🇺🇸🌾🇧🇾 US lifts sanctions on Belarus potash chief as Minsk seeks help with EU

The US has lifted personal sanctions on Andrei Rybakov, general director of state potash giant Belaruskali, as Minsk looks to Washington to help soften European sanctions on Belarus, the Kyiv Independent reported.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed Rybakov from its Specially Designated Nationals list on October 21, according to a notice on the department's website. He had been under US sanctions since 2021. Potassium fertiliser is Belarus' main export, and Belaruskali its main producer.

The delisting is the latest step in a slow-moving trade of sanctions relief for political prisoners. It comes a month after President Donald Trump's special envoy John Coale visited Minsk and secured the release of 25 political prisoners in exchange for lifting sanctions on two Belarusian companies, a smaller result than expected. Talks have so far freed about 500 prisoners in return for relief on the national airline, the banking sector and potash, but the pace has slowed this year as Minsk's demands have widened to include Europe.

"Given the decisions the US has already taken regarding Belarus, such as removing certain sanctions, the United States can influence European Union states to improve our relations with European states," Valentin Rybakov, Belarus' permanent representative to the UN and one of Minsk's lead negotiators with Washington, told state media after reporting to Alexander Lukashenko on the talks.

The first shipment of Belarusian potash has already arrived at the port of New Orleans and the next is under way, the UN envoy said. "In the near future, obviously, the next shipment will be directed to the US market."

The US issued a general licence in December 2025 authorising virtually all previously prohibited dealings with Belaruskali, and delisted the three entities that produce potash in March. EU and national sanctions in Europe still close the shortest and cheapest export route, through the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda. After visiting Minsk, Coale travelled to Vilnius and Riga to discuss potash transit, he told the New York Times, but Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budris has insisted that no EU member can be party to such a deal while EU sanctions stay in place.

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/us-lifts-sanctions-on-belarus-potash-chief-as-minsk-seeks-help-with-eu-478832/?source=eu-today

🇮🇷🇸🇦🇹🇷🇵🇰 Iran wants a seat inside the Mecca pact

Alliances usually form against an enemy that has attacked a country, or that's how they used to work. However, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on August 7 by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, took shape amid the fallout of a war in which Iran is the principal target. What makes the meetings even more bizarre is that Iran appears to be on the cusp of joining the grouping.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said on October 17 that Iran is willing to join the alliance, drawing a mix of guffaws and confusion. On October 26, Saudi, Pakistani, and Turkish officials met Iran's security chief, according to Iranian officials, putting to rest the idea of a flurry of Persian confusion. No terms have been announced, and no agreement exists. The idea still deserves attention, because every party has reasons to want it and reasons to fear it.

The text of the pact makes the arithmetic awkward, since it treats an attack on one member as an attack on all, which would bind Turkey, a NATO member, and nuclear-armed Pakistan to regard an American or Israeli strike on Tehran as an attack on themselves. Neither capital is likely to sign that, so the more plausible outcome is a lesser instrument, such as an associate status or a non-aggression undertaking, that gives Tehran a place at the table without a guarantee.

Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations in 2023 in a deal brokered by China, an arrangement that the war has tested ever since, and the Saudi-Pakistan accord of September 2025 had widened into the Mecca pact within a year, as IntelliNews reported. A third widening, to include the war's target that shaped the first two, would be the quickest turn in the region's recent diplomacy.

Riyadh has the clearest reason to talk, with its crude exports running about 74% below the pre-war baseline in August, a commodities newsletter, and the Strait of Hormuz open to fewer than 10 vessels a day. The 746-mile East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea was meant to be the answer, until the Houthis entered the war in mid-July and claimed a strike on an Aramco facility there on September 16.

Air defence has not stopped the Houthis, a Yemeni movement aligned with Iran, but a Saudi-Iranian understanding that covered the Red Sea might, and it would be worth more to Riyadh than another battery of interceptors.

Tehran has an equally clear interest, having been at war with the US and Israel since February with few friends who control oil terminals, and a seat beside Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad would make it harder for Washington to treat the kingdom as a platform at a cost to Iran of nothing more than an offer.

Pakistan and Turkey carry the greatest risk because both border Iran and both would pay first if talks collapsed into a quarrel inside the pact. Any new member would presumably need the consent of all three founders, giving each a veto and Ankara and Islamabad a reason to prefer the slow track.

The three governments that drew up the pact hold different views of Iran, with Turkey buying its gas and Saudi Arabia coming under fire from its allies in Yemen. A unanimous decision is possible, but the text would have to be very short.

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/tehran-blog-iran-wants-a-seat-inside-the-mecca-pact-478852/?source=blogs

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 Missile War Monitor: Ukrainian drones damaged an industrial facility in Russia's Perm region and injured five workers.

Governor Dmitry Makhonin said 11 drones were downed and that the facility in the north of the region suffered "minor" damage but kept operating normally, without naming it, the Kyiv Independent reported. The Exilenova+ monitoring channel said the target was the Avisma plant in Berezniki, part of VSMPO-AVISMA, one of the world's largest titanium sponge producers and under US sanctions since 2023. Berezniki is more than 1,400 km from the border.

Russia strikes an 330 kV electrical substation in Kamenets-Podolsk, Proskurov (Khmelnitsky) Oblast and the Zalyutino 330kV substation on the edge of Kharkov. War monitor account, AMK Mapping, claimed Russian drones hit a dam on the Dniester river in the Chernovtsi Oblast.

On October 25th, the Russian MoD claimed to have struck a vessel heading for Ukraine's Chernomorsk port near Odessa with more strikes on Odessa's port infrastructure as part of Russia's campaign to cripple Ukrainian trade.

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/missile-war-monitor-drones-injure-five-at-russian-plant-in-perm-that-channels-name-as-titanium-maker-avisma-478791/

🛢 IEA chief Fatih Birol says there is no credible pathway back to pre-conflict conditions. Oil is flirting with $120/bbl, while diesel and gasoil tightness could persist into mid-2027.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ieas-birol-does-not-expect-energy-markets-return-pre-war-levels-2027-2026-10-26/

🗳 🇺🇸 🐸 Groyper spotted behind JD Vance was just escorted out of the rally for wearing an America First hat

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