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VERSAILLES
On the night of June 17, 2026, Donald Trump signed the Iran memorandum of understanding at the Palace of Versailles, seated beside Emmanuel Macron. Trump confirmed it to reporters outside the palace, “It’s signed. Signed in Versailles. Just signed it.” The White House shared a video on social media. Macron posted on X, “President Trump signed tonight at Versailles the agreement between Iran and the United States. This agreement paves the way for lasting peace and allows the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.”
The signing sequence matters. On Sunday, Vice President Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signed the document digitally, with Trump witnessing. On Wednesday at Versailles, Trump signed the hard copy. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed separately. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baqaei specifically insisted the document exist in both English and Persian, saying “If the text were only in English, we might have encountered subjective translations. The Persian text is fully aligned with the English text and is fully valid from our perspective.” Vance travels to Switzerland on Friday for a ceremonial event. The MOU is already in force.
Three National Iranian Tanker Company vessels switched their AIS tracking systems back on June 16 and are already sailing past the US blockade in anticipation of the deal. The IAEA said Thursday it was ready to begin defining concrete steps for implementation. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said, “Now it’s for us to sit down with our American colleagues, our Iranian colleagues, and start formulating the concrete steps that will have to be taken.”
Lebanon is where the deal remains untested. Israel’s Defense Minister Katz said Thursday, “We will not compromise on Israel’s security interests and the protection of our citizens, and we will not withdraw from the security zones.” Al Jazeera confirmed there has been a reduction in violence since the MOU was announced — but attacks have not stopped. Katz added a direct warning to Iran, “If Iran attacks Israel because of the events in Lebanon, we will strike it with full force.” Point 1 of the MOU covers Lebanon. Israel’s position on Lebanon has not changed.
The Israeli opposition’s verdict on the deal came from Joint List Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi, “Trump’s greatest achievement is to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war began.”
The war started on February 28. The Strait was open on February 27. More than 7,300 people are dead.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The choice of Versailles was not incidental. It was Macron’s choice, and the rest of the world understands what it means even if the man signing the document did not.
The Palace of Versailles has been the setting for three of the most consequential diplomatic moments in modern Western history. In 1783, on the same day America signed its Treaty of Paris, France concluded its own peace with Britain at Versailles. France had helped America win that war. In 1871, the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, one of the most humiliating moments in French history, enacted in France's most magnificent room. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the same Hall of Mirrors, ending the First World War and imposing terms on Germany that many historians argue contributed to the conditions that made the Second World War possible.
Macron chose this room. He chose it for a president who has spent his second term undermining NATO, threatening European economies with tariffs, calling European allies “cowards,” and excluding South Africa from a G7 hosted in France at American insistence. He chose it for a president who told reporters he had planned to leave France early until “a very nice man” invited him to dinner.
French political figures who went to bed Wednesday calling the dinner grovelling woke up Thursday morning to Macron having positioned France as the venue where a war ended. The conversation in Paris shifted overnight. The French political class’s objections did not disappear — but the calculus changed. There are no small stages at Versailles.
The signing reverses the maximum pressure policy Trump himself launched in 2018 when he withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear agreement. France was a signatory to that agreement. It is now the country where its successor was signed.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The war with Iran is over — on paper. The MOU is signed. Tankers are already moving. Gas is at $4.00 per gallon this morning. On March 5, the day this publication launched its war coverage, it was $3.25. It peaked at $4.56 on May 21. It was $2.98 the day before the war began. Ahmad Tibi’s line deserves to be read twice.
Sources: The Hill (US — signing confirmed, Scavino statement, Trump outside palace quote); ABC News live blog (US — signing sequence, Vance/Ghalibaf Sunday, Pezeshkian hard copy, White House official statement); Tribune India/ANI (India — Macron X post confirmed, full quote); Gulf News (UAE — IAEA Grossi quote, Persian/English dual text, Baqaei statement, tankers AIS confirmed, Trump G7 press conference); Times of Israel (Israel, centre-right — Katz Lebanon vow, Tibi quote, Israeli opposition reaction, Lebanon attacks continuing); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — reduction confirmed, attacks not stopped); Nation Press (India — JCPOA reversal context, France’s role as JCPOA participant); Fox News live blog (US — Katz full statement, Iran-Russia helicopter procurement, Treaty of Versailles historical framing)
UKRAINE STRIKES MOSCOW
In the early hours of Thursday, June 18, Ukraine launched the largest drone attack on Moscow since the war began. Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 555 Ukrainian drones across multiple regions overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that almost 200 were intercepted approaching the capital alone. Several drones reached the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district, 15 kilometers from the Kremlin. The refinery supplies up to 40% of Moscow’s fuel market and roughly 70% of gasoline consumed in Moscow and the surrounding region. It was being struck for the second time this week. Flights from four Moscow airports were halted. Fires burned across the city.
