could be plugged if Australia were to acquire a fleet of B-21 stealth bomber jets. Meanwhile, the UK has more pressing priorities – it must first build its Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines – and it is structurally hampered by the fact that it has only one shipyard for building submarines, at Barrow-in-Furness. £200m has been committed to upgrade Barrow but the committee found that the timeline for improvements had “already slipped”. “Efforts to regenerate Barrow to attract and maintain the workforce required to deliver SSN-Aukus must be properly funded,” the report said. The report said Aukus would fail if it was seen within the UK’s defence bureaucracy as just another plan “competing for scarce resources”. “Only strong and visible political leadership from the very top of government can counter a drift into bureaucratic obscurity and ensure that Aukus receives the funding and priority that the nation’s defence and security demands.” The committee chair, Labour MP Tan Dhesi, said “cracks are already beginning to show” in Aukus funding. “This cannot be allowed to happen again. Even seemingly minor shortfalls and delays snowball over time, with potentially severe consequences.” The committee said it was also disquieted by government secrecy over the reality of Aukus progress. In 2024 the UK’s former national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, was appointed as the government’s Aukus adviser and commissioned to review it. “It is deeply disappointing that more than a year after Sir Stephen Lovegrove completed his review of Aukus, the government’s commitment to issue a public version of his findings has not been fulfilled,” the report said. “This reflects poorly on the government and is damaging to stakeholder and public confidence.” When the Astute-class submarine HMS Anson docked in Perth in February, it was billed as a vital signal in maintaining the credibility of Britain’s commitment to Aukus. But the vessel was rapidly withdrawn and deployed to the Middle East when war broke out in Iran. “It is clear that fulfilling this commitment has stretched the Astute fleet to – or even beyond – its limits,” the report found. The committee heard evidence that Britain’s submarine fleet was “the smallest the UK has had in living memory” and had been stretched “to the limits of its capacity” in sending the Anson to Australia. Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said trying to fulfil Aukus meant some functions and training for the UK’s fleet would have to be abandoned. “The risk of stretching our [attack-class] fleet is not just about the availability of hulls but, frankly, that we operate it to death,” he said.

Israel’s direction poses ‘existential threat’ to Judaism, UK’s leading progressive rabbis warn

The UK’s most senior progressive rabbis have warned that Israel’s current political direction risks becoming “incompatible with Jewish values”, while insisting that criticism of the country’s government is “a Jewish obligation” rather than an act of disloyalty. Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy, co-leads of Progressive Judaism – the newly formed movement representing around a third of synagogues in the UK – said Israel’s trajectory could pose an “existential threat” not just to the country itself but to Judaism. Speaking ahead of the launch of the movement’s first book, Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel, they also expressed hope that change remains possible. “We’ve often talked about the direction of Israel being an existential threat not to Jews per se, but to Judaism,” Baginsky said. “What happens when the direction of the government within Israel takes Israel down a line that makes it incompatible with our Jewish values? That’s a huge worry.” That question lies at the heart of the book Baginsky co-edited with Levy, which brings together 40 essays from Jewish clergy and community leaders, reflecting a wide range of perspectives on the fraught debates surrounding Jewish identity, Zionism and Israel. Levy argued that exploring these tough questions is not a sign of disloyalty to Israel or to the Jewish community. “It is to be part of a millennial conversation about Jewish values and what God wants of us in the world and our relationship with the land.” He added: “What the government of Israel does reflects on us as Jews and reflects on our Judaism. Therefore, it is our Jewish obligation to be in dialogue with that in some way.” While Progressive Judaism is a Zionist movement committed to a Jewish, pluralist and democratic state in Israel, the collection of essays also includes contributions from voices who would not describe themselves as Zionists. The book forms part of a wider review being carried out by Progressive Judaism into its relationship with Israel and Zionism. “One of the things that we have seen in the world by the Jewish community is the view that diversity of voice is somehow weakening,” Levy said. “But what sits underneath the book is the idea that holding differences makes us stronger.” Baginsky said the mission of Progressive Judaism was to insist on living within that complexity. “To say you’re a Zionist, to say you’re critical of the Israeli government, and to also talk about antisemitism means there are very few spaces that you can’t be criticised in,” she said. Both were keen to stress that any guidelines resulting from the review would not impose a top-down view on what congregants should think or feel. “Just as there is no theological position that you have to sign up for in order to be able to be part of our communities and be in relationship with the rest of Judaism, similarly, there’s no political position on Israel that you have to hold in order to be part of our communities,” Levy said. The essays include political perspectives, personal views and religious mediation. The latter was of particular importance to the co-chairs, who said they were keen to assert their perspective as religious Zionists and challenge the narrative being set by far-right Israeli leaders such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. “We have a responsibility to show that our religious Zionism is not the religious Zionism that we see sometimes coming out of the West Bank,” Baginsky said. “My Zionism is also a recognition of Palestinian self-determination.” Levy added: “It’s not that kind of proprietorial Zionism. It’s a different kind of Zionism that’s articulated out of our religious life. It’s textual, it’s deep, and it’s rich.” That position has at times brought them into tension with parts of the British Jewish community. Last year, while addressing a rally for Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, Baginsky and Levy were booed off stage after calling for an end to the war and the establishment of a Palestinian state. “That moment was painful. It was nearly a year ago, and I still feel it viscerally,” Baginsky said. But it has not stopped her from calling for justice and peace for all in the Middle East. Levy agreed, but wanted to also focus on what followed the heckling. “Which was an outpouring of responses from across the Jewish community, and the wider faith community, who wanted to show their support.”

