The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is a “misadventure” whose goals and exit strategy remain unclear, Russia’s ambassador to the U.K. told CNBC.

Andrey Kelin said Russia has “a lot of sympathy” with Tehran and said “the best end” to the escalating Middle East war is for it to “show only that they are senseless.”

“We still are trying to understand, what are the goals of President Trump in this campaign. You know that lots of doubts have been expressed about the exit strategy that the American administration can have in this endeavour,” Kelin told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick in an interview recorded on Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, earlier this week, offering his “unwavering support” to Tehran and saying the country “has been and will remain the Islamic Republic’s reliable partner.”

The war has been raging for two weeks, with heavy strikes reported across Iran’s capital city and shipping traffic through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz severely disrupted.

The White House has said the objectives of Operation Epic Fury have been to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capacity and its navy, sever its support for proxies in other countries and ensure Iran can never acquire a nuclear weapon.

The White House said on Thursday these objectives “have remained unchanged unambiguous, and consistent” since the operation began on Feb. 28.

“We have a lot of sympathy with Iran. We have a lot of sympathy as well with the Persian Gulf states, there is no doubt at all. As for the beginning, I cannot understand the position of when everybody is blaming Iran,” Kelin said.

“[The] crisis has started with the, as I have said, with Israel and U.S. aggression against Iran and it was in the middle of talks, of course,” he continued, referring to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program held in the Swiss city of Geneva last month.

“My president discussed this issue with the president of the United States, and we can make a good contribution by the way to finish it, to wrap it up.”

CNBC has contacted a spokesperson at the White House and Israel’s Foreign Ministry and is awaiting a response.

Alongside China, which has received millions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz even as war chokes the waterway, Russia stands as one of Iran’s most influential diplomatic partners.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healy told reporters on Thursday that Putin’s “hidden hand” appears to be behind Iran’s military playbook as well as potentially some of Tehran’s military capabilities.

Iran has reportedly fired off more than 2,000 Shahed drones across the Middle East since the war began. These drones, which were first designed in Iran, have been used extensively during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week that the Kremlin’s own assessments estimate that more than 1.3 million Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded on the battlefield since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. CNBC could not independently verify this report.

A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies published in January said Russian battlefield casualties are significantly greater than Ukrainian fatalities, with Ukrainian forces likely suffering somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties.

Kelin said he was sure that both Moscow and Kyiv would eventually agree to a diplomatic resolution to the war.

“I cannot say when it is going to happen, but a diplomatic solution is badly needed,” Kelin said.

Kelin said The U.S. was “playing a constructive role in this diplomatic effort,” but added: “Since Ukraine is not prepared at the moment and since Europe still prefer to back up Ukraine as much as possible, to supply it with weapons, with money … making no efforts to solicit or to help this diplomatic solution, this will last for some time.”

U.S-brokered talks on the Ukraine war have been put on hold due to the Iran conflict, with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff telling CNBC on Tuesday that the discussions would now likely take place next week. Ukraine’s Zelenskyy had urged the U.S. not to remove sanctions on Russia ahead of those talks, although the White House has since moved to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian crude at sea.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, recently said there appears to be “no end in sight” to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, she said it is clear Russia’s army was “bogged down” and its economy is in steep decline.

“Russia’s maximalist demands cannot be met with a minimalist response,” Kallas said. “It’s just common sense, if Ukraine’s military is to be limited in size, Russia’s should be too.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he’s not worried about Iran executing a terror attack within the United States in retaliation for the ongoing war by the U.S. and Israel.

“No, I don’t,” Trump told a reporter outside the White House when asked if he feared such a domestic attack.

Trump also touted progress in the war against Iran, which is in its 11th day, before departing for a trip to Kentucky and Ohio.

“Right now, they’ve lost their Navy, their Air Force. They have no anti-aircraft apparatus at all,” the president said. “Their leaders are gone, and we could do a lot worse.”

Trump said the U.S. military is “leaving certain things” in Iran, which could be destroyed by the afternoon, if need be, and “they literally would never be able to build that country back.”

