INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT

01.07.02026

January ^7th, 2026

Greetings! Thus far, it’s been a really bad new year for Russian President Vladmir Putin. Ukraine continues holding parts of Pokrovsk – a key strategic city in the Donbas Putin claimed total control of last November.

AI image created by Grok. Putin, in a military uniform, sits helplessly as Russia begins to crack around him.

Putin was caught out in a silly lie by President Donald Trump after falsely claiming that the Ukrainians had attacked his personal residence in Valdai. Trump made that clear aboard Air Force One when he said, “We don’t believe that happened.”

Yesterday, led by France & Germany, a coalition of European countries signed letters of intent to provide Kyiv with robust post-war security guarantees – including a European-led peacekeeping force.

Today, Putin’s ragtag navy – including a nuclear-powered submarine – helplessly looked on while a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, U.S. Navy SEAL teams & military assets from the United Kingdom boarded & seized the Marinera oil tanker in the North Atlantic.

Tomorrow won’t be any better. When Putin wakes up – if he doesn’t already know – Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) announced that Trump has greenlit the Senate to proceed with secondary sanctions against Russia.

Putin’s economy – already dangerously stagnating – is about to go from bad to worse. Team Trump – finally! – seems to smell blood in the water & that blood belongs to Mad Vlad that is gushing from his faltering ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.

China isn’t fairing any better. In the aftermath of the U.S. military operation in Venezuela, Beijing has a lot of egg on its face after its air defense missile batteries failed to interdict U.S. planes, helicopters & drones used in the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Lots more to cover. Welcome to our new readers. Let’s get started – on a nonpartisan basis! – circling the globe placing into context the top stories & developments impacting U.S. national security & that of our global allies.

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NORTH AMERICA

Greenland continues to dominate the news. Trump’s refusal to take U.S. military intervention off the table is angering many in Washington & Brussels.

Photo credit: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP. Nuuk, Greenland.

Plus, as Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) – himself a former U.S. Air Force brigadier general – Trump’s negotiating posture is “demeaning, creates distrust, and has no upside.” It is only dividing NATO to Putin’s benefit & leading to self-defeating stories such as one in The Telegraph today claiming Danish forces will shoot first & ask questions later if U.S. military forces are ordered by Trump to invade Greenland.

As Mark said to host Sofi Nazarenko on War & Politics 24, yes, Greenland is vital to U.S. national security. But that said, as he continued, arbitrary U.S. military intervention in Greenland must be off the table.

The post-World War II global order is collapsing fast enough as is. The White House shouldn’t be speeding it along.

Trump appears to recognize that he is scoring an own goal here against himself. Earlier today, on Truth Social, the president reaffirmed that, “We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us. The only Nation that China and Russia fear and respect is the DJT REBUILT U.S.A.”

Image: screenshot of Trump’s January 7^th, 2026, Truth Social post.

His post also suggests that Trump has a growing sense he is creating a geo-strategic advantage over Putin & Chinese President Xi Jinping in the wake of bombing Iran’s nuclear sites in Fordo, Esfahan & Natanz last June and after capturing Maduro.

That said, time will tell if that remains the case. Nonetheless, it is notable that today, Trump also announced that U.S. defense spending should rise from $1 trillion annually to $1.5 trillion. That messaging won’t be lost on either Moscow or Beijing.

Image: screenshot of Trump’s January 7^th, 2026, Truth Social post.

Perhaps, the real takeaway here is the White House is learning – notwithstanding the ill-advised arguments otherwise by Vice President JD Vance & Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, -- that there is no pivoting away from one threat to confront another. Russia & China are both active threats to the U.S. & our allies.

Time will tell here as well whether the Secretary of State Marco Rubio & CIA Director John Radcliffe wing of the White House wins out over Vance & Colby. Hopefully so. As we have warned before, Colby’s view of the world needlessly risks Ukraine’s defeat.

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SOUTH AMERICA

Venezuela remains the primary focus of the region. Trump’s blockade continues & it is not yet fully clear how the U.S. fully intends to “run the country” as the president put it. We are getting more hints.

Earlier today Rubio outlined a three-stage plan. Underpinning the plan is what Rubio says is the “tremendous leverage and control” Washington now has over Caracas given the ongoing U.S. blockade.

He said the first phase is stabilizing Venezuela. The second is “recovery” in large part fueled by U.S. trade deals – especially oil.

The third?

Transitioning to a new democratically elected government. Critics argue that’s putting profits before liberty. Realists argue there is no other way absent large numbers of U.S. boots on the ground to get rid of Chavismos – supporters of former President Hugo Chávez – who still control the levers of power.

