🌾 🇺🇦 🇷🇺 Wheat prices are surging.

US wheat futures jumped +6.4% on Wednesday and +1.3% on Thursday, to $7.58 per bushel, the highest level since July 2023.

Wheat prices have risen +19% so far this month, and are up +50% since the start of 2026.

This comes amid growing concerns about further disruptions to grain-export ports and terminals along Ukraine's and Russia's Black Sea coast.

Russia and Ukraine together account for more than 25% of global wheat exports, while also supplying significant amounts of global barley, corn, and sunflower oil exports.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's agricultural exports in the 2026-27 season are now expected to be 29.6 million tons, or -54% lower than the previous estimate of 64.4 million tons, according to its agriculture ministry.

Another wave of food inflation may be on its way.

📎 KobeissiLetter

📝 🇺🇦 🇷🇺 AMK Mapping on X: While everyone still focuses on the current limited Ukrainian drone strikes, today marks Day 50 of Russia’s large-scale missile and drone strike campaign against Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast.

Hundreds of missiles and thousands of drones have been used in these unprecedented attacks, hitting all 6 working Ukrainian ports, dozens of commercial vessels, energy infrastructure powering these ports, countless warehouses and other storage facilities, Ukrainian naval assets, and much more. Every single day for the last 50 days has witnessed attacks on port infrastructure to some extent.

This has crippled Ukrainian maritime export capabilities, with most shipping companies no longer willing to take the risk to sail to Odesa Oblast. Meanwhile, Russia’s western ports are largely functional again, as Ukraine’s “40 day operation” has long petered out.

It’s truly incredible how little coverage this Russian strike campaign has gotten, considering the massive scale of these attacks. And they show no signs of stopping yet.

📎 AMK Mapping

🇩🇪 🇷🇺 🇪🇺 Germany plans to blame Russia for Leipzig attack as tensions with Putin escalate

Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to level new sanctions at Russian entities, in parallel with punishing new EU measures.

The German government's plan is set to involve direct measures against Russian entities, while the EU moves forward with punishing new sanctions that are being prepared in parallel in Brussels, three officials familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, told POLITICO and WELT AM SONNTAG.

The announcement is scheduled for early next week, coinciding with an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Ireland on Tuesday — but could also be made earlier depending on Merz, said two of the officials.

One of the officials familiar with the matter said that in response to the Leipzig drone incident, it was no longer enough to expel individual Russian diplomats or close the Russian House in Berlin. Tougher measures were needed, such as intensified sanctions or even more extensive arms deliveries to Ukraine. The three officials declined to provide further details on which precise measures Merz plans to announce.

The foiled attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport has already been strongly linked to Russia by media investigations. According to a report by German media outlets, the drone, which had been rigged with explosives, was intended to strike a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane, which is also used to transport military equipment. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence assessments directly linked Russia to the drone.

https://www.politico.eu/article/friedrich-merz-berlin-sanctions-russia-vladimir-putin-leipzig-attach-ascalate/

🇬🇧🇨🇦⚡- Restore Britain Spokesman Charlie Downes was detained by the Canadian Border Service Agency for three hours yesterday while en route to a political conference.

While being interrogated, Downes was asked questions about Restore Britain, such as where their funding comes from, official policy concerning deportations, and whether he had ever joined a militia group and advocated for the overthrow of any governments.

✈️ 🇨🇳 🏗 China is rapidly expanding the Lop Nur flight test complex in Xinjiang, a highly restricted facility used for testing advanced and experimental military aircraft.

Lop Nur has previously been associated with testing China's J-36 and J-XDS sixth generation fighter designs. The latest construction is particularly notable because the new southern hangars are substantially wider than typical tactical-aircraft shelters.

The War Zone assesses that the facilities could eventually support larger aircraft, including China's H-20 stealth bomber, which has yet to publicly appear. However, the article emphasizes that there is currently no evidence the H-20 is headed to Lop Nur, making that an assessment rather than a confirmed development.

The broader takeaway is that Lop Nur is evolving from a relatively austere test airfield into a major, high capacity test center for China's next generation aerospace programs, with the pace of construction accelerating significantly in 2025–26.

https://www.twz.com/news-features/chinas-area-51-is-undergoing-a-massive-expansion

📎 OSINTdefender

☢️ 🇺🇸 🇨🇳 Coming Soon: Nuclear-powered cargo ships

The US Department of Transportation is working to fast-track construction of a new fleet of vessels to change the game and dominate China

That means:
📦 More cargo (no internal fuel tanks)
🚢 Faster ships (up to 75% faster crossings)
🌐 Zero Emissions (20 years of continuous power without refueling)

The first Nuclear-powered vessel is set to be built in 2028

📎 Secretary Sean Duffy

📝 🚢 ☢️ A large merchant ship, capable of carrying thousands of containers, could be powered by two (or more) 30-megawatt reactors. This artist’s conception, which is not based on any specific design for a cargo ship, is intended to show the approximate scale of such a vessel. The reactors would be small, modular units. Researchers are considering three different types: a lead-cooled fast reactor, a uranium-fueled, helium-gas-cooled reactor, and a molten-salt-cooled reactor, shown here [above, at bottom]. The reactor would produce steam to spin turbines that would generate electricity to power motors.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-powered-cargo-ship

🇸🇾 Syria: Hijri wants so badly to sever all ties with Damascus that his armed wing, the National Guard, blocked the main road & prevented students from Suwayda from reaching their exam centers.

A special exam session was organized in the N. countryside, just on the other side of the front, with transportation provided by Damascus.

Yet only a few of the ~13,000 students made it, some sneaking on foot through farmland & mined areas.

The situation has reached such a point of no return that Hijri is effectively holding the Druze population under his control hostage - and condemning the future of Suwayda students.

📎 Qalaat Al Mudiq

Massive numbers converged on Melbourne today to demonstrate against unprecedented “hate crime” laws.

The High Court challenge to stop the government banning political groups and parties begins on the 8th of September.

Political prisoner Joel Davis, who spent 133 days in solitary confinement over an alleged Telegram post earlier this year, speaks at a free speech rally in Melbourne.

"They will not stop until nationalism is illegal"

Video from @CrypticWireMedia livestream.

Follow: @NoticerNews