He said the U.S. military had destroyed about 16 of Iran’s mine-layers.

Asked if Iran had mined the Strait of Hormuz, which is the world’s most sensitive choke point for oil shipments, Trump said, “We don’t think so.”

In a report Tuesday that cited two people familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting, CNN said that Iran began laying mines in the strait, albeit just a few dozen in recent days.

Trump, referring to the CEOs of major oil companies, said, “I think they should” send tankers through the narrow strait, which has remained effectively closed because of the war.

A spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Monday that tankers passing through the strait “must be very careful.”

The Strait of Hormuz, which lies off the southern coast of Iran, connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.

The insurance giant Chubb said Wednesday that it will serve as lead underwriter for a U.S.-government-led program to provide insurance to ships passing through the strait.

Trump on Wednesday brushed off a question about a report by The New York Times, which said that “newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed.”

Trump said, “I don’t know about that” finding, which backs up other analyses that the U.S. military was responsible for that Feb. 28 attack on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school.

The president again criticized the leadership of Spain for not helping the U.S. war effort.

“We may cut off trade with Spain,” said Trump, who has a penchant for using tariffs and other retaliatory trade practices as leverage against other countries.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has incurred Trump’s wrath for barring the U.S. military from using two bases in Andalusia to launch strikes on Iran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in an X post on Wednesday, wrote that in conversations with “the presidents of the governments of Russia and Pakistan, while announcing the Islamic Republic’s commitment to peace and tranquility in the region, I emphasized that the only way to end the war that began with the warmongering of the Zionist regime and America is the acceptance of Iran’s indisputable rights, payment of reparations, and a firm international obligation to prevent their aggression from recurring.”

Senate Democrats on Tuesday rebutted President Donald Trump’s claims that the war in Iran may soon be over, warning that the U.S. risks getting dragged into another prolonged conflict in the Middle East.

The concerns from Democrats who attended a bipartisan classified briefing with military brass on Tuesday stand in stark contrast with the president, who on Monday suggested the U.S. may be nearing the completion of its operation. Trump’s statements sent slumping markets soaring and cratered oil prices that had skyrocketed in recent days.

The senators were briefed as the Trump administration continues to whipsaw between explanations, goals and timelines for the war that has seen eight U.S. service members killed in action and left the longtime leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dead.

“What I heard is not just concerning, it is disturbing,” Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose members were briefed. “I’m not sure what the endgame is or what their plans are. … And if he does want to put us in a forever war, which it seems like he does, he needs to come out and let us be able to have that discussion.

“Do you think because he thinks he waves some magic wand that everything just stops? … It’s not going to stop just because he wishes it to be so,” Rosen said.

The pessimism from Democrats on an eventual U.S. end for the war it started with Israel against Iran comes as Congress awaits a potential supplemental funding request to finance the offensive. The effort has burned through billions of dollars of U.S. munitions, which will have to be refilled. Some Democrats said they would resist any request for further funding. Democrats have also balked at Trump failing to seek congressional authorization to begin the war.

“At this point, I am a hard no on a supplemental,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “No more money. The one thing Congress has the power to do is to stop actions like this through the power of the purse.”

“This is not a war supported by this country, and this is not a war that makes us safer,” Warren said.

Lawmakers exiting the meeting said the size of the potential supplemental package was not given. Republicans, who hold a 53-47 vote majority in the Senate, appeared willing to support more funding for the war when they left the briefing.

“Not in total dollar amounts that I’ve heard,” said Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind. “Obviously, there’s a cost to it, but the trade-off is exponentially more, and this has been a very effective operation so far.”

“We need to do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission and do it as fast as we can,” Banks said.

The Washington Post on Monday reported that the military burned through $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of the war that began Feb. 28. Washington-based bipartisan think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the war is costing roughly $891 million per day.

Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., a former Navy Seal, suggested the cost is worth it.

