The Ukraine war's escalation phase dominates today's outlook — Kyiv's record drone strike on Moscow virtually guarantees both a Russian retaliatory surge against Kyiv and a wave of FSB collaboration arrests — while the Iran-war aftermath continues to drag in the Gulf, with a confirmed drone strike near the UAE's Barakah nuclear plant set to trigger U.S. naval reinforcement, expanded air-defense deployments, and a predictable pro-Iran disinformation campaign.

Forecast memory shows three recent resolved forecasts in this exact pattern (Ukrainian deep strikes on Russian energy / Moscow) all closing at P=0.94-0.95 and resolving CORRECT (Brier ~0.0025). The base rate during active escalation is near-certain on a 14-day horizon. Fact-check confirms the Kapotnya hit on May 17 plus a record-breaking strike package. Russia-Ukraine chain is in ESCALATION with purity 0.46 dominated by 'Real War Escalation' (60%), and the Skeptic only flagged the narrowness of 'Moscow oil' specifically (vs. any deep strike). I keep that narrower target but ease back from the 0.95 base rate to 0.85 to (a) account for my +15pp military-sector overprediction bias and (b) cover the case where strikes hit Russian energy elsewhere (Ryazan, Tuapse) but spare the Moscow basin within the window. Pillars: psychohistory (recurring pattern), game theory (escalation logic).