Ukrainian deep strikes are hollowing out both sides' war economies — driving a fresh Russian wholesale-fuel spike and keeping Ukraine's steel exports crippled — while the eastern NATO flank hardens against hybrid threats. In parallel, the confirmed Gemini autonomous-hacking breach turns AI-agent containment failures into a recurring risk story, alongside a near-certain new North Korean missile cycle and mounting scrutiny of off-balance-sheet AI data-center debt.

I restated this from the negative ('no IRIS² will launch') to an affirmative claim about continued interim dependence, keeping the probability of the affirmative event. The structural logic is very strong: a concession signed late 2024 targeting ~2030 services, launch slots not before 2029, and the well-documented tendency of European institutional space programs to slip. The signal cited describes ground-segment/deployment contracting, not orbital hardware. This is a low-volatility structural forecast where I trust the Military analyst (weight 1.00) and the Skeptic (86). Confirming evidence (first spacecraft shipment to a launch site) would be highly visible and is absent. I hold at 0.86 — marginally below the analyst's 0.87 only to leave room for a surprise accelerated demonstration launch.