World
Estonia's prime minister calls on US and NATO allies to be tougher on Russia
As continued U.S. support for Ukraine remains in question, European leaders have been ramping up their own defense spending and industry capacity. Leading the charge is Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas who, at 46, is Estonia’s first female prime minister. Kallas is known for being tough on Russia. Some critics joke she even eats them for breakfast. Russia’s interior minister issued a warrant for her arrest earlier this year, for taking down Soviet monuments, but Kallas has not backed down.
Asked to respond to critics that say she is too tough on Putin, Kallas said, “Can you be tough enough on Putin, considering what he has done?” Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kallas has become one of Putin’s loudest critics.
Kallas has been considered to become the next NATO Secretary General, but some of her opponents say she is too hawkish to lead NATO. To that, Kallas said she does not think Putin should have a say in how NATO runs its alliance.
UKRAINE’S ‘UNDERGROUND RAILROAD’ RESCUES ABDUCTED UKRAINIAN CHILDREN FROM RUSSIAN REEDUCATION CAMPS
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (L) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (R) give a press conference after their meeting in Zhytomyr on April 24, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)
“Russia is the biggest threat to NATO security … if we say that, because of our attitudes towards Russia, we are prevented from taking top positions, then we actually give too much power to Putin to decide how we run our alliances,” Kallas said.
Estonia is on the front line of NATO, sharing a 210-mile border with Russia. Estonia spends 3.2% of its annual GDP on defense and 1.35% of that is for Ukraine to fight the Russians, the equivalent to $378 billion a year.
After the Soviet Union fell in 1991 Estonia became independent, eventually joining NATO in 2004. In 2007 Russia launched massive cyberattacks unlike anything the world had seen. The cyber campaign lasted 22 days targeting Estonia’s parliament, banks and news organizations. Estonia is now the headquarters to NATO’s cyber defense.
Kallas said the attacks in 2007 are nothing like the attacks that Estonia now prevents every day. “We have invested a lot in cybersecurity so these attacks don’t really go through,” Kallas said. But the cybersecurity of hospitals remains a huge concern. “There could be civilian casualties. So we have to prepare,” Kallas said.
Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, May 15, 2023. For months, Western allies have shipped billions of dollars worth of weapons systems and ammunition to Ukraine with an urgency to get the supplies to Kyiv in time for an anticipated spring counteroffensive. Now summer is just weeks away. While Russia and Ukraine are focused on an intense battle for Bakhmut, the Ukrainian spring offensive has yet to begin. (AP Photo/Libkos)
These cyberattacks are part of what Kallas calls a shadow war. “While there is a conventional war going on in Ukraine, there’s also a shadow war going on within our societies … What they are really good at is pouring fuel into the fires that are already existing in our societies. So we have to be aware,” Kallas said.
It is not only direct conflict with Russia that Kallas is worried about. She wants to prevent more of a shadow war. It is because of this that Kallas warned against negotiating with Russia to end the war in Ukraine as former President Trump has suggested he will do if elected.
RUSSIA TO CREATE ‘BUFFER ZONE’ IN UKRAINE TO DETER UKRAINIAN ATTACKS
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a concert marking his victory in a presidential election and the 10-year anniversary of Crimea’s annexation by Russia on Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Monday, March 18, 2024. President Vladimir Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine a decade ago, a move that sent his popularity soaring but was widely denounced as illegal.
“Of course, war is bad and peace is good. But there’s also a difference between peace and peace,” Kallas said.
Under Joseph Stalin, in 1949 her mother was just six months old. She and her family were sent to a Soviet prison camp in Siberia. These labor camps across Russia were known as the Gulag. They were there for ten years before being released.
“Just because a war is over does not mean there is peace, Kallas said.
“Peace on Russia’s terms doesn’t mean human suffering will stop. For my country, one fifth of our population was either deported or killed. Our language, our culture was suppressed. All these things happened while we had peace. So, peace under Russian terms does not mean that the human suffering will stop.”
Russian Army soldiers stand in a military vehicle rolling during a dress rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 7, 2022. The parade will take place at Moscow’s Red Square on May 9 to celebrate 77 years of the victory in WWII. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Kallas warned if Putin wins in Ukraine it will inspire other conflicts around the world. “History rhymes and we have to learn from history,” Kallas said, referencing the 1930s and the lead up to WWII.
“If aggression pays off somewhere, it serves as an invitation to use it elsewhere. We know the tensions in the South China Sea, Iran, North Korea. So we’re going to have more conflicts around the world because the aggressors or would-be aggressors in the world are carefully taking notes.”
Asked about skeptics who say Ukraine can’t win the war, Kallas said it is Russia’s goal to make the West believe Ukraine can’t win. “No war has been won when you don’t have a victory as a goal,” Kallas said, referencing this is not the time to negotiate.
