Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine will expand efforts to recruit foreign volunteers and introduce new incentives for military service.
"I am grateful to all volunteers from other countries who are fighting for our freedom in Ukraine," Zelensky shared on Telegram, adding that he had instructed officials "to open significantly more opportunities to attract foreign volunteers to the Ukrainian army" and that "there will be more recruitment mechanisms" for that purpose.
The president also announced new financial incentives for service members, saying the Cabinet of Ministers will "approve a specific mechanism" and that the first additional payments should begin this month. Zelensky added that Ukraine will further simplify transfers for soldiers, create "more opportunities to grow in the army" and provide "more positive incentives to join the defense." He said he expects the measures introduced this summer to prove effective, with the Defense Ministry set to present further details.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Ukraine-to-boost-foreign-army-recruitment/66495828
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Friday that defense and security are his "number one priority," following the resignation of Defense Secretary John Healey after disagreements on spending. He said that different government departments have reallocated funds to contribute to the defense budget, but he ruled out cuts to public services.
Starmer also insisted that he will fight for his position if the Labour Party withdraws its support and stages a leadership election. "I'm not going to walk away from that because I think it's very important that we carry on ensuring that we do the right thing," he told the BBC.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Starmer:-Defense-security-are-my-number-one-priority/66496088
The draft US-Iran memorandum of understanding keeps the Strait of Hormuz firmly under regional control, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported in an exclusive on Friday.
Iran will not make any commitments regarding "handing over the management" of the Strait of Hormuz, and the future of the strait will be "resolved within the framework of a regional issue and through joint dialogue and decision-making between Tehran and Oman."
The deal underscores that its main goal is to end the war on all fronts: Washington pledges to "force Israel to end the war in Lebanon," with no "ceasefire extension" language used. The rest of the agreement is mostly in line with previous reports. The nuclear file is untouched for now, with talks to begin within 60 days of signing, and frozen assets will be released partly upon signing, with the rest gradually.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/US-said-to-play-no-role-in-Hormuz-under-proposed-deal/66495423
By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com
Three months into the biggest oil supply disruption in modern history, China appears to have discovered something that should make oil bulls at least a little uncomfortable.
It can get by on less fuel than anyone thought.
China's gasoline and diesel demand has been falling for years as electric vehicles gained market share and economic growth slowed. But the latest drop has surprised even seasoned observers.
According to Reuters, gasoline sales at Sinopec, China's largest refiner and fuel retailer, fell 8% year over year in April, while diesel sales dropped 6%. Goldman Sachs estimates that consumption of gasoline and related products may have fallen by as much as 20%.
China has slashed crude imports since the Iran war began, with May imports plunging 29% to 7.8 million barrels per day—the lowest level in eight years. Until recently, many analysts viewed those cuts primarily as a function of China's enormous oil stockpile and high crude prices.
Now another explanation is emerging: China may simply need less fuel.
Rail travel rose roughly 10% in March and April. Subway ridership continues to climb. Electric taxis are becoming increasingly common. Most notably, EV charging volumes surged 69% from a year earlier to a record high in April, according to the China Charging Alliance.
That shift comes as China's refiners are already grappling with weaker economics. Sinopec cut refining runs earlier this year as Middle Eastern supply disruptions squeezed crude availability, while Beijing has sharply reduced fuel exports to preserve domestic supplies.
The property downturn isn't helping either. Diesel demand from construction, long one of China's most reliable sources of consumption growth, continues to weaken as projects stall and budgets tighten.
The question now is whether the trend sticks.
China's refiners can only draw on inventories for so long. The country still maintains one of the world's largest crude stockpiles, but even a billion barrels eventually run out. At some point, imports will need to recover.
What remains unclear is whether gasoline demand will recover with them.
For decades, China's economic growth was one of the oil market's most dependable bullish arguments. Today’s reports may have some rethinking the strength of that argument.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-learning-use-less-oil-and-thats-bigger-deal-it-sounds
India is ramping up its economic defenses as the war in Iran drives up energy costs, prompting authorities to ration diesel, weigh spending cuts and hunt for overseas capital.
