Latest / The President's Daily Brief / September 23rd, 2026: Britain Joins Saudi Arabia’s Fight With the Houthis & Russia’s $7 Billion Financial Network

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September 23rd, 2026: Britain Joins Saudi Arabia’s Fight With the Houthis & Russia’s $7 Billion Financial Network · The President's Daily Brief

0:12
It's Wednesday,
0:12
the 23rd of September.
0:14
Welcome to the President's Daily Brief.
0:16
I'm Mike Baker,
0:17
your eyes and ears on the world stage,
0:20
and yes,
0:20
I am back on the road.
0:23
And also,
0:24
yes,
0:24
I am wearing a cardigan.
0:25
Thank you for noticing.
0:27
All right,
0:27
let's get briefed.
0:28
First up,
0:29
Saudi Arabia is getting help from Britain as the Houthi fight intensifies
0:34
with an RAF tanker heading in to support Saudi aircraft
0:38
while Riyadh works to restore a critical oil pipeline
0:42
damaged in a drone attack.
0:44
Later in the show,
0:45
a Kremlin-backed financial network allegedly moved nearly $7 billion
0:50
through major international banks
0:52
using forged documents and front companies,
0:55
exposing another hole in the West's efforts to isolate Russia.
1:00
Plus,
1:00
US intelligence says Russia is once again targeting an American election,
1:05
using covert online influence campaigns and
1:08
AI generated content
1:10
to undermine confidence ahead of the midterms.
1:13
And in today's back of the brief,
1:15
US officials are warning that Latin American drug cartels
1:19
are rapidly improving their drone capabilities,
1:22
giving criminal groups new tools for surveillance,
1:25
smuggling,
1:25
and potentially deadly attacks.
1:28
But first,
1:29
today's PDB spotlight.
1:32
Britain is stepping in to help Saudi Arabia
1:34
as Riyadh tries to contain the Iranian-backed Houthi offensive
1:38
and shore up its energy infrastructure.
1:41
Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the UK has
1:44
agreed to deploy a Royal Air Force Voyager tanker
1:47
from Cyprus
1:48
to provide air to air refueling for Saudi aircraft.
1:52
The mission is expected to last several weeks.
1:55
The UK government is describing the support as defensive.
1:59
The tanker will help Saudi aircraft stay airborne longer,
2:02
of course,
2:03
as they respond to Houthi missile and drone attacks.
2:06
Britain is not,
2:07
at least for now,
2:08
saying it intends to participate directly in offensive strikes inside Yemen.
2:13
Still,
2:14
this is a meaningful step,
2:16
particularly because the Saudis have been asking allies for help
2:20
as their own defense has come under increasing strain.
2:23
As we discussed yesterday,
2:25
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
2:27
had already been pressing President
2:29
Trump for greater American military involvement
2:31
as the Houti offensive accelerated.
2:34
Trump ultimately declined to launch US strikes,
2:37
despite the Pentagon
2:39
reportedly preparing options that came very close to being carried out.
2:43
Washington has continued providing intelligence and targeting assistance,
2:47
but Britain has now gone further by putting an RAF aircraft
2:51
directly into the Saudi defensive effort.
2:54
And this is not the first British military support
2:56
sent to the kingdom during the current conflict.
2:59
London had already deployed its Sky Sabre air defense system
3:03
to Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
3:05
The addition of an RAF tanker gives the Saudis something different
3:09
greater endurance for their own combat aircraft
3:12
at a time when they are trying to defend Saudi airspace and support operations
3:16
tied to the fighting in Yemen.
3:18
Riyadh clearly believes it needs the help.
3:21
Saudi-backed forces have struggled to halt the
3:24
Houthi advance along Yemen's western coast,
3:26
while missile and drone attacks have continued to put pressure on Saudi defenses.
3:31
The British deployment gives Riyadh more flexibility in the air,
3:35
but it also raises an obvious question
3:37
about where this goes
3:39
if the Iranian proxy offensive continues to gain ground.
3:43
Right now
3:44
Britain can describe this as a limited defensive mission.