“Iran’s been at war with us for 47 years; we’re trying to end this war,” Sheehy said, referencing the years since the Iranian regime came to power. “We’ve had two presidential administrations give billions of dollars to Iran, that’s what really cost [money].”

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have painted a different picture of the timeline of the war than Democrats say they fear. Hegseth, at a press briefing earlier Tuesday pledged the U.S. will not enter another prolonged conflict in the Middle East, and Trump on Monday said the war would end “very soon.”

War costs are expected to only grow as the war drags on, and Democrats are warning there is no end in sight. The war dragging on could also see markets whip back and oil costs continue to soar, especially as the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil remains largely impassible.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said there was “no discussion” about the safety of passing through the Strait during the briefing while he was in attendance.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a retired Navy captain, also said the U.S. doesn’t appear to be nearing the end of the war after leaving the meeting.

“Clearly, they do not have a strategic goal,” he said. “They didn’t have a plan, they have no timeline. Because of that, they have no exit strategy.”

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., is a former Navy SEAL. A previous version misidentified the branch of the military in which he served.

The conflict in the Middle East is rapidly expanding across the region as the U.S. and Israel-led war with Iran enters its sixth day.

Images published Thursday showed destruction across Tehran after nearly a week of strikes on Iran’s capital.

Iran has retaliated by launching a wave of missiles and drones at Israel, as well as targeting U.S. allies in the region.

Explosions have been reported in Qatar and Bahrain, while oil-rich Azerbaijan said it was attacked by two Iranian drones and Tehran claimed naval fighters had struck a U.S. tanker in the north of the Persian Gulf.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the Iran war could last for four to five weeks but warned the campaign could also “go far longer than that.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to label Anthropic a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security” on Friday resulted in more questions than answers.

“It’s all very puzzling,” Herbert Lin, a senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, told CNBC in an interview.

Anthropic is the only American company ever to be publicly named a supply chain risk, as the designation has traditionally been used against foreign adversaries. But the company hasn’t received any official declaration beyond social media posts.

A formal designation will require defense vendors and contractors to certify that they don’t use Anthropic’s models in their work with the Pentagon.

The dispute centered around how Anthropic’s artificial intelligence models could be used by the military. The Department of Defense wanted Anthropic to grant the agency unfettered access to its Claude models across all lawful purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be tapped for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.

With no agreement reached by Friday’s deadline, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to “immediately cease” all use of Anthropic’s technology, and said there would be a six-month phaseout period for agencies like the DOD.

Experts told CNBC the supply chain risk designation is highly unusual, especially since the U.S. and Israel began carrying out strikes in Iran just hours later. A group of retired defense officials, policy leaders and executives wrote to Congress on Thursday, defending Anthropic and calling the Trump administration’s designation a “dangerous precedent.”

Anthropic’s models are still being used to support U.S. military operations in Iran, even after the company was blacklisted, as CNBC previously reported.

Talks between Anthropic and the DOD are now reportedly back on, according to the Financial Times, but there are still big questions hanging over the issue as of Thursday.

Why is the U.S. government still using Claude?

Stanford’s Lin doesn’t understand why the DOD is still using Anthropic’s models in sensitive settings if they pose such a threat. If the Trump administration really sees Anthropic as a risk to national security, he said, it wouldn’t make sense to phase out the models over an extended period of time.

“OK, wait a minute, they’re a really dangerous player for U.S. national security, so you’re going to use them for another six months? Huh?” Lin said. 

Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow for technology and innovation at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it’s “especially notable” that Anthropic’s models were used to support the U.S. military action in Iran. He said “there’s no clearer signal” of how much the Pentagon values the technology.

“Even in a situation where there is this intense feud between the company and the Pentagon, they are using their technology in the most important military operation that the United States is conducting,” he said. 

Transitioning away from Anthropic toward a new vendor takes time and comes at a significant cost in terms of efficiency, said Jacquelyn Schneider, a Hargrove Hoover fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Until recently, Anthropic was the only AI company approved to deploy its models across the agency’s classified networks. OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI received clearance, but their systems can’t be deployed or adopted overnight.

