Russia appears to be relishing the gaffe French President Emmanuel Macron made this week in suggesting that NATO countries discussed the possibility of Western ground troops being deployed in Ukraine, saying such an eventuality could not be “ruled out.”

Macron’s suggestion was widely — and very publicly — rejected by NATO member countries Tuesday. The United States, Germany, the U.K., Spain, Poland and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg were among those denying that sending ground troops into Ukraine was an option.

The Kremlin was quick to seize upon the comments Tuesday, warning that any move to put Western boots on the ground in Ukraine would lead to an “inevitable” conflict between NATO and Russia. Since then, state-run Russian media has been dominated by Russian officials relishing the obvious division in NATO, and Macron’s apparent misreading of the NATO mood music.

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister, said Macron had suffered a bout of verbal “incontinence” while Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said Macron’s “loud statements … horrified the residents of his country and the leaders of a number of European states.”

“To maintain personal power, Macron came up with nothing better than to spark a third world war. His initiatives are becoming dangerous for French citizens,” Volodin said on Telegram, comparing the French president to French leader and military commander Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Russia in 1812 is widely recognized as a military disaster for France that led to a massive number of casualties.

“Before making such statements, Macron would do well to remember how it ended for Napoleon and his soldiers, more than 600,000 of whom were left lying in the damp earth,” Volodin said, referring to the muddy conditions that hampered France’s invasion. 

Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed Wednesday that Ukraine is facing a “catastrophic” situation at the front — Russia is currently enjoying a spate of small territorial gains in eastern Ukraine — and that Macron’s statement had not helped the country.

“The situation at the front for the Kyiv regime is monstrous, catastrophic,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik radio station, the Tass news agency reported.

She claimed NATO countries’ denials that they planned to send their ground troops into Ukraine showed the West had “betrayed Ukraine and will continue to use and betray it,” repeating Moscow’s baseless claims that Western countries are using Ukraine to destroy Russia.

Macron’s controversial comments came Monday evening, after he had hosted European heads of state and representatives from the U.K., U.S. and Canada for talks in Paris on how best to help Ukraine.

After the conference, Macron said discussions had also covered the possibility of deploying ground troops, although he said there was no agreement on the issue.

“There is no consensus today to officially, openly, and with endorsement, send troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing should be ruled out,” Macron said at a news conference Monday evening, adding that allies “will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war.”

French opposition lawmakers rounded on Macron for making the comments, with the leader of the hard-right National Rally party Marine Le Pen stating on X that by “affirming that sending ground troops was not excluded, Emmanuel Macron took a further step towards co-belligerence.”

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne attempted to ease tensions in France’s parliament on Tuesday without rowing back on Macron’s comments, saying French troops could take on non-combat roles rather than actively battle in Ukraine.

“We must consider new actions to support Ukraine. These must respond to very specific needs, I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyberdefence, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory,” he told lawmakers, Reuters reported.

“Some of its actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of fighting. Nothing should be ruled out. This was and still is the position today of the president of the Republic,” he said.

France was left looking increasingly isolated throughout the day Tuesday, with the White House also distancing itself from Macron’s comments.

U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters yesterday that any decision to deploy ground troops was a “sovereign decision,” but that it was not one the U.S. would be taking in Ukraine.

When asked about Macron’s comments, Kirby said “well, that’s a sovereign decision that every NATO ally would have to make for themselves. You heard [NATO] Secretary General Stoltenberg say himself he had no plans or intentions of — certainly under NATO auspices — of putting troops on the ground. And President Biden has been crystal clear since the beginning of this conflict. There’ll be no U.S. troops on the ground in a combat role there. In Ukraine.”

Russia analysts have said Macron’s comments were a gift to the Kremlin, and would be fully exploited by Russia’s propaganda machine at home — and abroad.

The Elysee Palace sought to clarify and defend France’s position on the matter further Tuesday, with a spokesperson stating that “we want to avoid escalation. Let me remind you that we’re not at war with the Russian people, but we can’t let Russia win in Ukraine.”

Timothy Ash, emerging markets strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, was among those questioning “French foreign policy sense on anything to do with Russia/Ukraine.”

“Literally idiotic comments from Macron,” Ash said in emailed comments Tuesday. “Ukraine does not need Western boots on the ground — it needs Western military kit to do the job themselves of defeating Russia.”

Ash said that “talk of Western boots on the ground is so damaging” as “it plays to the Putin narrative of NATO expansion East, and that this is a NATO war with Russia” and “plays up to similar narratives being plied in the Global South,” referring to countries often described as “developing” economies with whom Russia would like to develop ties.

