One of the leading American institutes devoted to research on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program sounded an alarm this week over the regime’s uninspected underground site in the Zagros Mountains. 

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have not been allowed to visit the secret site, known as Pickaxe Mountain.

The highly fortified facility is casting serious doubt on Iran’s willingness to abide by the terms of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached with the Trump administration. The United States, together with Israel, launched Operation Epic Fury Feb. 28, 2026, targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities.

Experts from the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) argue that halting work at Pickaxe Mountain and allowing IAEA inspectors access would be a key good-faith measure to test whether Iran is prepared to abandon its pattern of deception.

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Spencer Faragasso, a senior fellow with the group who covers Iran, North Korea, illicit trade, and nuclear issues, wrote on X: “Important update by us at @TheGoodISIS. The ongoing work at Pickaxe Mountain is deeply concerning. This work has continued steadily since at least 2020. In my view, this is a hedge by Iran in case negotiations fail — they will then have a nuclear facility in a late stage of construction. We assessed that Pickaxe is likely large enough to hold an enrichment plant.”

Iran has used facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan to enrich uranium, the key material for a nuclear weapons program.

Faragasso added, “If Iran is serious about negotiating, it should halt construction at Pickaxe Mountain as a token of good faith. But what can be expected from a regime as brutal and conniving as Iran’s?”

The institute posted a detailed analysis of new satellite imagery from late June 2026 showing continued activity at Pickaxe Mountain. 

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The institute wrote that “at Pickaxe Mountain, vehicle activity can be seen on the roads leading to the open set of Western tunnel portals, indicating that construction inside the tunnel complex, as well as hardening of the tunnel entrance, are ongoing. The MOU signed between the United States and Iran requires that Iran maintain the status quo, which should prohibit construction at any nuclear-related facility, including Pickaxe Mountain.”

In late June, the IAEA declined to answer a detailed Fox News Digital query on whether it would seek access to the Pickaxe Mountain facility. According to the satellite imagery obtained by the institute, “at Natanz, little activity can be seen. The access points to the below-ground enrichment halls have not been repaired. 

“The personnel entrances remain destroyed, and vehicle entrances remain severely damaged. A single vehicle can be seen on the road outside of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), which was destroyed in June 2025 but was later covered by Iran.”

The institute also reported, “As of June 29, 2026, there is no observed activity at Esfahan. The tunnel portals remain backfilled with dirt.” ISIS tracked developments at the Fordow site, buried inside a mountain north of the holy Islamic city of Qom.

“At Fordow, as earlier reported by the Institute, between May 10 and May 18, Iran added passive defensive measures in the form of earthen/rocky mounds and other objects on the roads leading to the tunnel entrances. The alternating placements of the piles/objects are very precise, which creates a series of chicanes, indicating they are not intended as obstructions but rather to prevent rapid ingress and egress by any vehicle toward the tunnels.”

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The institute added, “The June 21 Vantor image shows that the objects along the road remain there. The tunnel portals also remain backfilled with dirt” at Fordow.

Fox News Digital sent questions to the State Department and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations.

The funeral procession for late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has begun in Tehran as authorities prepare for crowds that could rival those that turned out for his predecessor nearly four decades ago.

After lying in state for two days at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla religious complex, the body of Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the United States-Israel war on Iran, began its journey on Monday through the capital, accompanied by large crowds of mourners, state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Authorities are hoping to avoid a repeat of the chaos that marred the 1989 funeral of Khamenei’s predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, which drew an estimated 10 million people, according to the state news agency IRNA.

Crowd surges during Khomeini’s funeral killed more than 10 people and injured over 10,000.

Thousands filled the Grand Mosalla on Sunday to pay their respects to Khamenei and his four family members who were killed with him on February 28 in air strikes on his office in Tehran.

Monday’s procession will be followed by similar events in the clerical hub of Qom on Tuesday and in Iraq’s holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday, culminating in Khamenei’s burial in his hometown of Mashhad in northeastern Iran on Thursday.

Celebrating his seizure of Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir V. Putin later called the peninsula an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” hailing Russia’s return there as a symbol of revanchist ambition.

Now the Ukrainian military is hammering Crimea with swarming drone attacks, seeking to transform it from a Russian-occupied fortress into a nightmare for the Kremlin to manage.

All of this has shaken life in Crimea to the greatest extent since Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. It has also caused some Russian forces along the southern front to shift into defensive operations, according to Kostiantyn Mashovets, a Ukrainian military analyst.

Overnight Wednesday into Thursday, Russia bombarded Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, killing at least 30, according to Ukrainian emergency services, in a deadly show of force after weeks of Ukrainian attacks.

Moscow has spent years fortifying Crimea, tripling its troop presence, deploying advanced air defenses and coastal batteries, and studding the land with missile launch systems. Fighter jets and bombers packed airfields, new vessels joined the Black Sea Fleet, and the $3.7 billion Kerch Strait Bridge gave Russia direct access to Crimea.

None of that could change geography.

