🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 US strike targets strategic China-Turkmenistan-Iran rail corridor

According to Iranian reports, the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge in Aqqala County, Golestan Province, was targeted overnight.

The bridge forms part of a key rail corridor linking China, Turkmenistan, and Iran, a route that has become increasingly important since Russia began transporting goods through it last November and freight traffic from China reportedly tripled amid the maritime blockade.

The type of weapon used and the origin of the attack remain unclear.

🔗 The Cradle

🇵🇱 Official Polish government data shows 21,510 work permits were issued to African nationals in 2025.

Zimbabwe accounted for nearly half of all permits with 10,057, followed by Nigeria (1,726), Kenya (1,498), Morocco (1,029), and Ghana (988).

84% of permits went to men, while 77% were issued to people aged 25–44.

🔗 Europa

🇺🇸⚡️ — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invited senior officials from more than 60 countries to a meeting next week focused on what the Trump administration describes as a resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism, with particular attention on Antifa, WaPo reports.

➡️ The initiative has sparked concern among U.S. officials, European allies, and terrorism experts, many of whom argue that Antifa is a decentralized movement rather than a foreign terrorist organization and does not constitute a major international threat.

➡️ White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka has discussed whether foreign terrorist designations could be used to target individuals with links to Antifa, a move that officials say could unlock additional investigative tools such as surveillance. Some administration officials have warned that creating such a precedent could later be used by future administrations against conservative activists.

🇺🇦📰🇷🇺 Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, Valery Zaluzhny, warns against buying into the narrative Ukraine is winning because of massive media coverage of disparate strikes on Russian refineries and logistics vehicles

In an article published in the The Telegraph, Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian ambassador to Great Britain, warns against thinking that Ukraine hitting trucks on Russian highways will cause Russia's military position to weaken and sue for peace, Zaluzhny calling it "a dangerous misreading of the war" adding that "it reflects a tendency to interpret events through the lens of individual battlefield successes rather than the wider strategic picture".

He continued:

"Modern warfare no longer rewards tactical victories in the way it once did. Advances in drone technology, precision strike capabilities and surveillance have transformed the battlefield, making decisive breakthroughs extraordinarily difficult for either side.

This is no longer a war of swift manoeuvres. It is a war of attrition.

Every tactical gain now comes at an extraordinary cost. Positions can be taken, but holding them, reinforcing them and evacuating the wounded has become increasingly difficult under constant drone surveillance. Success on the battlefield is measured in metres rather than miles, and often at a price that bears little relation to its strategic value.

The same is true beyond the front line. Ukraine’s increasingly effective strikes against Russian logistics and critical infrastructure have imposed real costs on Moscow. But these attacks are expensive, technologically demanding and ultimately reciprocal. Russia retains the ability to strike back with equal or greater force. Neither side can rely on this form of warfare to produce a decisive strategic outcome".

The ambassador adds that Russia's success rests now on exhausting Ukraine's capacity to defend draining its manpower, its resources, causing shortages of goods and other resources and psychologically trying to break the morale of the Ukrainian people.

Searching for a solution to end the war, Zaluzhny points towards NATO as the only thing capable of defeating Russia through the combined militaries and economies of all its member states. Zaluzhny deplores NATO's "defensive culture" which he calls "stuck in the Cold War" and wants it to become more pro-active than it already is.

🔗 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/08/ukraine-ambassador-do-not-assume-russia-has-lost-war/