He noted the comments would also likely be “seized on by Putin’s allies in the GOP [the Republican Party] to stall in agreeing military support/financing for Ukraine.”

“What the U.S. public do not want is U.S. boots on the ground in another foreign conflict. But the beauty of Western support for Ukraine thus far is that it has not required Western boots on the ground, but through a modest financial outlay has had a devastating impact on Russian military capability,” Ash said.

Israel’s gross domestic product shrank by nearly 20% in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to official figures.

The contraction was significantly larger than expected — analysts predicted a contraction of around 10% — and reflects the toll of the country’s war against Hamas in Gaza, now entering its fifth month.

The economic data out Monday “pointed primarily to a contraction in private sector consumption and a deep contraction in investment, especially in real estate,” analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a research note.

“The deep GDP contraction occurred despite a strong surge in public sector consumption as well as a positive net trade contribution, with the decline in imports outpacing the decline in exports.”

Official figures showed a 26.9% quarter-on-quarter annualized drop in private consumption, and fixed investment plummeting by nearly 68% as residential construction ground to a halt amid a shortage of both Israel workers due to military mobilization and Palestinian workers as the latter group have been mostly barred from entering Israel since Oct. 7.

Before then, more than 150,000 Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank entered Israel daily for work in a range of sectors, predominantly in construction and agriculture.

Israel’s GDP contraction “was much worse than had been expected and highlights the extent of the hit from the Hamas attacks and the war in Gaza,” Liam Peach, senior emerging markets economist at London-based Capital Economics, said in an analysis note.

“While a recovery looks set to take hold in Q1, GDP growth over 2024 as a whole now looks likely to post one of its weakest rates on record.”

Israel’s high-tech economy is particularly impacted by the fact that it’s mobilized 300,000 of its men and women as military reservists to deploy in both Gaza and on its northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The mobilization was triggered by the terror attack of Oct. 7 led by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel. Israel’s subsequent offensive against the Gaza strip and relentless bombing campaign has killed more than 28,000 people in the blockaded territory, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Munich, GERMANY — The U.S. is considering slapping sanctions on Chinese companies it believes are helping Russia fuel its war in Ukraine, members of Congress told CNBC, marking the first direct apportioning of blame toward Beijing since the start of the war.

Democratic Senator Gerald Connolly, member of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations, on Saturday said that lawmakers were already considering such plans after similar measures were proposed last week by the European Union.

The provisions would mark the first direct penalties against Beijing despite long-held Western suspicions over its support for Russia’s military operations.

“China has to understand that the same kinds of sanctions which are beginning to really take hold in Russia and are affecting Russian productivity, economic performance and quality of life, can also be applied to China,” he told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.

“And frankly, China has a lot more to lose than Russia.”

U.S. sanctions could severely hurt a Chinese economy already in the doldrums, after a slower-than-anticipated Covid-19 recovery and turbulence in its real estate sector. But such a step could also hurt the U.S., given the countries’ trade interdependence, and this consideration has prompted caution from Washington in the past.

Still, Connolly said that would not deter such penalties, which could come “very soon.”

“My hope is the very threat of it — and the fact that the Europeans are really serious about this, which is a relatively recent development — ought to clarify some thinking in Beijing, I hope,” he said.

“If broad sanctions were applied to China, it would really hit home. And their economic performance right now is already weak. So I would hope China would calculate carefully that there are consequences around the corner for supporting Russia’s violence and depravity in Ukraine.”

Asked whether the U.S. is considering similar sanctions on China as those proposed by the EU, U.S. Senator Ben Cardin said Congress was currently looking into options with the Biden administration.

“It’s an area that we’re looking at, and Congress is working with the administration as to how we can enforce the sanctions against Russia, and that will require greater cooperation of other countries.”

CNBC reported last week that the European Union was preparing to impose sanctions on Chinese companies it believes are helping Russia circumvent Western penalties intended to curb its war in Ukraine.

The proposals, which would form part of the bloc’s 13th sanctions package since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, could be ready later this month to mark the war’s second anniversary. The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said Monday that those plans had gained a new urgency in the wake of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday.

The plans come amid ongoing reports that Beijing is propping up Moscow’s war economy.

A September CNBC investigation found that Chinese firms are playing an critical role in boosting Russia’s military capabilities, including via the trade of goods for use on the battlefield in Ukraine. A separate January report found that China has become key conduit in funnelling critical Western tech into Russia.

China’s foreign ministry and the U.S. National Security Council did not immediately respond to CNBC requests for comment.