What’s the actual threat?

By designating Anthropic a supply chain risk, the DOD is suggesting that the company is “really bad” for U.S. national security, Lin said. But he stressed that the agency hasn’t clearly outlined what kind of threat the company poses. 

“They don’t point to any technical failing, they don’t point to any hack,” Lin said. “They say things like ‘They’re arrogant,’ and ‘We don’t want you telling the DoD what to do in some hypothetical situation that hasn’t happened yet.'”

Lin said the other punishment that Hegseth was threatening to impose on Anthropic, invoking the Defense Production Act, also contradicts the idea that the company threatens national security. 

The Defense Production Act allows the president to control domestic industries under emergency authority when it’s in the interest of national security. It could essentially compel Anthropic to let the Pentagon use its technology. 

Horowitz said he thinks the clash between Anthropic and the DOD is “masquerading” as a policy dispute. 

Months earlier, venture capitalist and White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks criticized the company for “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,” after an essay published by an executive, and conservatives have repeatedly accused Anthropic of pushing “woke AI.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei took a different approach than other tech executives, avoiding getting cozy with the Trump administration in its early days.

“This feels to me like a dispute that is about politics and personalities,” Horowitz said. 

Is an official designation on the way?

Anthropic hasn’t been designated a supply chain risk by any official measure, and there’s an open question as to if or when the company should expect one. Defense contractors have to decide whether they will follow Hegseth’s directive on social media or wait for more formal guidance. 

Several executives told CNBC that their companies are moving away from Anthropic’s models, and a venture capitalist said a number of portfolio companies are switching “out of an abundance of caution.” But others, including C3 AI Chairman Tom Siebel, said he doesn’t see a “need to mitigate” the technology “until it gets litigated.” 

Schneider said businesses are rational, and if they think it’s high risk to work with Anthropic, whether it’s formally declared a supply chain risk or not, they’re going to hedge and look for other partners.

“There’s all sorts of decisions that have been made within the Trump administration that, by law, require more codification,” Schneider said. “Even the example of moving from DoD to [Department of War]. That by law needs more codification, but all the contractors are using DoW.”

Even so, Samir Jain, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said social media posts likely aren’t enough to actually cause a designation.

“There’s a process that the statute requires, including an actual finding that Anthropic presents national security risks if it’s part of the supply chain,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think, factually, that that predicate could possibly be met here.”

Anthropic said in a statement Friday that it will challenge “any supply chain risk designation in court.”

Does this have anything to do with the U.S. strikes on Iran?

For Schneider, the war in Iran now looms large over the spat between Anthropic and the DOD. She said she’s left wondering whether the two conflicts were happening in parallel, or if they were somehow related. 

“Obviously, you’re not going to walk away from technologies that are deeply embedded in your wartime processes right before you go to war,” Schneider said.

She said planning a military operation of that magnitude would have required “a lot of sleepless nights,” so she was surprised the DOD was willing to spend such a “remarkable amount of energy” on a public clash ahead of the initial attack.

What happens next?

As the war in Iran stretches into its sixth day, Anthropic’s path forward with the DOD remains a big mystery.  

Horowitz said he would bet that the six-month off-boarding period will become a “a locus for some re-examination” within the Pentagon, especially since members of Congress and broader public markets have shown so much interest in the dispute. 

Lin expressed a similar sentiment, and said he wouldn’t bet on Anthropic’s models being out of the DOD a year from now.

Schneider is less convinced. 

“I wish I had a more definitive thought about where this is all going to go, but everything is so unprecedented,” she said. When it comes to historical examples or analogous cases, Schneider said: “I don’t have those. It’s just super limited.”

The DOD declined to comment. Anthropic didn’t provide a comment.

WATCH: Anthropic tops $19 billion in annual revenue rate

“Cuba’s next,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, after the U.S. and Israel began strikes on Iran.