3:47
But once you begin providing operational support to
3:50
aircraft involved in an active regional conflict,
3:54
well,
3:54
there's always the possibility that the mission expands.
3:57
That doesn't mean that the UK is about to start bombing Yemen,
4:01
but London is now more directly connected to how this fight develops.
4:05
At the same time,
4:06
Saudi Arabia got some better news today on another front.
4:09
The kingdom has restarted its east-west pipeline,
4:12
which
4:13
runs from Saudi Arabia's eastern oil producing regions
4:16
to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
4:19
Before it was knocked offline,
4:20
the pipeline had been carrying roughly 4 million barrels of crude per day,
4:25
with total capacity closer to 7 million.
4:28
The pipeline was hit in
4:29
a September 11th drone attack
4:32
that Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran-aligned militias operating from Iraq.
4:36
Three pumping stations were damaged.
4:39
Now,
4:39
nearly 2 weeks later,
4:41
Reuters reports that oil is moving through the line again,
4:45
but it's reportedly not back to full capacity,
4:47
and complete repairs
4:49
could still take another 6 to 8 weeks.
4:52
Saudi Aramco is preparing to resume exports through Yanbu.
4:55
The restart gives Riyadh some
4:57
much needed capacity
4:59
at a moment when moving oil through
5:01
the region has become considerably more complicated.
5:04
The East West pipeline has always been part of Saudi Arabia's insurance policy.
5:08
It gives the kingdom another way to move large volumes of crude
5:12
when shipping routes in the Gulf become unreliable.
5:16
Getting the line running again gives the Saudis
5:18
and global energy markets some breathing room.
5:21
But the pipeline attack also exposed another vulnerability.
5:25
The alternative route only works if the infrastructure feeding it remains intact,
5:30
and 3 damaged pumping stations were enough
5:34
to take a major export artery offline for nearly 2 weeks.
5:38
There's also the broader economic pressure to consider.
5:41
Every disruption to Saudi export capacity
5:44
adds another layer of uncertainty to global energy markets
5:48
already dealing with the war against Iran and the
5:51
collapse in normal commercial traffic
5:53
through the Strait of Hormuz.
5:55
News that the pipeline had restarted helped ease some of that pressure today,
5:59
but Riyadh is still operating with less capacity
6:02
and less redundancy than it would like.
6:05
However,
6:05
neither development,
6:06
the additional UK support,
6:08
nor the reopening of the pipeline
6:10
settles the underlying problem.
6:12
Saudi-backed forces still have to find a way to stop or reverse
6:17
the Iranian-backed Houthi advance.
6:20
All right.
6:21
Coming up next,
6:22
Russia allegedly moved nearly $7 billion
6:25
through global banks using forged documents and front companies,
6:29
and US intelligence says Moscow is targeting the midterms
6:33
with covert online influence campaigns and AI generated content.
6:38
Now,
6:38
to be fair,
6:39
interfering in elections has been a Russian
6:41
signature move since the Bolshevik revolution,
6:44
which,
6:44
if my
6:45
memory serves me correct,
6:47
goes back to 1917.
6:49
I'll be right back.
6:52
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8:00
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Welcome back to the BDB.
8:10
A new report is exposing a Kremlin-backed financial network
8:13
that allegedly used an industrial scale forgery scheme.
8:17
To funnel at least $6.9 billion through international banks,
8:22
preserving the financial lifelines Western sanctions were designed to remove.
8:27
That network is called A7.
8:29
It was established in Russia and Kyrgyzstan
8:31
by a Moldovan oligarch.
8:33
This sounds like a Bond movie,
8:35
doesn't it,
8:35
with support from a state-owned Russian bank
8:38
closely tied to the country's defense industry.
8:40
In simple terms,
8:42
a 7 acts like an international payment processor
8:45
combined with a foreign exchange middleman.
8:48
Think about how an American importer,
8:50
for example,
8:50
might use a bank or a payment company.
8:53
Convert dollars and pay a supplier overseas.
8:56
A7 offered Russian businesses the same basic service.
9:00
The difference is that A7 was built after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine
9:04
when Western sanctions cut major Russian banks off from SWIFT.