Humanoid robots to become baggage handlers in Japan airport experiment

Japan’s famously conscientious but overburdened baggage handlers will soon be joined by extra staff at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – although their new colleagues will need to take regular recharging breaks. Japan Airlines will introduce humanoid robots on a trial basis from the beginning of May, with a view to deploying them permanently as a solution to the country’s chronic labour shortage. The Chinese-made humanoids will move travellers’ luggage and cargo on the tarmac at Haneda, which handles more than 60 million passengers a year. JAL and its partner in the initiative, Japan Airlines GMO Internet Group, hope the experiment – which ends in 2028 – will lessen the burden on human employees amid a surge in inbound tourism and forecasts of more severe labour shortages. In a demonstration for the media this week, a 130cm-tall robot manufactured by Hangzhou-based Unitree was seen tentatively “pushing” cargo on to a conveyer belt next to a JAL passenger plane and waving to an unseen colleague. The president of JAL Ground Service, Yoshiteru Suzuki, said using robots to perform physically demanding work would “inevitably reduce the burden on workers and provide significant benefits to employees”, according to the Kyodo news agency. Suzuki added, however, that certain key tasks – such as safety management – would continue to be performed by humans. Japan is struggling to cope with a simultaneous surge in tourists from overseas and an ageing, declining population. More than 7 million people visited the country in the first two months of 2026, according to the Japan National Tourism Organisation, after a record 42.7 million last year, despite a drop in the number of visitors from China triggered by a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing. According to one estimate, Japan will need more than 6.5 million foreign workers in 2040 to reach its growth targets as the indigenous workforce continues to shrink. The country’s foreign population has risen dramatically in recent years, but the government is now under political pressure to rein in immigration. The president of GMO AI and Robotics, Tomohiro Uchida, said: “While airports appear highly automated and standardised, their back-end operations still rely heavily on human labour and face serious labor shortages.” Robots can operate continuously for two to three hours and the firms are planning to use them to perform other tasks, such as cleaning aircraft cabins.