Crimea juts out into the sea, leaving it initially vulnerable to Ukraine’s maritime drones. In the first years of the war, Ukraine targeted Russia’s naval headquarters in Sevastopol, drove its warships from Crimean ports and turned the peninsula’s waters into a hunting ground.

Its efforts to strike at Crimea, though, were limited by the weapons Ukraine had at the time. Now Ukrainian officials say their ever-evolving arsenal can inflict more pain, potentially enough, they hope, to bring Moscow back to the negotiating table.

“There’s no place to hide in Crimea,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a retired commanding general of U.S. Army Europe. “The Ukrainians have the ability to touch every single place where there’s an air defense weapon or a logistics hub or an airfield or headquarters.”

Swarming Russia’s Air Defenses

The current Ukrainian campaign on Crimea at the outset targeted Russia’s air defense network.

In June alone, Ukraine claimed to target 31 air defense systems and radars, the most frequent military targets for its drone strikes.

The biggest success of these strikes, according to Ukraine, was what it called the destruction of the $100 million Neva-B radar system, an asset capable of tracking targets up to 370 miles away. A drone video posted by the Ukrainian military showed the attack on June 25. The New York Times could not independently verify if it was damaged, but military analysts said it appears it is not operational.

The attacks have exposed significant vulnerabilities in Russia’s defenses, which were originally built for traditional missiles and aircraft, not fleets of drones.

Pounding Roads and Bridges

With air defenses weakened, Ukraine then went after supply lines.

After strikes on ships and the halt of ferry operations, Russia now depends solely on narrow land and bridge corridors. Ukrainian forces are trying to cut them off.

The attacks on bridges have created a cat-and-mouse dynamic, with Russia rushing to repair the damage and Ukraine striking again.

Ukraine damaged one such bridge, the Chonhar Bridge connecting Crimea to Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, on June 7. Russia quickly set up a temporary pontoon bridge; days later, Ukrainian drones struck the temporary bridge.

Over the past two weeks, Russia appears to have built a causeway, which could be harder for drones to take out, alongside the damaged bridge. Construction vehicles could be seen working on the causeway in images taken by Vantor, a satellite imaging company.

Along with bridges and railways, Ukrainian drones targeted cargo trucks, fuel tankers and trains throughout the month. The burning husks of large trucks transporting fuel and derailed train cars were filmed and photographed by civilians and Ukrainian military drones, highlighting supply chain disruptions.

Ukrainian military units posted numerous videos in June touting their strikes across Crimea. These clips, showing first-person views from drones striking military and logistical sites, have become a pillar of Ukraine’s wartime propaganda efforts to illustrate battlefield successes against Russia. The Times collected these videos, verified their locations and cross-referenced the strike locations with satellite imagery. The Times could not verify the full extent of the damage to Ukraine’s claimed targets.

Kateryna Stepanenko, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said Russian forces were increasingly trying to counteract Ukrainian drone strikes by patrolling critical southern routes with drones and interceptor units.

“But they need more mobile air defense to blunt the impact of Ukrainian strikes,” she said.

Ukrainian commanders expect Russian troops to adapt, but said they would shift their tactics in turn.

“Adaptation can take days, weeks or months, but we consistently find new ways to strike in any direction, at any depth, with whatever assets we have,” said Artem Bielienkov, the chief of staff of Ukraine’s 412th Unmanned Systems Brigade.

Knocking Out the Grid

Strikes on fuel facilities and the energy grid have caused widespread blackouts in Crimea, leading the local authorities to declare a state of emergency. Gas stations have run out of fuel, and thousands of people have fled the peninsula since Ukraine’s latest strikes began.

Throughout June, The Times verified Ukrainian strikes on oil and gas storage facilities, compression stations and power plants.

One of the Ukrainian attacks targeted an oil terminal at a port in the city of Kerch, creating smoke that could be seen miles away.

On the same day, Ukraine hit an oil storage facility at the port of Kavkaz on the other side of the Kerch strait, striking a blow to Russia’s ability to transport oil between Crimea and Russia.

Another Ukrainian drone video from June 19 shows a strike on a gas storage facility near Dozorne.

Though the attacks have pushed some Russian forces into a defensive posture, Mr. Mashovets, the military analyst, cautioned that it could take weeks or months to degrade Russia’s combat capabilities to the point where they might be forced to pull back from positions in southern Ukraine.

“To achieve the final objective, this blockade must be intensified,” he said. “This situation must be maintained for a sufficiently long period of time.”

Nevertheless, Crimea’s faltering grid “exposed the peninsula’s systemic vulnerability,” said Hennadii Riabtsev, a Ukrainian energy analyst. “The occupiers’ attempts to fix the damage to key facilities — like the Tavria and Balaklava thermal power plants, major substations and fuel terminals — are running into complex technical and logistical problems,” he said.

The Ukrainian attacks have had a compounding effect, Mr. Riabtsev said, threatening to turn the peninsula into “a giant logistical mousetrap.”