The U.S. has imposed an oil blockade on the communist-run island nation since January, shortly after its ally and a key provider of oil, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was seized in an extraordinary U.S military operation. It has caused a worsening economic crisis and left Cuba facing its biggest test since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now Iran, with which Cuba has a strategic partnership, is under sustained attack. “This communist dictatorship in Cuba, their days are numbered,” Graham told Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America.”

Before the Iran strikes, Trump said he wanted a “friendly takeover” of the island, without giving details. The comments, alongside the U.S. attacks on Iran and Venezuela, have done little to allay growing fears in Havana, experts told CNBC.

A “friendly takeover” could resemble Venezuela in the aftermath of Maduro’s removal, “where you still have an authoritarian regime in power but moving in the direction and at the speed that the US determines,” said Carlos Solar, senior research fellow, Latin American Security at RUSI, a London-based defense think tank.

Solar told CNBC by email that Cuba had lost support from Venezuela and Iran “at a moment of maximum pressure” from the Trump administration.

But he added: “What is unclear is how the US will make the Cuban regime break, forcing Havana to capitulate.”

“We are not seeing the kind of military buildup prelude to operation Absolute Resolve that eventually led to Maduro being captured in January. It could well be that the US approaches Cuba in a totally different way,” Solar said.

A spokesperson for the White House and Cuba’s embassy in London did not respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has called for an end to the Middle East conflict and said it “condemns in the strongest terms” the joint U.S. and Israel attack on Iran on Feb. 28.

Russia recently warned that the situation in Cuba appeared to be escalating after Cuban forces killed four people who were off its coast in a U.S.-registered speedboat.

Trump has also said Cuba’s government poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat” and pledged to impose tariffs on any country that supplies it with oil. The U.S. Treasury said late last month, however, that it would allow the resale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba’s private sector.

The move appeared to reflect a small step to alleviate the island’s acute fuel shortage, which has forced a wave of airlines cut flights to the country. Tourism has long been a significant source of revenue for Cuba’s cash-strapped government.

Par Kumaraswami, professor of Latin American Studies at the U.K.’s University of Nottingham, told CNBC the Trump administration’s strikes against Iran and recent comments about Cuba’s regime had increased the mood of uncertainty and anxiety in Havana.

“Cubans are increasingly concerned about how they will survive in the midst of such global chaos, and the recent violence against Iran will have done nothing to allay their fears,” Kumaraswami said by email.

“At the same time, there are indications that the US administration is negotiating with the Cuban government regarding changes to Cuba’s economy, and this is indeed mirrored by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s current focus on economic improvement as the priority,” she added.

Kumaraswami said the “message from Cuba” had been “constant” since the communists came to power in 1959: “Survival will only be achieved through adaptation to the changing geopolitical context.”

Cuba has adopted measures to protect essential services and ration fuel supplies for key sectors. The United Nations has previously warned of a possible humanitarian “collapse” as the country’s oil supplies dwindle.

“Cuba just bought itself a window — but it’s a narrow one,” Robert Munks, head of Americas research at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC by email.

“The operation against Iran removes Cuba – temporarily – from Washington’s sights, as the US administration will be preoccupied with the Gulf campaign in the coming weeks.”

But Munks said he expected Cuba to return to the headlines, adding that the Cuban diaspora in South Florida would apply pressure and Washington has shown it is prioritizing the Western Hemisphere in its remodeled national security strategy.

In the aftermath of the Israeli-U.S. strikes on Iran, American allies in the Persian Gulf are hearing a sound that Ukrainian soldiers have long come to dread: the foreboding hum of the Shahed-136 ‘kamikaze’ drone. 

Originating from Iran, the Shahed has already become a fixture of modern warfare, with Tehran’s strategic partner, Russia, utilizing the technology in its years-long invasion of Ukraine. 

Now, the drones — the most advanced of which is the long-ranged Shahed-136 — have become central to Iran’s retaliation strategy against the U.S. and its regional allies, with thousands unleashed so far. 

At first glance, the Shahed is unremarkable compared with cutting-edge weapon technologies, with one analyst referring to it as “the poor man’s cruise missile.” 