A U.S. intelligence report stated that China “has also become an increasingly important buttress for Russia in its war effort, probably supplying Moscow with key technology and dual-use equipment used in Ukraine.”

However, Beijing has been forthright in its rejection of such accusations, saying that its trade with Moscow constitutes “normal economic cooperation,” and that it targets no “third party.” China has also previously attempted to mediate in the war in Ukraine, last year releasing a 12-point peace plan for the conflict that has yet to gain traction.

In a speech at MSC, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that trade should not be weaponized and said that any attempts to limit trade ties with his country would be a “historic mistake.”

“Those who attempt to shut China out in the name of derisking will make a historical mistake,” he said referring to existing restrictions implemented by the U.S. to limit, for instance, the trade of sensitive technologies.

Wang later met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the side lines of the conference, where he urged Washington to lift existing sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals and said the U.S. should not hurt China’s legitimate development rights.

Washington has imposed sanctions on various Chinese companies that it says are working with China’s military, despite the firms’ denials. U.S. sanctions have also been placed on individuals and entities accused of human rights abuses in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

MUNICH, Germany — NATO members on Saturday weighed the U.S.’ possible withdrawal from the military alliance if Donald Trump returns to the White House, with Hillary Clinton saying he would waste no time in quitting if re-elected.

Clinton urged delegates at the Munich Security Conference to take her one-time presidential rival’s tough talk “literally and seriously” as anxiety mounts over the future of the U.S.-led pact.

“He will pull us out of NATO,” Clinton told attendees during a lunchtime session.

Trump stoked fresh concerns over the U.S.’ commitment to NATO last weekend when he said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any member that doesn’t meet its spending targets. He has long criticized the alliance’s failure to ensure members make good on their obligation to contribute 2% of gross domestic product to defense.

Amid such rhetoric, the U.S. Congress passed a bill in December aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing from the alliance without congressional approval.

U.S. Republican Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on Saturday dismissed talk of the U.S. quitting NATO, saying: “We have answered that question.”

“It would take a two-thirds vote in the United States Senate to get out — that is never going to happen,” he told CNBC in Munich.

Clinton said, however, that Trump could actually just refuse to fund the alliance. “The U.S. will be there in name only,” she said.

Concerns over the U.S. and Europe’s continued military coordination have dominated discussions at this year’s annual defense summit in Germany, as the specter of a second Trump presidency looms large and a contentious aid package for Ukraine hangs in the balance in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte earlier Saturday referenced constant “moaning and whining” at the event about the future of NATO under Trump.

“Stop moaning and whining and nagging about Trump,” he said.

He was one of many European voices, including that of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said that Europe needed to become self-sufficient in the face of a more uncertain future with its closest diplomatic ally.

“No matter what happens in the U.S. … we have to be able to protect ourselves,” Frederiksen said.

Indeed, Germany’s defense minister said that his country’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense should be just the start, noting that the threshold could rise to 3.5% if necessary.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg struck a more sanguine tone on transatlantic coordination, however, saying that believes the U.S. will remain “a staunch and committed NATO ally” whatever happens in the upcoming election.

“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, the U.S. will remain a staunch and committed NATO ally,” he told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro. “It is in the security interests of the United States to have a strong NATO.”

Stoltenberg acknowledged Trump’s frustration with member spending, but said “that is now changing.” On Wednesday, NATO announced that 18 of the alliance’s 31 members will meet the 2% spending target this year.

NATO member countries first committed to minimum spending targets in 2006, but by 2014 only three had met the threshold.

The alliance will mark its 75th anniversary this year at an annual summit to be held in Washington in July. Senator Risch said he would like to see all members committing to meeting their target by that point.

“Talk about it happening years in the future isn’t now, and we’re always interested in now,” he said. “That’s helpful to the relationship: everybody keeping the commitments that they made.”

Former U.S. head of state and presidential candidate Donald Trump stoked the ire of U.S. lawmakers and international leaders, after remarking he would not protect NATO countries from Russian attacks if they lag on their membership payments.

Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said that, as president, he warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to a member country that didn’t meet its defense spending guidelines.

Trump, who has a long history of criticizing the transatlantic military alliance, recounted a time when an unspecified president of a NATO member challenged him on his threat not to defend them from a potential Russian invasion if they failed to meet NATO’s target of spending at least 2% of their budget on the military.

“You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent … No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills,” Trump said.

The U.S. has historically had the largest number of military personnel out of all NATO countries, counting 1.35 million troops in 2023, according to Statista.