Our take?

There is no easy answer here.

As Mark emphasized on Q News yesterday, while you can debate tactics, what isn’t up for debate is that Venezuela in many ways is a failed state. Re-establishing its footing – especially one based on democracy – will not be an easy lift.

For now, Marina Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace prize winner & leader of the opposition, is on the outside looking in. Why?

The Central Intelligence Agency assessed prior to Maduro’s ouster “determined [that] top members of Nicolás Maduro’s regime—including Vice President Delcy Rodríguez—would be best positioned to lead a temporary government in Caracas and maintain near-term stability.”

Elsewhere, in the Caribbean, the U.S. continues interdicting sanctioned oil tankers. Two more were seized today.

Plus, a day after Trump threatened Colombia, Mexico & Cuban, the president appeared to extend an olive branch to Colombian President Gustavo Petro. This comes on the heels of Trump saying on Sunday that “Colombia … run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it for very long, let me tell ya.”

Image: screenshot of Trump’s January 7th, 2026, Truth Social post.

Clearly, Trump is trying to apply maximum leverage to bring Latin America countries into line with what has now been dubbed as “The Donroe Doctrine.” It may work for now, but it does beg the question at what future cost to Washington?

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EUROPE

History may record one day that the North Atlantic is where Putin’s would-be Peter the Great-like empire began to die.

The seizure of the Bella 1 – which was hastily renamed the Marinera & re-registered as a Russian-flagged ship based in Sochi – by the U.S. & U.K. today is about as humiliating as it gets for Putin. Especially since his submarine could only standby & watch.

Military impotence is hard to overcome. Yet now, in the aftermath of the seizure, that is what Putin is facing.

Time will still tell what, if anything was on board the Marinera. We explored that yesterday & you can read more about that here.

In the here & now, however, where Putin really lost this week was in Paris. Europe – especially France, Germany & the U.K. – opened the Pandora’s Box regarding European-led Article 5-like security guarantees for a post-war Ukraine that are to be backstopped by the U.S. Putin will not easily shut that box again.

Ukraine now has a baseline. One, that heretofore was a Russian redline. Good luck changing that Vladimir!

That said, as Mark cautioned in a discussion with Ashim Kumar on TVP World, the war in Ukraine is not yet won.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky & his generals still need gamechangers. Implementing a no-fly zone over Western Ukraine would be one way. Especially to protect the country’s civilian energy infrastructure as we head into the heart of winter.

However, hope looms. Russia’s economy is stuck in the mud. Tomorrow, in The Hill, we detail just how stuck in our weekly Thursday 7AM ET national security column. You will be able to read it here when it goes live.

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MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

Iran continues to burn. The size & scale of the protests, however, remain difficult to determine. For now, the most intense appear to be in poor areas of cities or in separatist-leaning regions of the country.

(Note: many of these separatist factions in Iran – such as the Kurds – are opposed to the Islamic Republican & its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Were exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to return to power, it is more likely than not that they would remain part of a free & secular Iran.)

Thus far, the Institute for the Study of War and Critical Threats have “recorded 89 protests across 21 provinces in Iran since its last data cutoff on January 6.”

Used with ISW permission. Credit: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project.

That said, what is notable is that Israel, despite getting a greenlight from Trump to proceed as needed in Lebanon against Iranian-back Hezbollah forces operating south of the Litani River in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, is for now holding off.

Why?

Partly as messaging to Hezbollah – as Mark pointed out on Al Qahera News in Cairo, Egypt today – that this is one last chance for Naim Qassem, the leader of Hezbollah, to comply & fully disarm in accordance with the ceasefire they reached with Israel on November 27^th, 2024.

There is another reason. Israel does not want to get in the way of any potential Iranian revolution or U.S. action to potentially depose Khamenei & his regime.

Waiting also buys the government of Lebanon time. As the former Lebanese Major General told Mark today on Al Qahera News, Lebanon wants to be free of Hezbollah as a paramilitary force controlled by Tehran.

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INDO-PACIFIC

In today’s most underreported story, a Japanese reporter from TV Tokyo asked a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman why their anti-aircraft systems were of “little practical use” against U.S. aircraft, drones & helicopters.

Why indeed?

By the way, the Chinese spokesman was not amused.

Beijing will have to factor that answer into any decision to militarily attempt to forcibly take Taiwan.

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Thanks for reading! We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment and share. We truly appreciate it!

Jon & Mark

Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.

Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.