WarFronts Weekly 7.24.2026: Friday Blitz.

24.07.2026

Author’s Note:

WarFronts Weekly will take a brief hiatus on Friday, 31 July, while our team enjoys a bit of summertime R&R. We’ll be back for the following installment, on Tuesday, 4 August, with an extra-length newsletter to catch up on what we missed.

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US-Saudi Nuclear Deal Raises Proliferation Concerns:

This week, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a civilian nuclear energy deal that will allow Saudi Arabia to begin its own nuclear powerprogram, including a uranium enrichment facility on Saudi soil. But the deal immediately raised concerns across the Middle East and the wider world, that the prospect of a nuclear Riyadh could lead to a long-feared nuclear arms race across the region.

Today, only one Middle Eastern country possesses nuclear weapons: Israel, which does not formally acknowledge its stockpile. Due to the region’s complex power dynamics and rivalries, however, experts have warned for decades that if new nations begin to pursue nuclearization, their adversaries will feel pressure to follow suit—and will feel as if they have gained tacit permission from the international community to do so.

The list of at-risk nations includes Saudi Arabia, as well as its neighbor and emerging rival, the United Arab Emirates. A Middle East where Saudi Arabia were to go nuclear, and likely force Israel to acknowledge its own stockpiles, is a Middle East where Turkey would almost certainly pursue a bomb. Iran, meanwhile, still possesses uranium that has been enriched to levels nearing weapons-grade.

Despite the international consternation, however, the US-Saudi dealfalls well short of an agreement that would prompt serious proliferation concerns. The deal creates a path for Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium by itself, but not without a two-year study that will leave a final decision to the next US administration. The deal establishes that the US will oversee enriched uranium and spent fuel. While Saudi Arabia has pledged that it would pursue a nuclear weapon if Iran were to acquire one, Riyadh’s technical capabilities and expertise are sorely lacking in this area.

The deal does include the worrying stipulation that Saudi Arabia would not be subject to monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nor does it include the so-called “gold standard” of US nuclear dealmaking: an agreement not to enrich at home or process spent fuel, which the United Arab Emirates agreed in their own deal with Washington.

Based on the latest news from Washington, however, the Saudi deal may already be dead in the water. After the deal was announced, US President Donald Trump appeared to add a new condition, stating that Saudi Arabia’s participation was contingent on its entry into the Abraham Accords with Israel. Saudi Arabia remains highly unlikely to accept such a stipulation, even with nuclear energy finally within reach.

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Around the World:

The United States and Iran continued to trade fire for a thirteenth consecutive night on Thursday, with the United States launching strikes against targets near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran carried out long-range attacks against what it indicated were US military targets in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait. In the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, local sources reported several explosions in close proximity to a US military base. Further west, Yemen’s Houthi rebels carried out two attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, where other ships have started to change course in hopes of avoiding the waters closest to Houthi territory.

Ukrainian long-range drones have continued their new campaign against the Russian online retailer Wildberries, with five logistical warehouses struck across the past week. Ukraine alleges that Wildberries has shipped and distributed military components, making it a legitimate military target, although in practice, the strikes’ primary effect has been to help bring the costs of war home to Russian citizens. Ukraine has targeted Wildberries facilities just outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, in areas where lower-income city-dwellers form the main Wildberries consumer base, and are most likely to face conscription by Russia in what experts expect to be an upcoming mass mobilization. Meanwhile on the front line, Russia appeared to attempt a rare mechanized assault in Donetsk Oblast, in which over a dozen tanks and armored vehicles were quickly destroyed.

The United Nations human rights office raised concerns over reports of the torture and summary execution of surrendering Malian soldiers by al-Qaeda-linked JNIM forces and Tuareg separatists. The incidents took place immediately following the JNIM/Tuareg ambush of a convoy last weekend, in which over fifty pro-government fighters were killed, and over two dozen others captured.

Armed bandits killed at least twenty-four farmers in a motorcycle-swarming ambush against a remote village, in northwest Nigeria’s Zamfara State. According to locals, the bandits were able to travel nearly fifty kilometers on open, public roads without being interdicted by Nigerian security forces; an unknown number of livestock were stolen.

Militants in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province killed a district judge and his security guard in a Thursday ambush, as the judge traveled from the regional capital city of Quetta toward an outlying district where he would hear cases. While no group claimed credit for the attack, the separatist Baloch Liberation Army or its affiliates are likely responsible.

An advanced Russian Su-57 fighter aircraft appears to have crashed during a training flight outside Moscow, leading to speculation that the aircraft may have been brought down through foul play. According to a group of Russian milbloggers addressing the incident, Ukraine may have successfully manipulated Russian air defenses to shoot down the aircraft.

Authorities in southern Thailand are working to track down the perpetrators of a Wednesday attack against a security checkpoint in the nation’s south, after roughly ten attackers killed five soldiers and injured civilians. The attack is the latest confirmation that a low-grade Muslim-separatist insurgency is gaining momentum, after a series of recent small-scale attacks.

Also in Thailand, the military announced on Wednesday that it has completed the first stretch of a permanent razor-wire border fence along the border with Cambodia, in the wake of the two nations’ military engagements in 2025. The fence segment stretches for roughly 1.3 kilometers, and is purportedly resistant to small-arms fire; Thailand will build similar stretches in key border areas.

The United States is considering the prospect of security operations in Mali, in support of the nation’s embattled military regime. According to officials who spoke anonymously to the Washington Post, the White House is considering the use of airstrikes against the JNIM insurgency, similar to operations in Nigeria, Somalia, and elsewhere.

India’s Gen-Z-led “Cockroach” protests continued to pick up momentum this week, when thousands of protesters staged a sit-in in New Delhi despite legal measures that were meant to restrict public assembly. Protesters clashed with law enforcement on two occasions across the week, as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged the protests publicly for the first time—albeit by announcing reforms that the movement regards as being grossly insufficient.

Protesters in Albania clashed directly with law enforcement on Thursday, after police responded to egg- and bottle-throwing outside the nation’s parliament by deploying tear gas and water cannons. The ongoing protests have realized limited success thus far, and raised political pressure on a Jared Kushner-linked resort development, but Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama remains in strong support of the project.

Ukrainian former Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov indicated on Thursday that he will not accept any government position except reinstatement as Defense Minister, after Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued to offer alternative posts. Fedorov identified three posts with the true power to “shape the course of the war”: Defense Minister, President, and Commander-in-Chief, the latter of which now belongs to a Fedorov ally.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called upon his political movement to fight back against the leadership of the newly elected Tisza Party and its leader, Prime Minister Peter Magyar. Orban’s overture followed a raid against offices that housed servers supporting Orban’s political party; this is the clearest indicator yet, that Orban intends to continue his pursuit of power in Hungary despite Tisza’s expected mass reforms.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya, age ninety-three, has been abroad in Europe for over forty-five days without explanation, for what his government has described as “a brief private stay”. Despite frequent trips abroad during his four-decade presidency, Biya has never spent so long away from his home nation. Discussion of Biya’s health has been illegal in Cameroon since 2024.

After months of speculation, Canada formally joined the sixth-generation Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) as an observer nation. GCAP, a joint effort between Britain, Japan, and Italy, has been the target of frequent international overtures across the last year; Germany and Spain are reportedly interested in taking part, after the collapse of the joint FCAS program with France, while Saudi Arabia is also eager to take part.