Trump has been accused of entertaining close ties with Russia during his first presidential mandate. The Kremlin declined to address Trump’s remarks.

“I am still [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s press secretary, but not Trump’s,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to Reuters.

Top Western officials, as well as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, sharply criticized Trump’s comments. U.S. President Joe Biden, who has also declared intentions to run for a second presidential mandate, described Trump’s remarks as “appalling and dangerous.”

“Sadly, they are also predictable coming from a man who is promising to rule as a dictator like the ones he praises on day one if he returns to the oval office,” Biden said Sunday in a statement.

Trump is vying to clinch Republican backing for his presidential bid at the polls later this year, facing off former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.

In an interview with CBS, Haley said Sunday that “the last thing we ever want to do is side with Russia.”

She added that the NATO alliance “allows us to prevent war.”

Former Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie also criticized Trump’s comments, saying in an interview with NBC News on Sunday that “this is why I’ve been saying for a long time that he’s unfit to be president of the United States.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO stands “ready and able” to defend all allies and any attack would be met with a “united and forceful” response.

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” Stoltenberg said in a statement.

“I expect that regardless of who wins the presidential election the US will remain a strong and committed NATO Ally,” he added.

NATO’s 31 members, which include the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Turkey and the U.K., agreed in July last year to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense, firming up a previous goal.

A report released by NATO last year showed only 11 of the then-30 member alliance were spending 2% of GDP or more on defense. The defense spending target is not a requirement and many countries have sought to ramp up their military spending since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

NATO’s so-called Article 5 mutual defense clause means that an attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against all allies.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday that NATO cannot be an “a la carte” military alliance dependent on the impulses of the U.S. political leadership.

“NATO cannot be an ‘a la carte’ military alliance … depending on the humor of the president of the U.S.,” Borrell said when asked to respond to Trump’s comments, Reuters reported.

Germany’s Foreign Office on Sunday posted “One for all and all for one” on its English language X social media account, supported by the hashtag “#StrongerTogether.”

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Sunday via X that NATO’s motto of “‘one for all, all for one’ is a concrete commitment.”

“Undermining the credibility of allied countries means weakening the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization. No election campaign is an excuse for playing with the security of the Alliance,” he added.

With the eyes of the world on the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, an unprecedented number of potentially “catastrophic” conflicts are going under the radar, analysts have warned.

The International Rescue Committee earlier this month released its emergency watchlist for 2024, documenting the 20 countries at the greatest risk of security deterioration. These countries account for around 10% of the world’s population but around 70% of its displaced persons, along with approximately 86% of global humanitarian need.

The U.N. estimated in October that more than 114 million people were displaced by war and conflict worldwide. That figure is now likely higher.

IRC President and CEO David Miliband said that for many of the people his organization serves, this is the “worst of times,” as exposure to climate risk, impunity in an ever-growing number of conflict zones and spiraling public debt collide with “diminishing international support.”

“The headlines today are rightly dominated by the crisis in Gaza. There is good reason for that — it is currently the most dangerous place in the world to be a civilian.” Miliband said.

“But the Watchlist is a vital reminder that other parts of the world are on fire as well, for structural reasons relating to conflict, climate and economy. We must be able to address more than one crisis at once.”

Isabelle Arradon, research director at the International Crisis Group, told CNBC earlier this month that conflict fatalities globally are at their highest since 2000.

“All the red flags are there, and on top of that, there is a shortage of means to resolve conflict. There’s a lot of geopolitical competition and less appetite for resolving these deadly conflicts,” she added.

Sudan

No. 1 on the IRC’s watchlist is Sudan, where fighting erupted in April 2023 between the country’s two military factions, and internationally brokered peace talks in Saudi Arabia yielded no solution.

The conflict has now expanded into “large-scale urban warfare” that is garnering “minimal” international attention and poses a serious risk of regional spillover, the IRC said, with 25 million people in urgent humanitarian need and 6 million displaced.

The Rapid Support Forces — led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti) and allegedly supported by the UAE and Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar — has expanded a multipronged offensive from the conflict’s epicenter in the capital of Khartoum, leaving a trail of alleged atrocities in the western region of Darfur.

The RSF reportedly pushed into central Sudan for the first time in recent days, prompting further mass exoduses of people from areas previously held by the Sudanese Armed Forces.

The ICG’s Arradon told CNBC that alongside the ongoing risk of further mass atrocities in Darfur is the possibility of an “all-out ethnic conflict” that draws in more armed groups from the region.

