Ukrainian drones took out three data centers owned by Yandex, the internet conglomerate sometimes referred to as Russia’s Google, last week in retaliation for Russian strikes on its data centers. The strikes caused severe disruptions across the country, impeding Russians’ ability to send emails, make payments, and navigate the streets. "These strikes will have minimal effect on the global race to develop and adopt artificial intelligence," writes expert @ConnorMauthor. "Russia is nowhere close to the cutting edge of the field . . . hamstrung by lack of access to cutting-edge chips and by a brain drain of engineers." “But the bigger implication of the Ukrainian strikes is that they have laid bare a fundamental risk to the development and deployment of AI worldwide: its physical infrastructure is vulnerable.” “Companies and nations seeking to protect their data centers should therefore pursue a strategy of redundancy and resiliency.” “At its highest levels of performance, AI’s capabilities can appear otherworldly—but it is fundamentally a technology dependent on physical things. Defending it is just a new version of the oldest problem in warfare: how to hit your enemy’s infrastructure while stopping them from hitting yours.” "As long as they provide value, data centers will be targets," Martin writes. "Countries and companies are well advised to prepare for that future now.”

“Most states even today reward utilities for selling you more energy and penalize them for cutting your bill,” says Amory Lovins, cofounder and chairman emeritus of the Rocky Mountain Institute. “There are hosts of perverse incentives like this, carefully designed often by the incumbents who do very nicely out of selling the energy.”

When President Donald Trump announced a deal to buy diesel from Russia, “it was easy to shrug off the move as a feeble effort to limit energy prices in advance of the midterms,” writes expert Stephen Sestanovich. The story now looks "disturbingly different; the possible consequences, much more serious, and likely to last well beyond the midterms." A day after announcing new diesel imports from Russia, Trump began calling for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s removal from office. He followed this up by claiming that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to suspend attacks on each other’s main energy targets. "This, it quickly became clear, was pure invention. Reports suggested what had actually happened was that U.S. negotiators were pressing the Ukrainian government to do something far more radical than a mutual ceasefire—to cease its attacks unilaterally, whether Russia complied or not," Sestanovich writes. “It is hard to overstate how much this new public hostility by U.S. officials—above all, the president—has disoriented Ukraine’s leadership,” he writes. “In searching for a new way to handle Trump, Ukraine’s leadership has seemed suddenly at sea." "Rather than see the prospect of postwar riches as the key that will bring Putin to the table, he now acts as though pressure—on Zelenskyy, not Putin—will be the crucial instrument of a breakthrough,” Sestanovich argues.

Cyber-enabled scams are spreading globally with the aid of emerging technologies like AI. In Southeast Asia, criminal networks are using AI to traffic individuals into scam centers and leveraging the technology to deceive fraud victims. CFR expert Rita Fernández conducted field research in Thailand to learn how AI is used to enable human trafficking. She spoke with law enforcement, civil society, and government officials. "Conditions in the scam compounds are harrowing," she writes. "Victims are stripped of their passports and belongings, threatened, beaten, and tortured." "Some are told they need to work to repay travel expenses they incurred and to regain access to their passports. If they resist working, or fail to meet quotas, they may be denied food or subjected to psychological abuse, leaving them with no choice but to comply." “AI is not limited to use in cyber scams and human trafficking—law enforcement has seen a steady increase in broader AI use in crime." "Just as individuals can use AI to become more productive at work and in the classroom, criminal networks can use it to improve their efficiency as well," one source told Fernández.

President Trump announced a new diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 9 to the surprise of many U.S. allies. Experts argue the agreement could undercut Western economic pressure on Russia and solidarity efforts with Ukraine while doing little to lower fuel prices. “The announcement of the deal is really for political effect at home, to try to influence voters in this election,” expert Vijay Vaitheeswaran said. “The idea that there might be lower prices coming because of an innovative deal that President Trump did, with his relationship with Putin, sounds pretty good [to voters].” Beyond lowering fuel prices, the Trump administration reportedly hopes the deal will signal Washington’s openness to working with Moscow and bring the country back to the negotiating table to end the war. Few experts believe the diesel deal will have much of an effect on global oil markets in the near future. Instead, several said it would only bolster Russia economically and further strain transatlantic unity. “The diesel deal shows that Washington’s Russia policy is now driven by high prices at the pump before the November 3 midterm elections, rather than by any shared transatlantic strategy,” expert @m2matthijs said. “The irony is that the U.S., and especially President Trump, has lectured the Europeans for years about the dangers of buying Russian energy; now it is easing sanctions to buy Russian diesel itself, without consulting anyone in Europe.” Whether or not it is implemented, the surprise diesel deal has strained relations between the United States and its allies. “For many EU leaders, [the diesel deal] is further proof that the Europeans can no longer afford to outsource their security policy and can no longer rely on the United States to contain Russia,” Matthijs said.