On Friday, the government announced rare restrictions on diesel sales, capping purchases at 200 liters a day per customer. Separately, Bloomberg News reported that authorities are preparing for the budget deficit to possibly overshoot this year’s target by as much as 50 basis points.
by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,
Oil traders are increasingly betting on lower prices, with short positions in Brent crude tripling since late March despite the loss of roughly 13 million bpd of supply from the Middle East.
Physical market fundamentals are tightening rapidly, as global inventories have fallen by about 250 million barrels and key storage hubs like Cushing are approaching critically low levels.
Analysts warn the market may be underestimating supply risks, with even a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz unlikely to provide immediate relief.
In yet another sign that the paper oil market may be too complacent about the magnitude of the supply disruption in the Middle East, trades have been boosting their short positions in oil futures for most of the past two months.
Since the beginning of April, portfolio managers have been increasingly betting that oil prices would fall, according to the latest available commitment of traders (COT) data from exchanges as of June 2.
Shorts on Brent Crude tripled between the end of March and the beginning of June, per the data compiled by energy analyst John Kemp.
As of June 2, the short positions in Brent Crude had jumped to their highest level since January, when the U.S. captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and the market expected increased supply from Venezuela in the coming months.
The surge in short positions and the weeks-long selloff of longs in the past eight weeks suggest traders are betting that supply will be restored soon.
The paper market plays on hopes, expectations, sentiments, and fears, and the sum of all these right now appears to be that the hedge fund and portfolio manager community is reluctant to bet on a summer of actual physical supply shortages.
But the paper market may soon face the reality of crumbling global inventories, including in the United States, where stocks at Cushing, the delivery point for WTI Crude, are just a few weeks away from dropping to minimum operational levels.
Too much noise about the ceasefire, which is being tested almost daily with one strike or a retaliatory hit after another, doesn’t help the paper market that may have become too detached from the magnitude of the supply loss.
Traders react to every signal of ‘imminent deal’ with selloffs, only to start buying oil futures again when Israeli strikes in Lebanon, U.S. ‘self-defense’ strikes on Iran, or Iranian hits at regional infrastructure threaten to unravel the fragile ceasefire.
All the while, paper market participants continue to hope for an imminent resolution and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz that would flood the market with oil. And that’s been their hope for three and a half months now.
The thing is, even a full reopening of the Strait would not lead to immediate relief for buyers. First, ship owners and operators will need to have guarantees that they wouldn’t be caught off-guard with stranded tankers again. Then, the oil cargoes will need weeks to reach buyers—weeks that the market may not have amid peak summer demand season.
The world has lost about 13 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil supply, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its market report for May.
“Mounting supply losses from the Strait of Hormuz are depleting global oil inventories at a record pace,” the IEA said, adding that observed global inventories, including oil on water, were drawn down by 250 million barrels over March and April, or by 4 million bpd.
Sooner rather than later, oil on water volumes and onshore inventories will be depleted, leaving demand destruction the only buffer to cap oil price spikes.
Moreover, the extreme price volatility and the noise about a deal coming any day now are sidelining part of the trader community.
“Participants continue to sit on the sidelines, given the market's fluidity, uncertainty, and headline-driven nature,” ING’s commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a note on Wednesday.
“This is reflected in the aggregate open interest in ICE Brent, which has continued to trend lower and stands at its lowest level since August 2025.”
Many traders have been shorting oil since April in the hope that the ceasefire and the negotiations would yield a peace deal before the world runs out of buffers to offset most of the supply disruption.
“The buffers and the shock absorbers are being steadily drawn down, and the ability for the market to absorb this imbalance is drastically diminished today versus where we started and over the next few weeks,” Chevron’s CEO Mike Wirth said at the Bernstein 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference at the end of May.
“We're likely to see those pressures flow through more directly to physical prices, and there's more upward pressure that I would expect as we get into June and certainly into July.”
According to the Wednesday note of ING’s strategists, “With no imminent deal in sight and with the global oil market tightening significantly every day, we see upside to prices, particularly if these disruptions linger into the third quarter, a period of seasonally stronger oil demand.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/traders-are-shorting-oil-if-hormuz-crisis-over