“Peace initiatives are very limited right now. Clearly, at the global level, there is a lot of distraction, and so the situation in Sudan is one where I don’t think there’s enough serious engagement right now at a high level for cease-fire negotiations, and so there needs to be a greater push,” she said.

The flow of refugees into neighboring South Sudan and Ethiopia, themselves blighted by internal conflict, the effects of climate change and extreme economic hardship, amplify the risks of spillover, analysts believe.

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda

Last week’s chaotic election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo marked just the start of a new electoral cycle that will continue through 2024 against a brittle backdrop.

Voting was marred by long delays at polling stations, with some failing to open all day and voting extended into Thursday in some areas of the massive mineral-rich country with 44 million registered voters.

Several opposition candidates called for the election to be canceled, the latest controversy after a campaign blighted by violence as 18 candidates challenged incumbent President Félix Tshisekedi for the leadership.

Partial preliminary results suggest Tshisekedi is well ahead in the vote, but the government on Tuesday banned protests against the election that were called for by five opposition candidates.

The political turbulence comes amid ongoing armed conflict in eastern DRC and widespread poverty, and precedes further regional elections early next year.

The likely prolonged contestation of the results, borne out of long-held suspicions among Tshisekedi’s fragmented opposition about the independence of the electoral commission, could spark further conflict with implications for the wider region, crisis analysts believe.

“We’re very concerned about the risk of a serious crisis. We saw in 2018 already how the contestation of the vote was a big problem, but now we have on top of that M23 [rebels], backed by Rwanda, that is increasing its fighting and coming very close to [the city of] Goma,” Arradon said.

M23 rebels reappeared in the province of North Kivu in eastern DRC in November 2021, and have been accused by human rights groups of multiple apparent war crimes since late 2022 as they expand their offensive.

Neighboring Rwanda has allegedly deployed troops to eastern Congo to provide direct military support to M23, stoking tensions between Kigali and Kinshasa, and prompting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to repeatedly voice concern about the risk of a “direct confrontation.”

The combination of a fractured and distrustful political backdrop, an ongoing armed rebellion and extreme socioeconomic pressures render the region fertile ground for conflict next year.

Arradon described the situation in DRC and other active and potential conflict zones around the world as “catastrophic.”

“DRC, we’re talking about 6 million displaced. If you look at Myanmar, of course you’ve got this huge population in Bangladesh of displaced Rohingyas, and also displaced within Myanmar itself,” she said.

“We’ve never seen so many people on the move globally, largely due to conflict. It’s not just people on the move, it’s the fact that often civilian populations live side by side with armed groups, and that’s the case in Myanmar, that’s the case in the east of DRC, also in Sudan, in the west and Darfur.”

Myanmar

The civil war in Myanmar has been underway since a February 2021 military coup, and subsequent brutal crackdown on anti-coup protests, triggered an escalation of long-running insurgencies from ethnic armed groups throughout the country.

Government forces have been accused of indiscriminate bombing and both the IRC and IGC fear the tactics may be ramped up in 2024 as ethnic armed groups and resistance forces have made significant gains in the north of the country.

The military currently faces challenges from an alliance of three ethnic armed groups in the northern Shan state, along with one of the country’s largest armed groups in the northwestern Sagaing region and smaller resistance forces in Kayah state, Rakhine State and along the Indian border in the west.

“For first time in decades, military will have to fight numerous, determined and well-armed opponents simultaneously in multiple theatres; it may double down on brutal efforts to reverse tide on battlefield, including scorched-earth tactics and indiscriminate bombing in coming weeks,” the IGC’s latest CrisisWatch report assessed.

The Sahel

Countries across the Sahel have experienced a swathe of military coups over the past couple of years, partly in response to heightened instability as governments struggle to tackle Islamist militant insurgencies spreading throughout the region.

The Sahel encompasses north-central Africa’s semiarid belt between the Sahara Desert and savanna regions, and includes Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.

Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad have all endured coups and severe instability in the last three years. IGC’s Arradon said security issues had been deepened by the fallout from civil war in Libya to the north, which saw a deluge of weapons move south to supply armed groups in countries with large proportions of their populations in “peripheries that have felt neglected.”

“So this overall security context of populations feeling neglected, plus easy access to weapons, has indeed created a growing security risk in the Sahel region, and the dissatisfaction from these populations has grown,” she added.

… and many more

Alongside these, the IGC also has grave concerns about potential outbreaks of armed conflict in Haiti, Guatemala and Ethiopia, along with the well-documented risk of a Chinese incursion into Taiwan and its global geopolitical implications.

