Ukraine carried its deep-strike campaign onto Russia's Sea of Azov coast overnight, with long-range strike drones gutting Taganrog air base: two Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft destroyed, one of them the rare Tu-142MR strategic radio-relay variant, alongside an Iskander launcher, while drone impacts set a moored oil tanker, a bulk fuel reservoir and a port administrative building ablaze. The political aftershock of this week's Russian drone strike in Galati hardened further, as Bucharest declared the Russian consul general in Constanta persona non grata and ordered the mission closed, and Foreign Minister Oana Toiu said the incident falls into the category that could justify NATO Article 4 consultations. Japan, for the first time, is posting four Self-Defense Forces officers to NATO's Ukraine assistance and training command (NSATU) in Germany, a quiet but notable widening of the coalition standing behind Kyiv.
In the Gulf, President Trump called a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz "largely negotiated" and demanded the waterway open immediately, toll-free and cleared of mines; Tehran rejected the framing, with Fars dismissing the claim as incomplete and inconsistent with reality and insisting the strait stays under Iranian control. USS Abraham Lincoln and George H.W. Bush remain on station in the Arabian Sea as that standoff drags. On the Levant track, Israeli and Lebanese military delegations held Pentagon talks under Under Secretary Elbridge Colby, even as Israeli aircraft struck Baysarieh and Touline in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah fired rockets at Kiryat Shmona; UN investigators reported 26 Palestinians killed in Gaza over the Eid holiday.
Sudan's war ground on, with a doctors' group accusing RSF-linked fighters of killing 27 civilians as the paramilitaries, having seized the West Kordofan hub of En Nuhud, mass for an assault on army-held El Obeid. SENTINEL's board held steady, with Nimitz in the Caribbean and George Washington in the Philippine Sea, transatlantic airlift running 14 Europe-to-North-America movements (11 C-17As) against a 12-aircraft MENA-to-Europe leg, and an eight-hull Atlantic tanker line. The Nikkei 225 added another 2.5 percent to 66,330, extending its record run.