Kallas called on the U.S. to continue backing Ukraine and for Congress to pass more funding. “If U.S. is not backing Ukraine, then Russia will win. And then Russia’s friends China, Iran, North Korea are the ones who are actually the leaders of the world. And we don’t want that world.”
Warning comes as 400 million barrels of oil are being released from global reserves during waterway’s closure.
Published On 11 Mar 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it will not allow “a litre of oil” through the Strait of Hormuz as the closure of the key Gulf waterway continues to roil global energy markets during the US-Israeli war on Iran.
A spokesperson for the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters said on Wednesday that any vessel linked to the United States and Israel or their allies “will be considered a legitimate target”.
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“You will not be able to artificially lower the price of oil. Expect oil at $200 per barrel,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The price of oil depends on regional security, and you are the main source of insecurity in the region.”
Global oil prices have fluctuated wildly this week during continued US-Israeli attacks against Iran, which has retaliated by firing missiles and drones at targets across the wider Middle East.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies transit, and production slowdowns in some Gulf countries have raised concerns of further disruptions.
Concerns around the duration of the war, which began on February 28 and has shown no sign of abating, are also adding to uncertainty, sending oil prices soaring.
On Wednesday, three ships were hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security and risk firms said, including a Thai-flagged cargo vessel that came under attack about 11 nautical miles (18km) north of Oman.
Release of oil reserves
World leaders, including members of the Group of Seven (G7) and the European Union, have been mulling what action to take in response to the war’s impact on global economies.
Christian Bueger, a professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen and an expert in maritime security, said Europe will be facing “a major energy supply crisis” if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.
“For the shipping industry right now, it’s impossible to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” Bueger told Al Jazeera. “And if there are not stronger signals in the near future that they can at least try to go through the strait, then we are looking at a major shipping crisis, which can last weeks if not months.”
On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that its 32 member countries had unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves to try to lower prices.
“This is a major action aiming to alleviate the immediate impacts of the disruption in markets,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said during an address from the agency’s headquarters in Paris.
“But to be clear, the most important thing for a return to stable flows of oil and gas is the resumption of transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.
The reserve supplies will be made available “over a timeframe that is appropriate” for each member state, the IEA said in a statement without providing details.
German Economy and Energy Minister Katherina Reiche said earlier in the day that the country would comply with the release while Austria also said it would make part of its emergency oil reserve available and extend its national strategic gas reserve.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it would release about 80 million barrels from its private and national oil reserves.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the country, which gets about 70 percent of its oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, would begin releasing the reserves on Monday.
U.S. installations damaged in strikes
Iran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli assault on the country by launching drones and missiles at American targets across the Middle East, hitting embassies, killing U.S. soldiers, and damaging military bases and air defense infrastructure.
The New York Times has identified at least 17 damaged U.S. sites and other installations, several of which have been struck more than once since the war began. Our analysis is based on high-resolution, commercial satellite imagery, verified social media videos and statements by U.S. officials and Iranian state media.
The intensity of the retaliatory strikes has signaled that Iran was more prepared for the war than many in the Trump administration had anticipated, U.S. military officials say.
For this article, we are presenting satellite images to show the scale of the damage from Iran’s attacks on U.S. sites and installations. Many of these images have been circulating publicly on news sites and social media. But in cases where they have not been, we present the imagery we obtained from satellite image companies and show only a zoomed-out view of each location to limit the amount of detail viewable in those images.
Military sites
Iran has fired thousands of missiles and drones at both U.S. and allied country military sites across the region. The United States and its allies have intercepted most of them, U.S. officials say, but at least 11 American military bases or installations have been damaged — nearly half of all such sites in the region.
On Feb. 28, the first day of conflict, Iran targeted several U.S. military facilities, including Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring Base in Kuwait; and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. base in the Middle East.
Satellite images show extensive damage to buildings and communication infrastructure at several locations.
A video taken on March 1 shows an Iranian drone exploding near sports facilities at Camp Buehring in Kuwait. No casualties were reported.
It is difficult to estimate the full cost of damage inflicted by Iran’s retaliatory strikes. A Pentagon assessment provided to Congress last week put the cost of the single strike on the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain on Feb. 28 at about $200 million, according to a congressional official.
On March 1, an Iranian drone struck a structure housing military personnel at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait, killing six American service members.
Satellite imagery shows the roof of that building partially collapsed.
An additional U.S. service member was killed in a separate Iranian strike on March 1 at a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, bringing the toll to seven, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
The pace of Iranian attacks has slowed since the war’s opening days, but the strikes have continued. Al Udeid Air Base, Ali Al Salem Air Base, Al Dhafra Air Base, Camp Buehring and the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters have all been struck more than once.
