Russia Confirms It Has Attacked Over 80 Vessels In The Black Sea In July Alone

 We've been detailing the escalating 'southern front' war in the Black and Caspian Seas, as Russia and Ukraine take aim at each other's maritime and energy and cargo transit and trade.

Ukraine's Black Sea ports, such as at Odessa, had by and large not been focus of large-scale Russian strikes in the opening years of the war, but it seems this is fast changing.

Also, the cargo going in and out of places like Odessa is increasingly coming under fire, as Ukraine's navy has been in turn targeting Russian vessels in the region, especially in the Sea of Azov.

On Saturday Russia's defense ministry issued some new figures which confirm the greatly expanded scope of its maritime war on Ukrainian shipping.

Russian forces have hit more than 80 vessels believed involved in supplying the Ukrainian military in the month of July alone, state TASS writes based on official defense ministry data.

The report goes on to detail: "Among them were two dry cargo ships, a sea ferry transporting military cargo and a screening boat hit in overnight group strikes on July 12, according to the ministry."

"On the same day, the ministry released footage that showed Geran-4 Seeker drones destroying a seiner converted to launch unmanned boats, a patrol boat, a ferry and a dry cargo ship," the report adds.

"According to the ministry, Russian forces struck 24 seagoing vessels used by the Ukrainian military for supplies during the week of July 11-17, including 14 dry cargo ships and one tanker," TASS continnues.

Moscow seeks to sever military supply routes and disrupt arms shipments bound for Ukraine, but this has also obviously resulted in damaged and sunken tankers, auxiliary vessels, and even deaths of civilian bystanders among international shipping crew.

Russia's military has said that early last week it especially targeted key logistics hubs of Odessa, Chernomorsk, and Port of Mykolaiv (Nikolayev) - with the latter site seeing a docked cargo vessel receiving a direct strike.

Ukraine's small but high-tech drone boats have gotten more advanced and difficult to defend against...

Footage shows the crude oil tanker BOURDA, IMO 9312846, being struck by a Ukrainian naval kamikaze drone while heading to Russia’s port of Taman. pic.twitter.com/t9TOHFfDSW

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 1, 2026

All of this comes after local authorities in Odessa had confirmed that a foreign-flagged cargo ship, which some reports have identified as the Guinea-Bissau-flagged Golden Leo, capsized and sank near the coast after taking heavy damage from a Russian attack in late July.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russian-confirms-it-has-attacked-over-80-vessels-black-sea-july-alone

'Axis Deepens: Saudis Say Iraqi Militias Attacked in Coordination With Houthis'

Saudi Arabia blames Iran-aligned Iraqi militias for coordinating cross-border attacks with Yemen's Houthis on its eastern oil facilities. The joint assault highlights deepening operational integration among militant networks utilizing Iraqi territory as a central strategic node.

Saudi Arabia is blaming Iran-backed Iraqi armed factions for coordinating a series of recent attacks on its eastern oil infrastructure alongside Yemen’s Houthi forces.

The cross-border strikes, launched from Iraqi territory, targeted the kingdom's primary crude oil hub.

Regional intelligence assessments indicate the joint operation was executed under the direct supervision of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In response, Riyadh and Washington carried out retaliatory airstrikes on Wednesday against militant sites in Iraq.

Subsequent obituaries published by Iran-aligned media confirmed the deaths of IRGC operatives, Iraqi fighters, and at least one Houthi member.

Deepening Axis Integration

The coordinated assault highlights a structural shift within Tehran's proxy network.

Following the collapse of the Assad government in Syria and the systematic degradation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraq is rapidly emerging as the primary operational hub for allied militant forces.

"There is now direct training and coordination between members of the Axis of Resistance themselves, not just between them and Iran," said Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at the Chatham House think tank's Middle East and North Africa program.

Operational ties between the Houthis and Iraqi factions, specifically the heavily armed Kataib Hezbollah, have accelerated significantly.

In 2024, Houthi leadership formalized a joint operations room in Baghdad, leading to their first shared military campaign targeting Israel later that year.

The Yemeni group now maintains a permanent physical footprint in the Iraqi capital, operating dedicated offices under its formal representative, Ahmed al-Sharafi, to liaise with local Shiite factions.

