Pentagon Hearing Puts $25B Price Tag on Iran War

The Pentagon's first public hearing on the Iran war was the day's structural story. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified for nearly six hours before the House Armed Services Committee as Operation Epic Fury approached its 60th day. Acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst III disclosed that the operation had cost approximately $25 billion to date, mostly in munitions. Hegseth repeatedly clashed with Democratic members, calling them "the biggest adversary we face" and accusing them of "handing propaganda to our enemies"; he criticised "reckless" rhetoric and refused to commit to a withdrawal timeline. The hearing landed against a White House official's same-day statement that the US naval blockade on Iran could be extended for months, following a Trump-oil-executives meeting hosted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in attendance. Global crude moved to a four-year high above $119 a barrel intraday. Trump's approval rating hit 34 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday, his lowest current-term reading; only 22 percent approved of his cost-of-living handling. Five former US officials, including a former top military lawyer, criticised the Pentagon's silence on the Minab school strike of February 28, in which 168 people, mostly children, were killed; a preliminary inquiry reported by US media indicated a US Tomahawk missile likely struck the school. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Russia remained open to removing highly enriched uranium from Iran — Trump confirmed Putin had offered to be "involved with the enrichment" — and a separate IAEA briefing said roughly 440 pounds of up-to-60-percent enriched uranium remained at Iran's Isfahan facility, hidden in a tunnel.

Ukraine extended its long-range campaign deeper than at any prior point in the war. Drone units hit the Transneft Perm linear production-dispatch station in Perm Krai, more than 1,500 km from the front; satellite imagery confirmed at least two oil-storage tanks on fire, with witnesses describing "oil rain" over the city. Same-day strikes hit the Orsk oil refinery and a machine-building plant in Orenburg Oblast. A joint operation by elite Ukrainian drone units — the 429th Separate Brigade "Achilles" and HUR — destroyed a Russian Mi-28 and a Mi-17 at a Voronezh airbase. President Volodymyr Zelensky said middle-range strikes to depths of 120-150 km were among Ukraine's top priorities for the coming months — targeting military logistics, depots, command posts and air defence — and approved new long-range operations against Russian oil, military logistics and defence production as Ukraine's "long-range sanctions." Ukrainian forces also achieved what the General Staff described as a historic first: capturing a Russian position using only ground robots and aerial drones, without infantry or casualties. Ukrainian naval drones hit Russian FSB boats guarding the Kerch Bridge in occupied Crimea; Sweden seized the Caffa, a vessel suspected of illegally exporting goods from Russian-occupied Crimea as part of Moscow's shadow fleet; the United States announced up to $100 million for emergency repairs to the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant's radiation containment.

Berlin codified the new defence environment. The German cabinet approved the 2027 budget framework presented by Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD), with core spending of €543.3 billion and net new core-budget borrowing of €110.8 billion; counting credit-financed special funds for defence and infrastructure, planned new borrowing rises to €196.5 billion. Defence rises from €100.9 billion in 2025 to €105.8 billion in 2027, reaching €179.9 billion (3.1 percent of GDP) by 2030 — explicitly tied to the Iran-war strategic environment. Chancellor Friedrich Merz used a Marsberg student visit to suggest, for the first time, that a future peace deal between Ukraine and Russia might involve territorial compromises, with EU accession leverage to make the deal acceptable to the Ukrainian population. UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the Italian bank's takeover of Commerzbank was "unstoppable"; UniCredit's direct stake stood at 27 percent, rising to 32.64 percent including derivatives. The European Commission's Ursula von der Leyen announced that the first €45 billion ($52.9 billion) of the EU's €90 billion ($106 billion) Ukraine loan would be disbursed in the current quarter, split one-third for budgetary needs and two-thirds for defence; the first military package, worth €6 billion ($7.05 billion), would fund drones produced inside Ukraine.

The London headline was a designated terrorist incident. The Metropolitan Police designated the morning's double stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green a terrorist attack later the same day; the 45-year-old suspect — described by Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley as having "a history of serious violence and mental health issues" — was Tasered to the ground and detained by unarmed Met officers working with Shomrim community-watch volunteers. The Bank of England held its key rate at 3.75 percent into the May Day cycle, with one MPC vote for a hike and inflation at 3.3 percent above target; the central forecast had been replaced with three scenarios. UK Science Minister Patrick Vallance told the House of Lords that further listings of confidential UK Biobank health data on Alibaba had appeared since the breach was first reported, naming Second Xiangya Hospital and two other Chinese institutions; the data of 500,000 volunteers is de-identified but with re-identification risk.

Around the world, the day's other moving parts:

- South Korea's appeals court sentenced ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol to seven years in prison for resisting arrest and bypassing a Cabinet meeting before his brief martial-law imposition in December 2024. - A Tuareg-JNIM offensive coordinated by the Azawad Liberation Front captured Kidal in northern Mali and killed Defence Minister Sadio Camara in a suicide car bombing at his home in Kati near Bamako; France urged its nationals to leave "as soon as possible," and the UK issued a similar advisory. - Madagascar detained a former French serviceman on charges of criminal conspiracy and plotting to sabotage power lines and thermal plants in an alleged April 18 destabilisation plot; other suspects, including a Malagasy army officer, were also charged. - A Nordic Monitor analysis warned that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's proposed 20-year tax exemption on foreign-sourced income for incoming relocations — with minimal taxation on domestic income and 1 percent inheritance tax — raises serious risks of money laundering, sanctions evasion and exploitation by politically connected actors; the plan requires only three years of non-tax-residency. - Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias urged a change in "Türkiye-centric" policies and said Turkey has no rights in the Aegean continental shelf, speaking at the 3rd International Conference on Maritime Security in Athens. - A suspected unexploded WWII bomb at a Plymouth construction site triggered the evacuation of around 1,200 homes within a 400-metre cordon; Royal Navy disposal teams were on site.