Iraq is planning four “Sovereignty Days” to mark the exit of the last British and American troops, about a hundred of them at Irbil, packing up after a mission that began in 2014. The prime minister says Iraq now assumes “full responsibility” for its security. I’d like to believe that sentence, and I know exactly which drone is making it hard.

That was the one in mid-September that hit Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, launched from Iraqi territory near the Iranian border. Baghdad removed a commander and opened investigations, which is what a government does when it is embarrassed and not yet sure who to be embarrassed at. So the country gets its holiday about three weeks after someone demonstrated that the state doesn’t fully control its own launch sites. Foreign troops leaving doesn’t create a vacuum, exactly. It just removes the one party everyone else had to be polite around. Turkey, if this morning’s coverage is right, is already measuring the room.

Meanwhile, Russia hit Kyiv’s power supply harder than at any point since spring, including the Trypilska plant, which the defence ministry named outright as a target. Two weeks ago Zelensky offered to pause attacks if Russia spared infrastructure, and Trump announced a truce that nobody seemed to be observing. Ukraine’s prime minister says there hasn’t been a day without a strike on the grid since summer, so this is more of the same, only bigger.

Winter is the deadline both sides can see coming. What does “sovereignty” mean for a Kyiv apartment in January?

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