Ukraine war briefing: Arrests over Russian GRU-linked murder plots in Lithuania

Lithuanian authorities say they have charged 13 people with two attempted murders in Vilnius linked to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, while Ukraine said the same group constituted a “Russian intelligence network” that tried to murder Ukrainian journalists and an intelligence official. Lithuania alleges those who sought the killings were acting in the interests of the GRU, said Saulius Briginas, the Lithuanian police chief. The suspects, some of whom were arrested in Lithuania in March, were charged with seeking to kill one Lithuanian – an activist and fundraiser for Ukraine – and one Russian national, a dissident and activist for the rights of the Bashkir minority of Russia. The same suspects were also believed by police to be behind an arson attack on Ukraine-bound military equipment in Bulgaria and espionage against the Greek military, he added. “We are witnessing hybrid-style crimes against European Union countries, their national security, and persons who act in support of Ukraine,” said Briginas, the police chief. Russia’s defence ministry, which is in charge of military intelligence, did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by the Reuters news agency. Moscow has always denied allegations it is involved in such operations or in a wider sabotage campaign involving arson attacks aimed at destabilising Ukraine’s allies. But there have been several successful prosecutions in target countries including the UK and admissions by participants that they were acting for Russian paymasters. Lithuania has previously said the GRU was behind parcel blasts in Europe and attempted arson at an Ikea store and at a plant that supplies radio scanners to Ukraine’s army. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, said he had summoned Israel’s ambassador in protest over a shipment to an Israeli port allegedly containing stolen grain farmed on Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukraine says it previously informed Israel in April that a Russian shipment received at Haifa contained grain from Ukrainian territory. Sybiga said: “It is difficult to understand Israel’s lack of appropriate response … Now that another such vessel has arrived in Haifa, we once again warn Israel against accepting the stolen grain and harming our relations.” The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, hit back at Sybiga over the public announcement but added “the matter will be examined … Israel is a state that abides by the rule of law.” The EU found in 2024 there was evidence Russia was “illegally appropriating large volumes of [cereals and grains] in territories of Ukraine, which it illegally occupies, and routing them to its export markets as allegedly Russian products”. A Russian drone attack before dawn on Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa wounded 14 people, including two children, authorities said on Monday, in a barrage of civilian areas. A Ukrainian drone strike killed two people in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the Moscow-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, said on Monday. A man and a woman in their 70s died in the village of Dnipriany, he said. In Odesa, drones hit residential neighbourhoods and civilian infrastructure, said Serhii Lysak, the head of the city’s administration. Five of the wounded, most of them with shrapnel wounds, were hospitalised, according to Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional military administration. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said on Monday that Russia has fired approximately 1,900 attack drones, nearly 1,400 powerful guided aerial bombs and about 60 missiles of various types at Ukraine over the past week. In Poland, Donald Tusk, the prime minister, said his government planned to build a “drone armada” with Ukraine’s help, to defend both itself and the rest of Europe. Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine is massively scaling up the production of ground robots that can deliver supplies, evacuate injured soldiers and fire automatic weapons. Kyiv has ordered 25,000 ground robots for this year – twice as many as in 2025, and the number is set to grow, said Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy noted a recent raft of good news for Ukraine: Nato partners, excluding the US, had contributed to a financial arrangement to buy American weapons; the EU approved a €90bn (US$106bn) loan to Ukraine; and the EU intended to place more sanctions on Moscow. Meanwhile, Ukraine continued assailing oil terminals and refineries deep inside Russia with long-range drones and missiles, aiming to disrupt Moscow’s economy. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based thinktank, said it had seen geolocated evidence that Ukrainian forces conducted at least 10 strikes against Russian oil and gas infrastructure in the past two weeks.

Middle East crisis: Iran’s foreign ministry condemns US seizure of Iranian-linked tankers as ‘piracy and armed robbery’ – as it happened

Donald Trump met with his national security team on Monday morning to discuss a new Iranian proposal for ending the war, the White House confirmed. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not offer an opinion of the proposal, in which the critical strait of Hormuz would be opened and Iran’s nuclear program discussed at a later date. But she said that Trump’s bottom line demands (that Tehran must never have nuclear weapons) “has been made very, very clear”. Trump had earlier said Iran that can telephone if it wants to negotiate an end to the war and that it must agree never to have a nuclear weapon, while Pakistan’s leaders sought to revive the stalled peace talks between Washington and Tehran. Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on the country’s south killed four people including a woman and wounded 51 others, three of them children, despite the ceasefire, AFP reports. According to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, Israeli strikes have killed at least 40 people in Lebanon since the fragile truce there began on 17 April. Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the US seizure of Iran-linked tankers as the “outright legalization of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas”. In a post on X, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said: “The United States must be held fully accountable for this brazenly lawless behavior, which strikes at the heart of international law & international free trade, and threatens the basic principles of maritime security.” Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly told Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, that Moscow would do everything it could to help secure peace in the Middle East, as the two met in Russia. “For our part, we will do everything that serves your interests, the interests of all the people of the region, so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible,” Russian state media quoted Putin as telling Araghchi during a meeting in Saint Petersburg on Monday. The head of the UN’s maritime agency said there was “no legal basis” for imposing any fees for ships to pass through the strait of Hormuz. Shipping through the narrow strait has been strangled since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