But while American allies have managed to intercept the vast majority of incoming drones with the help of U.S.-provided defense systems such as the ‘Patriot’ missiles, many Shaheds still managed to hit their targets. 

The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that out of 941 Iranian drones detected since the start of the Iran war, 65 fell within its territory, damaging ports, airports, hotels and data centers.

Analysts say the key to their effectiveness lies in the numbers. The drones are relatively cheap and easy to mass-produce, especially compared to the sophisticated systems used to defend against them. 

Those factors make the drone ideal for swarming and overburdening aerial defenses, with each drone intercepted also representing a more valuable defense asset expended. 

“The Shahed‑136, among other unmanned aerial systems, has allowed states like Russia and Iran a cheap way to impose disproportionate costs,” said Patrycja Bazylczyk, analyst with the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

“They force adversaries to waste expensive interceptors on low‑cost drones, project power, and create a steady psychological burden on civilian populations.” 

U.S. government reports describe the Shahed-136 as a one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicle produced by Iranian entities tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Compared with ballistic missiles, the drones fly low and slow, deliver a relatively modest payload, and are limited to mostly fixed targets, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told CNBC.

Public estimates suggest Shahed drones can cost between $20,000 and $50,000 apiece. Ballistic and cruise missiles, by contrast, can cost millions of dollars each.

In that sense, the Shahed and its equivalents “basically serve as ‘the poor man’s cruise missile’ offering a way to strike and harass adversaries “on the cheap,” said Taleblu.

For Iran, which faces both international sanctions and limitations on acquiring advanced weapons, that cost advantage is significant.

Meanwhile, air defense systems used by Gulf states and Israel can cost between $3 million and $12 million per interceptor, according to U.S. Department of Defense budget documents.

This cost discrepancy raises a serious issue for Iran’s enemies: Air defense systems have finite numbers of defense missiles, with each target intercepted representing a valuable asset expended.

Thus, in a war of attrition, the drones could be used by Tehran to wear down air defenses, opening them up to more damaging attacks, analysts say.

“The logic is to expend drones early while preserving ballistic missiles for the long haul,” said CSIS’s Bazylczyk.

She added that Iran’s ability to sustain mass‑drone use will depend on its stockpiles, how well it can protect or restore its supply chain, and whether the U.S. and Israel can meaningfully disrupt the flow of components or production sites. 

The U.S. has long sought to disrupt Iran’s production of the Shahed-136, and recently imposed new sanctions targeting suspected component suppliers across Turkey and the UAE.

However, Russia’s production of Shahed drones shows that such systems can be manufactured at scale during wartime and amid targeted sanctions. 

U.S. officials claim Iran had launched over 2,000 drones in the conflict as of Wednesday. However, the country is understood to have large stockpiles and may be capable of producing hundreds more each week, military experts reportedly told The National newspaper.

“Gulf countries are at risk of depleting their interceptors unless they are more prudent about when it fires those interceptors,” said Joze Pelayo, a Middle East security analyst with the think tank Atlantic Council.

“The depletion is not imminent, but it remains an urgent issue,” he said, noting. However, attacks on multiple fronts by Iranian allies such as Hezbollah and the Houthis could put stockpiles at risk of being depleted within days, he added.

Some analysts have suggested that Iran has drawn from Russia’s extensive battlefield experience with the drones, including modifications such as anti-jamming antennas, electronic warfare-resistant navigation, and new warheads.

Those warheads typically carry 30 kg to 50 kg of explosives and can pack a punch, particularly when used in large swarms, with advanced versions capable of a range of up to 1,200 miles.

Michael Connell, a Middle East specialist at the Center for Naval Analyses, said that the Shahed-136 has proven so effective that the U.S. has reverse-engineered it and deployed its own version on the battlefield against Iranian targets. 

In its Iran attacks over the weekend, the U.S. Central Command confirmed that it had used such low-cost one-way attack drones modeled after the Shahed for the first time in combat. 

