Two Ceasefires in Iran, Ukraine as Western Alliance Splits

The Iran war was the day's centre of gravity. Trump's unilateral Project Freedom — a safe zone for merchant shipping on the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz protected by more than 100 fighter jets and several naval destroyers — collapsed on Tuesday after 50 hours, defeated by Saudi objections, an absence of consultation with shipping companies, and the fact that only two merchant vessels used it. Riyadh refused American access to its airspace and bases, fearful that the operation would restart full-scale war. Lloyd's List editor Richard Meade told the Guardian that "no major industry organisations that we are aware of have been approached by the US," and that "no ship owner I have spoken to in the past 24 hours has any confidence that this changes anything." S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded zero merchant transits through the strait on Wednesday or Thursday, with more than 1,550 vessels stuck in the Gulf. Trump described Thursday's strikes inside Iran as "a love tap." Leaked CIA assessments put Iran's surviving stockpile at 70 percent of its missiles, 75 percent of its launchers and roughly half of its Shahed attack drones, and a US intelligence estimate leaked to the Washington Post gave Tehran three to four months before more severe economic hardship sets in. American high-end missile stocks themselves fell by between a quarter and a half during the $25 billion Epic Fury campaign.

The blockade is the half of the campaign Washington can still execute. Two US carrier strike groups are operating east of the strait, and US Central Command, under commander Brad Cooper, has turned back 52 vessels since 13 April; on Friday CENTCOM struck and disabled two Iranian-flagged tankers near the strait. The Treasury sanctioned more than a dozen individuals and entities in Iran, China, Belarus and the United Arab Emirates over support for Iran's missile and UAV programmes, including three Chinese firms accused of supplying satellite imagery of US facilities to Tehran. CNN reported that US intelligence agencies believe Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is actively shaping wartime strategy and the negotiations with Washington despite remaining out of public view since strikes that killed several senior officials including his father; Iranian protocol chief Mazaher Hosseini said his condition had improved. The Trump-Netanyahu alliance is harder to disguise: Netanyahu insisted he has "full coordination" with Trump and speaks to him "almost daily" after weeks of reports that Israel was excluded from the US-led talks with Tehran, and Trump has publicly rebuked Israel during the campaign.

The war's regional shock waves multiplied around it. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan that recent US escalation and "multiple ceasefire violations" had reinforced Tehran's doubts about American seriousness. Hezbollah claimed 26 attacks on Friday, including two on targets inside Israel for the first time since its own ceasefire, and the United Arab Emirates reported another Iranian missile and drone attack. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met Iraqi KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani in Istanbul and reaffirmed Turkey's opposition to any wider spread of the war and any further attacks on Iraqi territory, including in Erbil. The United Kingdom is deploying the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon to the region to pre-position for a potential UK-French multinational mission to protect commercial shipping in the strait, described as strictly defensive.

Ukraine ran the day's other ceasefire. The US-brokered May 9-11 humanitarian pause took effect with a planned exchange of 1,000 prisoners on each side; President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a formal decree excluding Moscow's Red Square from Ukraine's military target list during Russia's Victory Day parade, and said: "Red Square is less important to us than the lives of Ukrainian POWs." The pause was punctured within hours. A Russian FPV drone struck a civilian car in the Polohy district of Zaporizhzhia, killing the 67-year-old driver on the spot and injuring two others; an overnight assault that began at 18:00 on May 8 with one Iskander-M from temporarily occupied Crimea and 43 drones killed a 70-year-old man and his 49-year-old son at an agricultural enterprise in the Chernihiv region. Russia scaled back its Victory Day celebration in Red Square out of fear of Ukrainian drone strikes. The historical pattern weighed: an analysis of more than 20 Ukraine-Russia ceasefires since 2014 found Russia had violated every one of them, often using the lulls to regroup. Marco Rubio said the United States stood ready to mediate Ukraine-Russia talks if a productive opening emerges, while Russian aide Yuri Ushakov tied further talks to Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbas, which Kyiv rejects.

The strategic frame for Europe came in the F.A.S. interviews with four retired generals — Air Marshal Greg Bagwell of the UK at RUSI, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, Major General Mick Ryan of Australia at CSIS, and Lieutenant General Jürgen-Joachim von Sandrart of Germany — who warned that Russia could attack NATO inside roughly five years, most likely a limited push into the Baltics designed to test Article 5. Bagwell put the window at "perhaps five years"; von Sandrart said the greatest danger runs "until" 2029, not from it. Hodges said under such an attack "Riga, Klaipeda, Gdansk and Bremerhaven could come under fire," and warned that Trump's signalled withdrawal of at least 5,000 US troops from Germany and the shelving of the Tomahawk battalion Joe Biden had pledged for this year was "damaging" deterrence. The Information Warfare Initiative has proposed standing up four battalions and 1,200 missiles by spring 2027 through accelerated European cooperation built on Taurus, with overall cost set at €15-19 billion by 2030. As Bagwell put it: "If you think it is expensive to prevent a war by deterrence, try fighting one."

The day's politics in the United Kingdom landed inside Labour. MP Catherine West warned she will start collecting Parliamentary Labour Party signatures on Monday morning to trigger a leadership contest against Keir Starmer if no cabinet challenger emerges, after Labour shed more than 1,400 English council seats and First Minister Eluned Morgan's Senedd seat. Reform UK swept Essex, took Calderdale, Wakefield, Leeds and Barnsley — ending more than 50 years of Labour rule there — and tied with Labour on 17 MSPs in Scotland; Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth is poised to become Wales's first Plaid Cymru first minister. In Paris, police arrested 59 ultraright and ultraleft activists across République, Pyramides, Saint-Michel and Montparnasse to enforce a court-upheld ban on the Comité du 9-Mai's annual march and an antifascist counter-rally; Place de la République hosted Europe Day instead.

The economic backdrop hardened. The FAO reported vegetable-oil prices up 5.9 percent to their highest level since July 2022 and meat prices to a fresh record, with rising transport and production costs feeding through against conflict-related supply pressure. In Germany, Health Minister Nina Warken said the statutory long-term care insurance system faces a financing gap of up to €22.5 billion by 2029. Turkish defence companies signed nearly $8 billion in export contracts in the first three days of the SAHA 2026 International Defense and Aerospace Exhibition — a sign of the second-order shift in arms procurement that the parallel Iran and Ukraine wars are accelerating.