Number of executions in North Korea rose dramatically during Covid – report

North Korea dramatically increased its use of the death penalty after closing its borders during the Covid-19 pandemic, using its isolation to escalate killings when international scrutiny disappeared, according to a report mapping 13 years of executions under the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The number of documented cases of executions and death sentences increased by 117% in the nearly five years after North Korea sealed its borders in January 2020 compared with an equal period before the closure, according to a report by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a human rights NGO in Seoul. The number of people executed or sentenced to death more than tripled, it added. The report identified 46 execution sites and disclosed coordinates for 40 of them. It also documented 144 cases, including 136 execution events involving at least 358 individuals between December 2011, when Kim became leader, and December 2024, with about 70% of executions carried out publicly with crowds forced to watch. The report was compiled based on testimony from 265 North Korean defectors who had lived in 51 cities and countries during the 13-year period, as well as information from five North Korea-focused media outlets with sources inside the country. North Korea closed its borders to nearly all trade and visitors at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, isolating itself from the outside world. The report claims that the regime exploited the pandemic – and the lack of international scrutiny – to expand the number of “crimes” that carried the death penalty. Cases of death sentences or executions linked to the use, introduction or dissemination of foreign culture and information, including South Korean films, dramas and music, as well as religious and “superstitious” practices, surged by 250% to become the most common capital offences. Executions and death sentences for people found guilty of murder – previously the most frequent capital crime – fell by 44%. Those claims echoed previous reports citing a rise in punishments, including execution for watching South Korean TV shows or listening to K-pop. In February, Amnesty International said it had obtained testimonies indicating that watching global K-drama hits such as Crash Landing on You and Squid Game, or listening to K-pop bands such as BTS, could “lead to the most extreme punishments, including death”. Citing testimony from people who had recently fled North Korea, Amnesty said the regime had created “a climate of fear” in which consumption of South Korean culture was treated as a serious crime. The TJWG report said political executions for violating Kim’s orders or criticising the leader, the ruling Workers’ party or security services had increased sharply, with the number of condemned individuals up 600%. According to the TJWG report, the North Korean leadership adapted its approach to capital punishment depending on levels of international pressure. Executions declined sharply, for example, in the years following UN discussions about referring Kim to the international criminal court in The Hague. The executions also spread geographically during the pandemic. Before Covid, documented executions occurred in eight localities, mostly concentrated in Pyongyang and three north-eastern provinces along the Chinese border. After the border closure, they expanded to 19 localities. Ethan Hee-seok Shin, a legal analyst at the TJWG, called on the international community to do more to “deter and punish this crime against humanity” and “hold those responsible to account under international criminal law”. In a press release, the TJWG warned that executions might intensify as the regime prepared for a fourth-generation hereditary succession, with Kim’s teenage daughter, understood to be called Ju-ae, being positioned as his heir apparent. The TJWG plans to present the findings at the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris this summer.