With drones becoming a fixture of the modern battlefield, methods for dealing with them are also evolving.

According to Taleblu from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Ukraine has found some success in downing drones with fighter jet cannon fire, a more sustainable deterrent than missile interceptors.

Ukraine also recently pioneered the development of cheaper mass-produced interceptors, which Kyiv claims can stop the Shahed.

Gulf states are also expected to adopt more sustainable approaches. The Pentagon and at least one Gulf government are reportedly in talks to buy the cheaper Ukrainian-made interceptors.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s Ministry of Defense says it is also using its air force jets to intercept Iranian attacks, including Shahed drones, alongside ground-based air defenses.

Electronic warfare targeting the Shahed’s GPS, as well as short-range missiles and directed-energy systems such as Israel’s Iron Beam, are also significantly cheaper to operate than traditional interceptors.

Still, analysts say Gulf states currently lack fast, high-volume anti-drone capabilities. Developing and deploying such systems will likely take years, said Atlantic Council’s Pelayo.

“Countries in the Gulf hosting U.S. bases, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE, benefit from an extended ability to repel drone attacks through the American-operated system, but it is still not enough against mass and sustained attacks.”

“To be free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be powerful,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during a landmark speech this week on nuclear deterrence.

France is one of only two nuclear powers in Europe and, unlike the U.K., operates a nuclear weapons system entirely independent of the U.S.

As the U.S. and Israel continued to strike Iran, and European leaders appeared divided and sidelined as they scrambled to react, Macron delivered a speech on Monday that was “the most significant update to French nuclear deterrence policy in 30 years,” Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, said in a thread on X.

Speaking from a naval base in Brittany in front of a submarine, “Le Téméraire,” Macron’s 45-minute speech laid out what he called a new “forward deterrence” doctrine for France.

Macron said France would increase its number of nuclear warheads and promised more cooperation with European allies that have expressed interest.

He said several European countries — Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark — could take part in exercises of France’s air-launched nuclear capacity and France’s nuclear bombers could be stationed at their air bases. Macron also said France would stop disclosing the figures for its nuclear arsenal.

“The world is becoming more difficult, and recent events have demonstrated this once again,” he said in the speech.

“We must strengthen our nuclear deterrent in the face of the combination of threats, and we must consider our deterrence strategy within the depths of the European continent, with full respect for our sovereignty, through the progressive implementation of what I would call forward deterrence.”

Yannick Pincé, associate professor of history at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, told CNBC that the speech had to be seen in the context of next year’s presidential election, which a far-right National Rally candidate could win.

“He needed to give a politically acceptable speech, to announce measures that would be difficult to reverse next year,” Pincé said.

“At the same time, he needed to be credible enough with our allies. He was walking a tightrope, and from my point of view, he succeeded rather well.”

An independent nuclear deterrent has been the cornerstone of France’s defense strategy for more than 60 years.

But Macron said that the doctrine has to evolve with the threats. In 2020, Macron hinted at a shift when he said that France’s “vital interests” – a definition of which remains deliberately vague – now had “a European dimension.”

On Monday, Macron said that the years since 2020 “weigh like decades, and the last few months like years.”

“Our competitors have evolved, as have our partners,” he said, adding “the last few hours” of escalating conflict in the Middle East showed how the world has become “harsher.”

Macron mentioned the war in Ukraine and the threat from Russia, but also China and changing defense priorities of the United States.

In line with the historic nuclear doctrine, Macron said that the decision to use force “belongs solely to the President of the Republic,” rejecting explicit “guarantees” to partner countries.

Ankit Panda, Stanton senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the speech “remarkable.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is back at the negotiating table with the U.S. Department of Defense after the breakdown of talks on Friday over the use of the company’s AI tools by the military, according to The Financial Times. 

Amodei is in talks with Emil Michael, under-secretary of defense for research and engineering, in a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement on the terms governing the Pentagon’s access to Anthropic’s Claude models, the Times reported, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter.