9:09
That's the secure messaging network that
9:11
banks use to coordinate international payments.
9:14
Without that access,
9:15
Russian companies found it much harder to pay foreign suppliers directly.
9:19
Moscow promoted A7 as an alternative
9:22
to the Western financial system.
9:24
The Moldovan oligarch boasted to Russia's state-run TASS news agency
9:29
that its system was immune to sanctions.
9:33
But hundreds of thousands of internal files obtained by the Financial Times FT
9:37
show that A7 did not replace the international banking system.
9:41
It allegedly used forged documents and foreign front companies
9:45
to sneak Russian payments back into it.
9:48
Now the FT has not disclosed how it obtained the files,
9:50
and some of the payments involved ordinary civilian trade.
9:54
Others were tied to highly sensitive purchases,
9:57
including military equipment and goods bought for Russian security services.
10:02
A 7 allegedly maintained thousands of corporate stamps,
10:05
changed customs codes,
10:06
and altered buyers,
10:08
sellers,
10:08
and delivery information.
10:10
Employees even removed Cyrillic characters to erase
10:13
what they called the Russian trace.
10:16
From there,
10:17
a front company could then deposit money at a bank connected to
10:20
SWIFT and present forged documents portraying
10:23
the transaction as legitimate commerce.
10:26
If the bank accepted the paperwork,
10:28
A7 could then settle a Russian client's foreign bill.
10:32
The FT identified 100 front companies and references to at least another 100.
10:37
At least 3 were based in the United Kingdom,
10:40
which sanctioned A7 back in May of 2025,
10:43
while another in Hungary apparently served as a conduit
10:46
into the European Union.
10:48
The largest single payer was a now closed Kyrgyzstan state body.
10:52
Interestingly,
10:53
just over half of the flows
10:55
ultimately ended in Chinese bank accounts.
10:58
Standard Chartered accounts in Hong Kong received
11:00
roughly $1.1 billion from A7 linked entities.
11:04
17 entities at first Abu Dhabi Bank
11:07
moved another $1.8 billion.
11:10
The records also connected A7 to accounts at DBS,
11:13
Citigroup,
11:14
Deutsche Bank,
11:15
and JPMorgan Chase.
11:17
Now the FT is not reporting that
11:19
these banks knowingly helped Russia evade sanctions.
11:23
The records show banks questioning transactions and closing accounts.
11:27
A7 allegedly
11:29
built its forgery operation to defeat those controls
11:32
when Standard Chartered placed holds on suspicious payments and
11:36
closed A7 linked accounts in early 2025.
11:39
The money flowing there dried up.
11:41
A7 responded
11:43
by shifting more of its business from Kyrgyzstan
11:45
to the United Arab Emirates.
11:48
The $6.9 billion may still represent only part of the operation.
11:52
The files reference another 17,500 payments of unknown value,
11:57
promissory notes worth more than $20 billion
12:01
and accounts involving billions of dollars in tether.
12:04
A7 claims it handles nearly 1/5 of Russia's foreign exchange transactions,
12:09
so A7 facilitated payments for military equipment and Russian security services.
12:14
While keeping international payment channels open
12:17
for Moscow's sanctions-hit economy,
12:19
for the US and its allies,
12:21
there are numerous lessons here.
12:23
A7's reliance on hundreds of front companies at a forgery factory
12:28
shows what Russia had to build
12:30
after losing direct access to parts of the global financial system.
12:34
Closing one suspicious account
12:36
simply sent a 7 to another bank,
12:38
another country,
12:39
and another set of forged documents.
12:42
All right.
12:43
Keeping the focus on Russia,
12:45
US intelligence says the Kremlin is once again trying to interfere
12:49
in an American election cycle
12:51
using online influence campaigns aimed at sowing distrust and division
12:55
ahead of November's midterm elections.
12:58
According to reporting from The New York Times,
13:00
classified intelligence assessments from recent months have determined
13:03
that Moscow has authorized another digital influence operation
13:07
targeting Americans across social media.
13:10
Now an important distinction here
13:12
US officials say they have not seen evidence that
13:15
Russia is trying to hack voting machines or manipulate the actual vote count.