Border Vulnerabilities and Diplomatic Fallout

Iraq's expansive terrain and heavily porous 500-mile border with Saudi Arabia provide a strategic launchpad for covert regional strikes.

Security officials from Gulf states have previously traced hundreds of militant operations, including a March drone attack on the U.S. embassy in Riyadh and a strike on a UAE nuclear plant, back to Iraqi soil.

While the Houthis publicly claimed responsibility for the recent oil hub attacks to protest an alleged Saudi blockade on Yemen, Riyadh maintains it has imposed no such siege, citing the continuous arrival of maritime traffic at Houthi-controlled ports.

The immediate fallout from the U.S.-Saudi retaliatory bombings has severely fractured regional diplomacy.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting on Thursday in Riyadh with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Baghdad has announced an investigation into the cross-border strikes from its territory.

The incident directly challenges Zaidi's domestic agenda, which aims to consolidate state control over all armed factions by late September amidst intense resistance from militia leaders.

https://clashreport.com/world/articles/axis-deepens-saudis-say-iraqi-militias-attacked-in-coordination-with-houthis-6pezep3mk5q

Sources:

Reuters

'Chinese Military Extracts US AI Model Data to Upgrade Defense Networks'

Chinese military researchers are systematically extracting reasoning from leading U.S. artificial intelligence models to train domestic defense systems. By utilizing "model distillation," the PLA adapts American AI outputs for drone warfare, cyber operations, and surveillance.

Chinese military institutions are systematically utilizing outputs from leading American artificial intelligence models to train domestic defense networks.

Researchers linked to the People’s Liberation Army have extracted reasoning data from platforms developed by OpenAI and Anthropic to upgrade tactical systems.

This practice bypasses Washington’s technology export controls and reduces reliance on advanced semiconductor hardware.

A review of over 80 Chinese academic papers and patents reveals widespread reliance on a technique termed "model distillation."

The process involves capturing the outputs of massive frontier AI models to train smaller, specialized systems that operate locally.

Military Distillation Tactics

Documents compiled by the Jamestown Foundation and Reuters illustrate how the PLA leverages American AI platforms as technical blueprints.

By extracting data from U.S. models, Chinese military engineers eliminate the prohibitive computing power required to build foundational systems from scratch.

Sunny Cheung, a Jamestown fellow who reviewed the military literature, noted the strategic value of this approach.

"Teaching a model the right answer is one thing but teaching it the reasoning behind the answer is much harder," Cheung stated.

"These papers show Chinese military-linked researchers are trying to transfer that expensive, proprietary reasoning from Western models into smaller systems they can control and deploy locally," he added.

Cyber Warfare and Tactical Deployment

PLA Unit 96941, a Beijing-based cyber-warfare and intelligence division, applied OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 to process sensitive source code.

Military engineers used the American model to summarize classified software code. They subsequently trained a domestic model on those exact summaries to operate entirely within closed Chinese military networks.

The National University of Defense Technology detailed another application in a 2024 academic paper. Researchers shrank an image-processing model through distillation for deployment on unmanned aerial vehicles.

This lightweight model enables drones to analyze live video feeds for real-time navigation and targeting, even when communications links sever.

The Academy of Military Sciences similarly deployed distilled target-recognition models on tactical hardware during simulated maritime operations involving autonomous submarines and ships.

Intellectual Property Disputes

The unauthorized extraction of capabilities from American models has triggered significant bilateral friction ahead of U.S.-China talks on AI governance.

U.S. officials argue the practice infringes on intellectual property and nullifies existing technology export controls.

Beijing has firmly dismissed these accusations, framing Washington’s complaints as AI hegemonism while insisting American corporations execute identical extraction techniques.

Commercial AI developer Anthropic stated it blocks commercial access to its Claude platform in China and employs monitoring protocols to prevent misuse.

The company warned that distilled models often strip away the original system’s safety protocols.

Despite widespread utilization, industry executives highlight structural constraints within the extraction strategy.

Trevor Koverko, co-founder of AI data firm Sapien, observed that distilled networks inherit limited parameters.

"It is best understood as transferring selected capabilities into a cheaper, locally controlled system, not achieving independence from frontier AI," he stated.

https://clashreport.com/world/articles/chinese-military-extracts-us-ai-model-data-to-upgrade-defense-networks-flaf3kqpims

Sources:

Reuters