Discussions fell apart Friday, with President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s tools, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying he would designate the company a supply-chain risk to national security.

Last week, Michael had attacked Amodei, calling him a “liar” with a “God complex,” in an X post.

Agreeing to a new contract would enable the U.S. military to continue using Anthropic’s technology, which has reportedly been utilized in Washington’s war with Iran. 

Claude became the first major model deployed in the government’s classified networks through a $200 million contract awarded by the DoD to Anthropic, but the company later sought guarantees that its tools would not be used in domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. The Pentagon had demanded that the military be allowed to employ the technology for any lawful use.

In a Friday memo seen by FT, Amodei reportedly told staff that near the end of negotiations with the Defense Department, it had offered to accept Anthropic’s terms if they deleted a “specific phrase about ‘analysis of bulk acquired data'” — a line he said, “exactly matched this scenario we were most worried about.” 

Amodei also wrote in his note that messaging from the Pentagon and OpenAI, which struck a new deal with the Defense Department on Friday, was “just straight up lies about these issues or tries to confuse them.” 

The timing of OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon, announced within hours of the White House decrying Anthropic, had caused a public backlash, with Claude seeing a surge of app downloads while ChatGPT reportedly saw app uninstallations surge.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later said that his company “shouldn’t have rushed” its deal and outlined revisions to its own safeguards with how the Defense Department can use its technology. 

In a post on X, Altman further addressed the controversy, saying: “In my conversations over the weekend, I reiterated that Anthropic should not be designated as a [supply chain risk], and that we hope the [Department of Defense] offers them the same terms we’ve agreed to.”

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI staff and researchers, who left the firm after disagreements over its direction, with the company marketing itself as a “safety-first” alternative.

Government officials have for months criticized Anthropic for allegedly being overly concerned with AI safety.

A tech industry group, whose members include Nvidia, Google and Anthropic, had sent a letter to Hegseth on Wednesday expressing concern over his designating a U.S. company as a supply-chain risk.

The Defense Department and Anthropic did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on their reported negotiations.

Global defense stocks jumped on Monday as investors reacted to a dramatic military escalation in the Middle East over the weekend.

The sector was a rare bright spot amid a broader market sell-off triggered by fears of a wider regional conflict.

Germany’s Hensoldt and Britain’s BAE Systems were among the top performers in the Stoxx 600, both up around 4%. Defense names Thales, Renk, and Leonardo rose between 4% and 1%, paring earlier gains, while the broader Stoxx 600 index fell more than 1%, touching a two-week low.

Stateside, U.S. firms Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman each rose more than 5% in premarket trading. Futures tracking the S&P 500 were down 1.1%.

With South Korean markets closed Monday, regional activity in Asia-Pacific defense sector was somewhat muted. Japan’s defense heavyweights Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and IHI rose about 3% each, while Singapore’s ST Engineering climbed 2.8%.

The moves come after the U.S. and Israel launched widespread attacks on Iran over the weekend that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ending his 36-year rule. Retaliatory strikes by Iran against U.S. bases in the Middle East killed three U.S. service members.

Prospects of an escalation also led oil prices and energy companies’ shares to surge.

“It’s very much one of uncertainty at the moment that investors are grappling with,” said Patrick O’Donnell, Chief Investment Strategist at Omnis Investments.

“Equity markets are a little bit more uncertain about just how long this is going to drag on, for the implication for both growth and inflation that it will have the longer that it goes on,” O’Donnell told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.

“Really, it’s a question of… what’s the duration of this conflict?”

The conflict with Iran entered a third day on Monday, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning of further American casualties and saying the conflict could last for up to four weeks. 

In June last year, the U.S. and Israel launched air strikes that damaged three Iranian nuclear sites.

Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden and co-chair of ECFR’s Council, said it was expected that Iran would strike back at the American military facilities in the Gulf region, “but now it seems like they are striking other targets across the Gulf as well.”

“That is surprising, but also highly disturbing, because, of course, the stability of the Gulf countries is important to us all, important to the global economy, important to the region,” he said.