The two-hour marathon is done – but other records remain to be broken

Bad news for anyone who secretly fancies themselves every time they lace up their trainers: the two-hour marathon record has gone. Sabastian Sawe’s astonishing effort at the London marathon on Sunday – cruising across the finish line on the Mall in 1hr 59m 30s like a man who has just jogged a parkrun – shattered a record long seen as beyond human capability. “They said it couldn’t be done!” roared BBC commentator Steve Cram. And then, 11 seconds later, Yomif Kejelcha did it too – and he’d never even run a marathon before. Even Jacob Kiplimo in third came close to breaking one of the most talismanic athletic barriers in history, beating the previous world record but missing the “sub two” by 28 seconds. The men’s two-hour marathon in race conditions has been comprehensively done. Find yourself a new challenge. Happily, humans are not yet all-powerful and a few records and firsts – athletic and otherwise – remain to be achieved. Here are a few to inspire your next sponsored challenge. The first Pacific swim Yes, some people see this as an achievable goal, and one person has even tried it, if one adopts an elastic definition that allows for taking the world’s biggest ocean in stages. French swimmer Benoît Lecomte set off from Choshi in Japan in 2018 with a plan to swim 40 nautical miles (64km) a day until he hit San Francisco, resting at night on his support boat. However, he was forced to give up after a mere 1,500 miles when the boat suffered irreparable damage. Lecomte already claims a world first on swimming the Atlantic, after he crossed from Massachusetts to Brittany in northern France in 1998 (with a week off in the Azores halfway through). Guinness World Records does not recognise the attempt, however, due to uncertainty over the distance he swam. The first circumnavigation of Great Britain, on the other hand, has officially happened. (“It was brutal,” said 33-year-old Ross Edgley on finally coming ashore in Margate in 2018.) The 9-metre long jump Another near miss, American Mike Powell’s world record long jump of 8.95 metres in 1991 has never been surpassed (though he jumped a wind-assisted 8.99 metres the following year at altitude). His 35-year record is not the longest to stand in athletics, however. Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100m in 10.49 seconds and 200m in 21.34 seconds, both set in 1988, are unsurpassed, as are the women’s 400m and 800m records, set in 1985 and 1983 by athletes from the former German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia respectively. Even Jonathan Edwards’s 18.29-metre triple jump has stood for more than 30 years (it was set in 1995), which he believes is because athletics has “not kept pace with the professionalism of sport”. The 30-minute breath hold Croat Vitomir Maričić got to 29 minutes and 3 seconds in 2025, but the big 30, as probably no one calls it, has never been achieved. Croatia, indeed, appears to be a centre of excellence for the sport, the record was held by his countryman Budimir Šobat, whose time of 24 minutes and 37.36 seconds, was, noted Guinness World Records, longer than an episode of the Simpsons. Perhaps encouragingly for late starters, Šobat did not take up freediving until the age of 48, and said his age helped him stay calm at critical moments. “Of course, you have to be a little bit mad,” he added. The first ascent of Gangkhar Puensum At 7,570 metres (24,836 ft), Gangkhar Puensum is actually a tiddler – only the 40th highest mountain on Earth and more than 1km shorter than Everest. However, the highest mountain in Bhutan is also the highest unclimbed peak on Earth – a status that would ordinarily send mountaineers clamouring for their crampons. There were a number of unsuccessful attempts in the 1980s, but for now at least, we can be confident the mountain whose name means “White Peak of the Three Spiritual Brothers” will remain unconquered. In 1994, Bhutan banned the climbing of all peaks over 6,000m, citing respect for local spiritual beliefs.

US is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran’s leadership, says Friedrich Merz

