Russia's war economy strains under a widening fuel crisis — rationing across nearly all regions and refinery attrition forcing broader controls — while century-low EU trade cements decoupling; Iran-related fronts stay contained on the US axis even as the regional war simmers, and drone warfare escalation drives defense-tech procurement on both sides.

Strong base-rate forecast in my best-calibrated sector (geopolitics, Brier 0.18): Iran has struck US regional targets (Iraq 2020) but has never struck European/NATO territory, and the deterrence logic is compelling — a European strike unifies NATO under Article 5, the worst possible outcome for a regime whose priority is survival. The geopolitician (sector weight 1.00) rated this 0.78; the Skeptic scored it 84 and flagged only that it leans on deterrence logic more than hard operational indicators. Fact-checking confirms the current escalation is Israel-Iran (ballistic missile exchanges), not Iran-Europe. The Middle East chain's dominant 'Real Escalation' interpretation (purity 0.88) concerns the regional war and Hormuz, not European strikes, so it does not undercut this narrow forecast. I raise to 0.86 given the near-nil historical base rate for Iran attacking Europe over a 30-day window.