A hacking group widely reported as being linked to Israel has taken responsibility for a cyberattack that’s knocked out the majority of gas stations across Iran, leading to long lines of cars and angry crowds.

Iranian state TV cited the country’s Oil Minister Javad Owji saying that outside interference was a possible cause after 70% of Iran’s gas stations were hit by service disruptions, according to Reuters.

A group called Gonjeshke Darande, or Predatory Sparrow, claimed it was behind the attack in a post on the social media site X.

“We, Gonjeshke Darande, carried out another cyberattack today, taking out a majority of the gas pumps throughout Iran. This cyberattack comes in response to the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region,” the post read.

Addressing Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the group added: “Khamenei, playing with fire has a price.”

Gonjeshke Darande has claimed responsibility for previous cyberattacks on Iran, including one on Iran’s major steel companies.

Iran’s civil defense agency said an investigation was underway and that it was still examining all possible causes for the disruption. Israeli media has covered the alleged attack, but Israel’s government has not commented on it.

Following the confirmation that Ukrainian forces had crossed the Dnieper river into Russian-occupied territory in recent weeks, hopes have risen that this could be a small but key breakthrough in the six-month counteroffensive against Russia.

The Dnieper has effectively operated as a front line in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, separating Ukrainian troops on the west bank from Russian forces on the east, or left, bank. Russian forces had retreated to the east bank last year following an earlier counteroffensive by Ukraine that left the Kherson region — strategically important given its location above Russian-annexed Crimea — partially occupied.

Then the official confirmation came earlier this month that Ukrainian forces, including marine infantry and special operations forces, had managed to cross the wide Dnieper river in more substantial numbers than in previous sorties, and had established several footholds on the east bank.

The development, described as a small but significant breakthrough by military analysts, has spurred hopes that Ukraine could build on those positions and advance south toward Crimea, potentially breaking a land bridge that Russia has established between its territory and the peninsula via a swathe of occupied southern Ukraine.

“The left-bank [of the Dnieper river] in Kherson is very important because it’s near to Crimea,” Oleksandr Musiyenko, a Ukrainian military expert and head of the Centre for Military and Legal Studies in Kyiv, told CNBC.

“Our forces right now on the ground, on the left bank are just 70 kilometers from occupied Crimea,” he said, “so if we have success in this offensive operation, that means that we will move behind Russian forces, we can break up their logistics, and also we can move forward to the west and to the south to occupied Crimea, and they will have a huge problems because of that,” Musiyenko noted.

The scale of Ukraine’s latest river crossing appeared to catch Russia, which has largely concentrated its forces in eastern Ukraine, somewhat unawares.

The Russian-installed governor of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo said Ukraine had initially sent “more personnel [across the Dnieper] than our firepower could destroy” but he then vowed to rain “hell” down on the troops that had crossed the river, saying they had been sent to the slaughter as Russian artillery, missiles and drones began to target the men and heavy equipment that had been taken across the river.

Military updates since last week suggest that intense fighting is clustered around several villages on the east bank, with Krynky the epicenter as Russia tries to counterattack and prevent Ukrainian advances southward toward the prized Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine’s military said last Sunday that its forces had pushed Russian forces between 3 to 8 kilometers back from the river, impeding their ability to pound Ukrainian forces back on the west bank of the Dnieper with mortars. It also requested an operational “silence” as it what fought along what it described as a “fairly fluid” front line.

Last week, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the ground fighting on the east bank as “has been characterised by confused, dismounted infantry combat and artillery exchanges in complex, wooded terrain.”

“Ukraine has made particularly effective use of small attack uncrewed aerial vehicles, while the Russian Air Force is conducting significant numbers of sorties in support of frontline troops, predominantly launching munitions from beyond the range of Ukraine’s air defences,” the ministry said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The ministry noted that, while the fighting around Krynky is on a smaller scale than some major battles of the war, it “will be considered highly unfortunate by Russian leaders” given that they had hopes to “hold Ukrainian forces west of the river, keep the sector quiet, and free up Russian forces elsewhere.”

The outcome of Ukraine’s attempts to maintain and advance positions on the east bank of the river matter at a time when there have been few gains made in the counteroffensive, first launched in June, and as Western support for continued aid for Ukraine falters.

Military analyst Sean Bell told Sky News that while Russia was put on the back foot by Ukraine’s bold river crossing — with its main focus on the Donbas in eastern Ukraine and limited reserves to re-deploy to Kherson further west — the road ahead is challenging for Ukraine.