The US is being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership, according to Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, who suggested the Trump administration was being outwitted at the negotiating table by Tehran. Two days ago Donald Trump cancelled a trip by US negotiators to Islamabad for indirect talks with an Iranian delegation. A previous round in the Pakistani capital two weeks earlier, when JD Vance, the American vice-president, led the US delegation, broke up without progress. Merz’s trenchant assessment of the stalled US-Iranian talks, which appeared certain to deepen the severe transatlantic rift between the US and its Nato allies, directly contradicts Trump’s effort to cast the limbo in a positive light. A day earlier, the US president told Fox News: “We have all the cards,” adding that if Tehran wanted to talk, “they can come to us, or they can call us”. Speaking to students in Marsberg, Merz suggested it was Trump’s team that was being outplayed. “The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” he said. “An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.” Iran put forward a new proposal on Monday for a ceasefire deal focused on opening the strait of Hormuz, setting aside discussions on nuclear weapons, missiles, sanctions and other issues for later, according to officials in the region. Under a bill being prepared by Iran’s parliament, shippers would have to pay Tehran for “services” involved in passing through the strait, which was free before the war. Iranian officials said Tehran would be prepared to talk about the nuclear issue eventually, only after the US blockade had ended. Iranian negotiators are also facing domestic pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and public opinion not to discuss nuclear matters. Mediators involved in the talks see this approach as unlikely to work because it would achieve none of Washington’s professed war aims, which included a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear programme. “Hormuz is a byproduct of the war, so how can this be tackled first?” said a diplomat familiar with the talks. The UN’s International Maritime Organization firmly rejected the idea of imposing fees on ships passing through the strait of Hormuz. Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s secretary general, said: “There’s no legal basis for the introduction of any tax, any customs, or any fees on straits for international navigation.” The “Hormuz first” offer from Iran does, however, suggest a significant shift in Tehran’s position. The regime had previously sought to use its blockade on oil, gas and other Gulf exports as leverage to win broad security guarantees. But after the breakdown of the Islamabad talks, Trump imposed a counter-blockade of shipping using Iranian ports, exacerbating Iran’s deep economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund has forecast a 6.1% contraction in Iran’s gross domestic product this year, while year-on-year inflation is running at nearly 70%, with prices for food staples and healthcare rising at even higher rates. The blockade has also stopped Iran’s empty tankers returning to port, where they could serve as storage facilities. Iran is running very low on ways to store its output, and winding down production would have long-term damaging effects to its energy sector. Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, met Vladimir Putin and a high-powered Russian delegation in Moscow on Monday, seeking in part to mitigate the crippling effects of the blockade. According to official media, Putin pledged that Russia “will do everything that serves [Iranian] interests, the interests of all the people of the region, so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible”. Araghchi said “the world has now realised Iran’s true power”, adding: “It has become clear that the Islamic republic of Iran is a stable, solid and powerful system.” Nikita Smagin, an analyst of Russian-Iranian relations, said the talks focused on Russian military and economic support, including transit routes for Iranian trade. “If the US blockade continues, then the Caspian Sea and the land link with Russia will become one of the few remaining routes for connecting Iran with world markets,” Smagin wrote in a commentary on the Telegram messaging platform. Israel attacked the Caspian route in March with the bombing of Bandar Anzali, an Iranian port. But even before the Israeli strike, it fell far short of becoming a substitute for the Hormuz strait, the gateway to more than 90% of Iran’s prewar trade. Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, said Trump and his team had misjudged how much the economic squeeze would force Tehran into concessions on its nuclear programme. “Undeniably, the blockade is basically sharpening the economic pain that Iran was under even before the war started,” Vaez said. “But Iranian resilience is not a question of economic pain because Iran is in an existential battle and is willing to absorb a much higher price than it has so far. And the Iranian regime doesn’t hesitate to transfer this pain to its population.” He said Trump was more politically sensitive on a number of fronts: the political cost of high petrol prices and general inflation at home, the president’s desire to resolve the crisis before meeting Xi Jinping in Beijing in mid-May and the fear that a global shortage of jet fuel could ruin the World Cup, due to be held in North America in June and July. If Trump accepted Iran’s offer of a deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz, he could conceivably declare victory by pointing to the damage that the US and Israeli bombing had inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme and military capabilities. However, such a deal would leave Iran with its stockpile of 440kg of highly enriched uranium, enough in theory for a dozen nuclear warheads. Ariane Tabatabai, the vice-president of research, security and defence at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said Iran could also reconstitute at least some of its military might quite rapidly. “Their whole military doctrine is based on building and deploying capabilities that they can acquire and maintain and use on the cheap,” said Tabatabai, a former Pentagon policy adviser. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu raised the prospect of fresh Israeli military action in Lebanon, saying rockets and drones possessed by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, remained a threat. “There are still two central threats from Hezbollah: the 122mm rockets and the drones,” said the Israeli prime minister in a statement issued by his office. “This demands a combination of operational and technological activity.”