Morning Brief, Sunday 6 September

The United States struck three Iranian tankers across the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman after US Central Command said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at an American aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer. The American vessels avoided the missiles and reported no casualties. Washington said the tankers belonged to a clandestine fleet that helps Tehran evade restrictions and fund the Revolutionary Guards and allied groups. Iranian media confirmed a strike near Kharg Island and said it caused no casualties, while Tehran condemned the destruction of commercial vessels as unlawful and warned that retaliation could widen.

Centcom said one tanker was disabled off Kharg Island, a hub for roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports, a second near Jask, and a third destroyed in the Gulf of Oman after its crew was told to leave. Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya command said further American blockade operations and vessel interdictions would draw harder attacks on US naval assets. The exchange follows months of direct confrontation that began with a combined American and Israeli campaign against Iran in February, then resumed around the Strait of Hormuz at the end of August.

The military point is simple and dangerous: Washington has shifted from protecting sea lanes to taxing Iran's oil lifeline with explosives, while Tehran still holds enough missiles, mines and proxies to make every tanker insurer in the region reach for a calculator.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Vladimir Putin in Moscow for more than three hours, then prepared to travel to Kyiv for their first direct talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Donald Trump returned to office. The Kremlin said the Americans brought new ideas for a peace framework. Russian officials also restated familiar demands, including recognition of battlefield realities and action on what Moscow calls the conflict's underlying causes. Putin thanked Trump for persisting, but his adviser Yuri Ushakov said Russia still expected to achieve its military aims.

Moscow and Kyiv paired the visit with a 72-hour pause in strikes on each other's capitals, starting at midnight on Saturday and running through Monday. The pledge did not stop violence elsewhere. Zelenskyy said Russian strikes damaged facilities at Kyiv and Boryspil airports before the pause, while Ukrainian and Russian-backed officials reported casualties in other regions. Ukraine said it would secure airspace for the envoys, an unusual step in a country whose skies have remained closed to civilian aviation since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

The choreography gives Washington a diplomatic photograph, not yet a settlement. A pause over two capitals can lower the temperature for a weekend, but the war will still be measured in territory, security guarantees and the price Ukraine is asked to pay for quiet skies.

Alternative for Germany closed its campaign in Saxony-Anhalt with federal leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla standing beside Ulrich Siegmund in Magdeburg. The party wants to turn a polling lead into its first state government, and Siegmund said it could govern even with a one-seat majority. A ZDF poll put AfD at 41% and the Christian Democratic Union at 23%, while a Tagesschau survey placed AfD at 42% and the CDU at the same 23%. About 1.7m voters are eligible to cast ballots in a state of 2.1m people.

The party's programme promises a state deportation drive, separate classrooms for refugee children, curbs on Islamic practices, daily flag ceremonies in schools and bans on rainbow flags in public buildings. Germany's domestic intelligence service classifies the Saxony-Anhalt AfD chapter as a confirmed right-wing extremist entity. Civic groups have tightened security during the campaign, and a democracy festival in Magdeburg drew 8,000 people on Saturday, more than the 5,500 police counted at AfD's family gathering the previous day.

The vote matters beyond Magdeburg because German states control schools, policing and culture, and they vote in the Bundesrat. If AfD crosses from opposition theatre into executive office, Germany will discover whether its firewall is a wall, a curtain or just a habit.

Rhysida published 1.44m stolen files from Berlin's state administration after the city refused to pay 30 Bitcoin, worth about €2m. The attackers entered state networks in early August, reached the Senate departments for urban development and transport, and released 5.8 terabytes of material on the darknet after talks failed. Berlin first suggested there was no proof of sensitive exposure. Officials later acknowledged a much larger loss as investigators and federal cyber agencies began reviewing the archive.

The leaked material reaches well beyond embarrassing inboxes. Inspectors found salary lists, bank details, identity scans, disciplinary files, staff assessments and hundreds of urban-development plans. The dump also includes documents on heating plants, fuel depots, transformer substations, emergency power sites, waterworks and prisons, plus more than 550 files linked to the Federal Chancellery expansion. The Federal Office for Information Security warned that criminals could use the material for phishing, social engineering and hack-and-leak operations before Berlin's state election on September 20.

Kai Wegner's refusal may be morally tidy, but the operational bill now falls on public employees, contractors and security planners whose details sit in criminal hands. The lesson is a hard one for governments: refusing ransom protects the principle, not the data already gone.

A Greek Air Force F-4 Phantom II crashed during an aerial display at Tanagra air base, killing both crew members. The jet, from the 338th Squadron of the 117th Combat Wing, had been airborne for only a few minutes when it lost altitude after a low right turn and struck open fields near Profitis Ilias. The fuselage broke in two, debris scattered across a photovoltaic park, and two foreign workers suffered minor shrapnel injuries. Thousands of spectators escaped injury, and organisers cancelled the remaining Athens Flying Week displays.

The impact started a brush and forest fire that advanced toward Dilesi, prompting authorities to send an emergency alert and close nearby roads. Firefighters deployed 115 personnel, 36 engines, nine aircraft and four helicopters before aerial operations improved containment later in the day. Investigators will examine radar data, debris and video that showed the aircraft descending after banking right. Former pilots said display routines leave little time to recover from engine failure, aerodynamic problems or other mechanical breakdowns.

The crash will press Greece's air force to account for ageing hardware, display risks and the split-second choices pilots make above civilian crowds. Air shows sell precision; this one ended by showing how thin the margin is when precision fails.

Isar Aerospace launched its 28-metre Spectrum rocket from Andøya Spaceport in Arctic Norway and confirmed it reached orbit nine minutes later. The flight carried five small university satellites and one technology experiment, making it the first successful orbital launch by a privately developed vehicle from continental Europe. Telemetry showed the rocket crossing the Karman line roughly four minutes after liftoff and reaching about 500 kilometres after seven minutes. The success followed a failed March 2025 test, when Spectrum crashed into the sea 30 seconds after launch.

Europe has spent years worrying about dependence on foreign launch providers, especially SpaceX, while its own heavy Ariane missions fly from French Guiana rather than the continent. The gap remains wide: US launch providers completed 198 orbital missions in 2025, compared with eight across all European programmes. Isar, founded near Munich in 2018, employs more than 400 people, has raised over €500m in private funding and recently secured €200m from the European Space Agency for testing and ground infrastructure.

The company has orders running through 2028 and says it wants eventually to build up to 40 Spectrum rockets a year. For Europe, one launch does not make autonomy, but it does prove that the continent's small-launch ambitions have finally left the pad.