“Although Russia has established some defensive positions near the Dnieper, if – and this is a big if at this stage – Ukraine is able to develop a robust beachhead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, this could threaten the western flank of Russian forces,” he told Sky News Tuesday.

“If Ukraine is able to launch an offensive from the Dnieper, that would bypass the layered Russian defences near Zaporizhzhia and potentially force Russia to withdraw its forces in the land bridge back into Crimea,” he added.

This would liberate a huge proportion of the territory occupied by Russia and mark a significant breakthrough for Ukrainian forces, Bell said.

“But, the winter weather precludes manoeuvre warfare, and Russia might yet re-focus its military effort and deny Ukraine a vital breakthrough,” he warned.

Outwardly, Russia has been bullish about the situation in Kherson, with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claiming last Tuesday that Ukraine was suffering “colossal losses” on the east bank of the Dnieper.

“All attempts of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to conduct an amphibious operation in the Kherson direction were unsuccessful. Thanks to the proactive and professional actions of our military personnel, units of the Marine Corps and special operations forces of the Ukrainian troops are suffering colossal losses,” Shoigu said in a speech to defense ministry officials, without presenting evidence.

CNBC was unable to verify the claims made by Ukraine or Russia regarding the situation on the battlefield.

War-battered Gaza’s already fragile economy lies in ruins, much like its buildings, following more than a month of bombings by Israel after Hamas militants attacked the country in October.

Even before the war, a majority of Gazans had limited access to affordable, nutritious provisions and were deemed food insecure, according to the United Nations World Food Programme, but the situation has now turned dire. About 80% of Gaza residents were reliant on some sort of international aid before the latest escalation.

“Gaza’s economy is 100% dependent on two sources of revenue: foreign aid and access to Israel’s labor market. The latter is now gone, probably forever. The only thing remaining is foreign aid,” Marko Papic, partner and chief strategist at Clocktower Group, told CNBC via email.

Gaza’s unemployment rate, which has traditionally been one of the world’s highest at above 40%, now stands near 100%, with the enclave’s economy effectively “ceasing activity” indefinitely, according to a  report from the Ramallah, West Bank-based Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute.

Over one month into the war, Gazans have lost at least 182,000 jobs, or 61% of the workforce, according to the International Labor Organization. Another U.N. agency, the United Nations Development Programme, has forecast that Gaza’s development would be set back by 16 to 19 years in its assessment based on economic, health and educational indicators.

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched a multi-pronged attack by land, sea and air and infiltrated Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people. In retaliation, Israel launched air strikes and a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than 14,500 people in the enclave.

“Even though the Israelis had occupied Gaza starting 1967 well into the 80s, the economy was doing a bit better, but mostly it was doing well, based on having a number of educated people who went outside of Gaza,” said Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist at Santa Monica, California-headquartered think tank Milken Institute.

Gaza was under the control of Egypt from 1948 until mid-1967 before Israel seized it along with the West Bank following its victory in the Six-Day War against a coalition of Arab countries.

“In the first 25 years of [Israeli] occupation, Gaza had both people working inside Israel [and] it had its own local economy … it was an important part of the Palestinian economy,” Raja Khalidi, director-general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute told CNBC via telephone.

Gazans were able to work in Israel, Egypt, the Gulf and other places 50 years back, and there was a strong professional class, university and airport at the time, but with the current conflict the enclave’s economy now is dire, almost nonfunctional, Klowden also said.

Israel had issued about 18,000 permits for Gazans to work and live in the country and its settlements in the West Bank, but they were revoked after the Oct. 7 attack.

According to the United Nations, during the 1970s and 1980s, the Palestinian economy saw relatively strong capital inflows, largely due to remittances from Palestinian workers in Israel and the Gulf countries. 

Things changed after Hamas gained power in Gaza in 2006 when Israel relinquished its control of the enclave. Hamas has not held an election in Gaza since.

Not only did the Palestinians lose out on working in Israel after Hamas took over Gaza, their trade with the Egyptians also dissipated as Egypt views Hamas as a threat, with investments into the Palestinian Authority-governed West Bank no longer flowing into Gaza, Klowden said.

Since 2007, Gaza has been surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire fences after Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, saying the move was necessary to safeguard itself from Hamas’ attacks. The U.N. classifies Israel as an occupier state over the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

“When people ask me what does it take for Gaza to get back to where it was … We want to go back to where it was 20 years ago, not where it was two months ago,” said Khalidi.

The blockade and repeated wars with Israel since 2008 have hollowed out the enclave’s economy, with its anemic economic growth falling far behind that of the West Bank over the last 15 years, according to the International Monetary Fund. 