Sobyanin confirmed residential damage across multiple districts. A multistory apartment building in Zhukovsky was struck and its residents evacuated. A home in Elektrostal was damaged, a woman sustaining a minor shoulder injury. Drone debris damaged a fitness center, a shopping center, and an industrial zone in Lyubertsy. Fires burned in the cottage towns of Chekhov and Pavlovsky Posad. A separate Ukrainian drone strike on an oil depot in Gukovo, Rostov Oblast, killed one person and injured two others.
Zelenskyy confirmed the attack on social media, “Our long-range sanctions once again reached the Moscow region: for the second time in a week, the Moscow Oil Refinery was hit. A completely fair response to Russian strikes on our cities and communities, and another important result of the work of our soldiers against facilities that support the Russian war machine.” He noted that the attack came hours after “an important coordination call” with Trump and Macron that “may bring about significant change.”
The coordination call detail is the story within the story. Ukraine struck Moscow’s fuel infrastructure on the same night the US and Iran signed a peace deal at Versailles, and Zelenskyy says that strike was coordinated with Trump and Macron. Ukraine is not waiting for Washington’s attention to return. It is making its own history simultaneous to everyone else’s.
The Moscow Oil Refinery has now been struck twice in a week. In May, ten major Russian oil refineries were struck by Ukraine, with six either fully or partially suspending operations. Russia’s crude production fell to its lowest level in a year. The sustained campaign is assessed to be opening deeper operational corridors into Russian territory as its air defense network struggles to keep pace with the volume of Ukrainian drones.
One question I have been coming back to is: if Ukraine is systematically destroying Russian oil infrastructure, why haven’t global energy markets reacted the way they did when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz? I did a little digging and discovered that the answer is the difference between a chokepoint and a reroute. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20% of all globally traded oil through a single 33-kilometer passage with no alternative route. When Iran closed it, those barrels disappeared from global markets entirely. Russian oil is different. Since 2022, Russia has been cut off from Western markets and adapted — its exports flow through a shadow fleet to India, China, and Turkey at discounted prices. The refineries Ukraine is hitting supply Russia’s domestic market: Moscow’s fuel, aviation fuel, diesel for military logistics. Disrupting them damages Russia’s war machine and internal economy. It does not remove barrels from the global export market. The Moscow Oil Refinery supplies 40% of Moscow’s fuel. The world’s oil markets do not depend on Moscow’s fuel supply. Hormuz was a tap. Russian refineries are pipes inside the house.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: Ukraine launched its largest-ever drone attack on Moscow overnight, striking the city’s main oil refinery for the second time in a week, shutting four airports, and starting fires across multiple districts. Zelenskyy says the attack was coordinated with Trump and Macron on the same night the Iran deal was signed at Versailles. Russia’s energy infrastructure is under sustained, escalating attack. The war in Ukraine is not winding down.
Sources: Bloomberg (US — 194 drones downed over Moscow, refinery confirmed, June 18 0540 AM UTC); ABC News (US — 555 total drones, four airports halted, Zelenskyy quote, June 18 0425 AM); MS NOW/NBC News (US — second refinery hit in week, Zelenskyy coordination call with Trump and Macron); Kyiv Post (Ukraine — MNPZ Gazprom Neft, 40%/70% supply figures, Zelenskyy social media confirmation, Rostov depot, second hit this week); Kyiv Independent (Ukraine — residential damage confirmed, Zhukovsky/Elektrostal/Lyubertsy detail, Rostov one killed two injured — caveat noted: could not verify all reports at publication); UNITED24 Media (Ukraine — drone corridor analysis, May campaign context, ten refineries struck, six suspending operations)
WAR DAY 111 | NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION
🇮🇷 Iran: 3,468 killed, 26,500+ injured (Iran Ministry of Health, via Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 10)
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 3,696 killed, 11,413 injured (Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 10)
🇮🇱 Israel: 26 killed, 7,791 injured (Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 10)
🌍 Gulf states/Iraq: 131 killed — Iraq 118, Kuwait 7, Bahrain 3, Oman 3 (Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 10)
🇺🇸 US military: 13 killed, 381 injured (Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 10)
🛢️ Brent crude: $77.75/barrel (OilPrice.com — below $78 for the first time; down $18.39 from the May 25 peak of $96.14)
⛽ US national gas average: $4.00/gallon (AAA)
Sourcing note: All war casualty figures sourced to the Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 10, 2026. Iran figure sourced to Iran’s Ministry of Health. Lebanon figure from Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health via Al Jazeera tracker. Figures should be treated as floor estimates; Lebanon and Gaza strikes have continued since June 10. Methodology differs between sources; figures are not directly comparable.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
