A negotiated exit from the Iran war is suddenly in view. President Trump canceled a planned round of strikes and announced a settlement he expects signed within days, possibly this weekend; Tehran says no final decision has been made, even as officials signal approval is likely, and Netanyahu pointedly noted Israel is not a party to the emerging memorandum. The guns have not fully quieted, as US forces shot down two Iranian one-way attack drones over the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian forces fired on a transiting vessel and the IRGC warned a tanker into honoring its declared closure; Iran's veterans foundation put its death toll at 3,499 since February 28. USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush hold station in the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf resupply pipeline remains SENTINEL's heaviest airlift flag, ten Europe-to-MENA movements led by five C-17As, backed by a 15-tanker Atlantic refueling surge.
Markets bought the off-ramp: WTI crude slid 3.9 percent to $84.26 and Brent 3.7 percent to $87.07 as the Hormuz risk premium drained, while equities ripped higher worldwide, the Nikkei up 2.8 percent, the Nasdaq 2.5, the Dow 1.9 and the S&P 500 1.8. Gold and silver still climbed 2.7 and 4.8 percent as safe-haven demand held.
Ukraine marked Russia Day with one of its deepest strike packages of the war. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed 231 drones intercepted across 15 regions, while Kyiv's General Staff confirmed hits on the TANECO and TAIF-NK refineries in Nizhnekamsk, more than 1,100 kilometers inside Russia, damaging two primary distillation units and a tank farm at TANECO, Russia's third-largest refinery at 16 million tons a year, plus the Togliattikauchuk petrochemical plant in Samara. Nizhnekamsk canceled its holiday events after a drone hit an apartment block. In Crimea, Ukrainian forces said they destroyed part of a roughly 50-truck fuel and ammunition convoy near Armyansk, while Russian drones struck a Zaporizhzhia shopping center.
In Lebanon, Israel's 36th Division, having bridged the Litani undetected and taken the Beaufort Castle ridge, now sits on the outskirts of Arnoun a few kilometers from Nabatieh, with an offensive on the city reportedly ready to launch. Elsewhere on SENTINEL's board: no compound alerts, single-pass thermal anomalies at the Tracy combined-cycle power plant in California (320 MW) and the Piana Mwanga hydroelectric station in DR Congo (181 MW), and a seven-movement Europe-to-North-America airlift flow logged the same day ANI reported US plans to cut NATO air power in Europe.