“It’s not been a situation where there’s been economic hope. And for the last 15 years, essentially, that’s been the situation,” Klowden said. “You have a very young population that doesn’t see hope out of that. It’s very hard to see an economic future out of that.”

As many as 65% of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the 140-square-mile sliver of land, between Israel and Egypt are under the age of 24.

“Ultimately, some form of a deal to end the conflict will have to be put in place,” said Clocktower Group’s Papic.

“But that deal is likely to have to see Gulf Arab monarchies and Saudi Arabia footing much of the bill for the viability of Gaza in the future.”

An exchange of fire between Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the armed forces in northern Israel signal that the conflict in Gaza could spread regionally.

With an Israeli ground incursion potentially imminent in the north of the Gaza Strip, the conflict could grow to involve other regional actors, including Hezbollah and potentially Iran, analysts say.

And if Hezbollah decides to join the conflict in neighboring Israel, “it will be nothing short of a game-changer,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told CNBC on Wednesday.

“Hamas is but the weak underling of Hezbollah, a much more formidable fighting force and widely recognized as the most powerful nonstate military in the world,” he added. “This will be a game-changer, not only for Israel, but also for the entire region.”

Hezbollah operates as both a political party and paramilitary group and is designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. It holds a great deal of power in Lebanon in the form of its Shiite political party, which holds 62 seats in the country’s Parliament, alongside its Iran-backed proxy militant unit.

Hezbollah, or the “Party of God,” was established during Lebanon’s civil war in 1982 with backing from Iran and support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The group strengthened after a war with Israel in 2006, and its military wing has grown to overtake Lebanon’s army as the main military force in the country.

Now, experts say, Hezbollah doesn’t have the domestic popular support it had in 2006 to support a military operation in Israel’s current war with Hamas.

Joseph Daher, author of “Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God,” told CNBC that Hezbollah “has become not only a key Lebanese political and military actor, it has become a key regional actor.” But he says the country’s Christian community are against or critical of Hezbollah.

“It’s the scale of it, that will depend on Hezbollah intervening or not,” Daher told CNBC. The group “has accumulated huge experience, especially on the Syrian military scene, but also in Iraq and to a lesser extent Yemen,” Daher added.

He explained that Hezbollah is “intrinsically ideologically, politically, militarily [and] economically linked to Iran,” while also being a Lebanese actor with its own autonomy.

Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut and the author “Hizbullah: A Mission to Nowhere” told CNBC that the militant group would hesitate to join the fight in full force.

“Irrespective of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s decision, Hezbollah will not open a front from south Lebanon against Israel because it will justify Israel to destroy Lebanon. Iran has already informed Israel and the U.S. through third parties that it will rein in Hezbollah,” he said.

On Friday, Hezbollah’s deputy chief, Naim Qassem, said his party was “fully ready” to contribute to the fighting, according to Reuters. “The behind-the-scenes calls with us by great powers, Arab countries, envoys of the United Nations, directly and indirectly telling us not to interfere will have no effect,” he said at a rally, according to a translation by the news agency.

Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis in history, with triple-digit inflation and a currency that has lost more than 90% of its value since the onset of an economic crisis in 2019. Almost three-quarters of the Lebanese people live below the poverty line.

The group rules over Lebanon with an iron fist, controlling most border crossings and wielding significant political influence, using its power to block key political appointments. Already spent from fighting alongside President Bashar Assad in Syria, as well as in Iraq and Yemen, a fresh front in Israel for Hezbollah could be crushing for the group, and experts say Iran may not want to use its strongest international militia fighting a fresh front in Gaza or in Israel to defend Hamas.

Hezbollah “do have to take into consideration public opinion in Lebanon,” Maksad told CNBC. Hezbollah’s own constituencies “are suffering war fatigue” and are “under the pressure of Lebanon’s financial collapse,” he added.

Netanyahu has hinted he will launch a ground invasion in Gaza in the coming days. In solidarity, the Biden administration has sent support in the form of a carrier strike group positioned in the Eastern Mediterranean, along with the U.S. secretary of State. The U.S. is “doing its utmost to try and deter Hezbollah and Iran from entering the war,” Maksad told CNBC.

The deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford is “the administration trying to contain the conflict,” he added.

The threat of Hezbollah’s force looms large in the region and according to professor Khashan, the group’s armed component “is equivalent to a medium-sized European army.”

“It can effortlessly defeat the Lebanese military or occupy Saudi Arabia,” he said, but added that Hezbollah “is trained to fight asymmetric warfare and has no chance against the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] in the event of a total war.”