13:20
Instead,
13:20
the focus appears to be on the information environment,
13:23
what people are seeing online,
13:25
what they believe,
13:26
and
13:26
whether they trust the election itself.
13:29
Ultimately,
13:30
the objective is to create distrust in the electoral process,
13:33
to attack the system's credibility,
13:36
and in that respect,
13:37
well,
13:38
the playbook is pretty familiar.
13:40
Since 2016,
13:41
US intelligence agencies have concluded that
13:43
Russia has conducted influence operations during every federal election cycle.
13:48
This latest campaign appears
13:50
less extensive and less coordinated than some of the earlier efforts.
13:54
That's according to officials,
13:55
but they say the basic objective is still to amplify existing political divisions
13:59
and create confusion.
14:01
And as usual,
14:02
the efforts adapt as the technology changes.
14:05
Researchers tracking Russian disinformation have recently identified
14:09
a network known as Operation Overload,
14:12
pushing fabricated videos and posts across platforms including X and Blue Sky.
14:18
Now a threat analysis firm called Grafica,
14:20
which has studied the operation,
14:22
says that the network regularly impersonates legitimate news organizations,
14:26
journalists,
14:27
researchers,
14:27
and public institutions
14:29
while using artificial intelligence to generate and amplify false content.
14:34
Over the past week,
14:35
that network has reportedly pushed a series of
14:37
videos targeting Democratic Senate candidates in competitive races.
14:42
Some of the posts were designed to look like legitimate reports from CNN,
14:46
the BBC,
14:47
and The New York Times.
14:49
One fake video used an image of actress Jamie Lee Curtis and
14:53
made it appear that she was criticizing Democrats over transgender issues.
14:58
Her publicist told the Times
14:59
there was no truth to it.
15:01
The video still managed to rack up nearly 200,000 views before the end of the day,
15:06
and that gives you an idea of what these operations are trying to do.
15:11
They don't necessarily need to create some sophisticated piece of propaganda.
15:15
They need content that just looks convincing enough,
15:18
travels quickly enough,
15:20
and
15:20
reaches enough people
15:22
before someone figures out that it's fake.
15:24
Once someone clicks or likes a fake post
15:27
and sends it along to friends or family,
15:29
well,
15:30
the damage is done.
15:31
And artificial intelligence makes that considerably easier.
15:35
Russians can now generate fake video,
15:37
fake audio,
15:38
fake news graphics,
15:39
and localized political content
15:41
much faster and more cheaply
15:43
than it could during the 2016 election.
15:46
Some intelligence assessments conclude that the main goal
15:48
is to inject chaos into the election environment.
15:51
Yeah,
15:52
that's a pretty good assessment.
15:53
That said,
15:53
the specific examples that researchers have identified recently
15:57
have targeted Democratic candidates in swing states,
16:00
including Senator Jon Ossoff in Georgia
16:02
and several
16:03
Democratic Senate challengers
16:05
elsewhere around the country.
16:07
Russia is also not the only foreign government US intelligence is watching.
16:12
Officials say Iran may conduct influence operations around the midterms as well,
16:16
though they've seen relatively little activity directly
16:19
traced to the regime so far.
16:21
Mehta identified a small network of Iranian accounts last month
16:25
focused on American politics,
16:27
some of which used AI generated content.
16:30
China is of course another concern.
16:33
US intelligence assesses that Beijing could try to influence
16:36
individual congressional races or target lawmakers it considers hostile
16:41
to Chinese interests,
16:43
but officials say China generally operates more cautiously than
16:46
Russia or Iran
16:48
because Beijing is more concerned about
16:50
being caught and triggering political blowback.
16:53
Russia,
16:54
on the other hand,
16:55
has shown repeatedly considerably less concern
16:58
about attribution.
17:01
All right.
17:01
Coming up in the back of the brief,
17:03
drug cartels are reportedly getting much better at drone warfare.
17:07
That's according to a new US assessment
17:09
raising concerns that
17:10
battlefield tactics are making their way into the hands of criminal networks.
17:15
More on that when we come back.
