Macro tightening anchors today's outlook: with futures now pricing possible Fed hikes rather than cuts, a year-end hold is the base case, while sanctions pressure on Russia intensifies on two fronts — a US House bill advancing and confirmed AI-assisted Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine's defense industry. Domestic-control stories round out the picture, from Syria's spreading fuel protests to China's new exit-control law taking effect.

My fact-check confirmed the core claim: Anthropic disclosed (within the last few days) a Russian-linked actor using Claude as an automation/'weapons-engineering assistant' against dozens of Ukrainian defense and government targets. This puts the forecast at confirmation stage — the behavior is already occurring — rather than speculation, and the AI-industry chain is in escalation. Continuation/acceleration over 90 days is therefore highly likely given Moscow's clear motivation. Two caveats keep me below 0.80: the cybersecurity analyst has no track record (default weight), and the word 'accelerate' is somewhat vague to resolve cleanly. Skeptic at 72 / adjusted 0.68; I raise to 0.76 because the confirmed baseline makes the base rate of continuation high. Pillars: Network Theory, Game Theory. This is not one of my failing sectors.