Missiles launched from Iran have flown as far away as Turkey. On March 4, NATO intercepted an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, according to a senior U.S. military official. The base hosts a large U.S. Air Force contingent. Iran’s military denied firing the missile.
A second Iranian missile entered Turkish airspace and was shot down by NATO, according to a Turkish defense ministry statement on Monday.
Air defense and communication infrastructure
Among the costliest American losses to infrastructure have been to the air defense systems that protect U.S. and allied interests across the Middle East.
Iran has systematically targeted radar and communications systems, including components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, which uses a radar to track and intercept incoming aerial threats throughout the region.
At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, an important hub for the U.S. Air Force in Jordan, satellite imagery from February shows radar equipment at the base’s southern edge. An image taken two days after the war began shows severe damage to what appears to be an air defense sensor.
Military budget and contract documents indicate a single radar unit of this type can cost up to half a billion dollars.
A video from Feb. 28 shows an Iranian drone striking the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, damaging what appears to be a communications radome, a weatherproof cover that protects radar and communication equipment.
Gulf nations have also bought air defense equipment from American companies and deployed them near critical infrastructure, including oil refineries. Those foreign radar systems share information with the U.S. military, forming what defense analysts describe as a de facto, expanded U.S. military sensor network.
Iran has targeted such sites where air defense equipment was recently observed, like the Al Ruwais facility in the United Arab Emirates. Satellite imagery of the site from last year shows a THAAD unit near storage structures.
A satellite image taken after Iranian attacks shows significant damage to the storage structures. The Times was unable to verify whether the mobile THAAD unit was inside the storage structures at the time of the strikes.
Near Umm Dahal in Qatar, a long range AN/FPS-132 radar — built at a cost of $1.1 billion to provide early warning coverage across a 3,000 mile radius — apparently sustained damage to its main radar structure, as seen in satellite imagery.
The full extent of damage to U.S. air defense and communication infrastructure remains unclear. Michael Eisenstadt, a director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the affected radars would be difficult to repair or replace.
But Seth G. Jones, a president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the damage would most likely not significantly degrade U.S. military capabilities in this war. “The U.S. has such redundancy in collecting intelligence and other information from sensor networks, whether it’s land-based radars, aircrafts or space-based systems,” he said.
Diplomatic sites
Iran has also struck nonmilitary U.S. targets such as the consulate in Dubai, and embassies in Kuwait City, Kuwait, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, forcing temporary closures. There have been no reported injuries in any of these attacks.
On Saturday night, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was targeted in a rocket attack. No casualties were reported. It was not immediately clear who was behind it and how much damage was caused. It is not included in The Times’s tally of damaged sites.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, said on March 7 that Iranian ballistic missile attacks had dropped 90 percent since the first day of the conflict and drone attacks by 83 percent. Despite the declining pace, Iran has continued to strike American targets across the region.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” accusing the Taliban of “unjustly” detaining Americans and other foreign nationals.
In his announcement on Monday, Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.”
“I am designating Afghanistan as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” Rubio said in a statement. “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions. These despicable tactics need to end.”
The secretary also called on the terror group to free a pair of Americans who are “unjustly detained” in Afghanistan.
IRAN REGIME CITED AS TRUMP ADMIN SET TO DESIGNATE SUDAN’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD A TERROR GROUP
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention.” (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“It is not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals,” he said. “The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever.”
Coyle, 64, was detained more than a year ago without charges by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to his family, noting that he still has not been charged. His family said he was legally working to support Afghan language communities as an academic researcher.
Habibi, a 38-year-old American citizen who was born in Afghanistan, was taken along with his driver from their vehicle in the capital of Kabul in August 2022 by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to the State Department.
The FBI said Habibi was previously Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation and worked for the Kabul-based telecommunications company Asia Consultancy Group. The FBI said the Taliban detained 29 other employees of the company but has released most of them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.” (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Habibi has not been heard from since his arrest, and the Taliban has not disclosed his whereabouts or condition, according to the State Department and FBI. The Taliban has previously denied it detained Habibi.
The U.S. is also calling for the return of the remains of Paul Overby, an author who was last seen close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan in 2014, according to Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the situation.
The State Department could restrict the use of U.S. passports for travel to Afghanistan if the Taliban does not meet the U.S. government’s demands, the sources told the outlet.
A passport restriction of this kind is currently only in place for North Korea.
The Taliban called the decision by Rubio to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable, adding that it wanted to resolve the matter through dialogue.
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The Taliban called the decision to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable. (Reuters/Ali Khara)
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The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021 during the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country that ended the 20-year war in the region.
Rubio gave the “state sponsor of wrongful detention” designation to Iran late last month, just one day before the U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country. He warned that the U.S. could restrict travel to Iran over its detention of U.S. citizens, but there have not been any restrictions yet.
“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said at the time.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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