17:18
Hey,
17:18
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In today's back of the brief,
19:41
we've been tracking the drug cartels' increasing use of drones,
19:45
and a new assessment warns that
19:47
their capabilities are advancing faster than authorities may be able to keep up.
19:52
Now the reality is cartels have been using drones for years.
19:55
They use them to watch security forces,
19:58
scout smuggling routes,
19:59
and in some cases
20:00
carry explosives.
20:02
But officials in the US and south of the border
20:04
worry about how much more the drones can do and how quickly the people flying them
20:10
are learning to evade authorities.
20:12
According to an internal government assessment obtained by the Washington Post,
20:16
cartels are studying tactics from the war in Ukraine,
20:19
including
20:19
how to switch radio frequencies
20:22
when someone tries to jam a drone.
20:24
They're also looking for aircraft that can stay
20:25
in the air longer and carry heavier loads,
20:28
so you can imagine how that adds complexity
20:31
to the counter-narcotics effort.
20:33
A Mexican intelligence document reviewed by the Post says at least one cartel
20:38
already has drones with 6 to 8 propellers
20:40
that can fly for hours and carry more than 150 pounds.
20:44
A Mexican intelligence official also told the Post
20:48
that a cartel sent people to China to buy drones that can be fitted with rifles.
20:52
The official believes the group
20:54
is still learning how to operate them,
20:56
but more capable advanced drones are only part of the threat.
21:00
Cartels are also trying to recruit skilled drone operators.
21:04
A senior State Department official told the Post
21:06
that Colombian fighters have served in both Kiev and Moscow
21:10
and have since returned home with drone knowledge
21:12
that benefits drug trafficking groups.
21:15
According to a Mexican official,
21:16
cartels have offered returning Colombian specialists large sums of money and
21:20
brought some to Mexico to train groups of pilots known as dronneros.
21:25
One US official says tactics learned in Ukraine
21:28
could begin appearing in cartel operations soon if they haven't already.
21:32
And the concern does go further.
21:35
An American official involved in counter-narcotics operations told the Post
21:38
that cartels are sending their own affiliates to the Ukraine battlefields
21:42
on year-long contracts.
21:44
The official expects them to return
21:46
way better trained
21:48
with way better equipment,
21:49
end quote.
21:50
Ukraine disputes the suggestion that this is happening on a large scale.
21:55
Its defense ministry says foreign recruits undergo
21:58
background checks,
21:59
and a Ukrainian official said there's little evidence
22:02
that many joined specifically to bring military
22:04
skills back to criminal groups or cartels.
22:08
Retired General Glenn van Herk,
22:09
who formerly led US Northern Command and NORAD,
22:12
warns that cartels could use battlefield tactics
22:15
to counter government surveillance drones,
22:17
quote,
22:18
potentially even attacking them.
22:20
And you can already see how quickly armed
22:22
groups in Colombia are adopting that tactic.
22:24
Armed conflict location and event data figures that are cited by the Post
22:29
show incidents involving weaponized drones in Colombia
22:32
jumped from 38 in 2024
22:35
to 149 in 2025
22:38
and have already surpassed 200 so far this year.
22:41
As I've covered here on the PDB,
22:43
the US has deployed high energy lasers along the southern border
22:48
to counter cartel drones.
22:50
Military officials
22:51
say those systems brought down 11 cartel-linked drones between
22:55
late August and early September of this year.
22:59
And that,
22:59
my friends,
22:59
is the president's daily brief for Wednesday,
23:02
the 23rd of September.
23:03
Now,
23:03
if you have any questions or comments,
23:04
and I hope you do,
23:05
just reach out to me at PDB@thefirstv.com.
23:10
And finally,
23:10
if you'd like an ad-free PDB experience,
23:13
well,
23:13
you can do that.
23:13
It's very simple.
23:14
Just become a premium member
23:16
of the President's Daily Brief
23:18
by visiting PDBpremium.com.
23:20
I'm Mike Baker,
23:21
and I'll be back later today with the PDB
23:24
afternoon bulletin.
23:25
Until then.
23:26
Stay informed,
23:27
stay safe.
23:28
Stay cool.