Vladimir Putin is reportedly helping the Houthis blitz British and US ships in a major escalation – bringing Russia and the West on a collision course.
The Yemeni group has disrupted global shipping over the past year terrorising the Red Sea by seizing cargo ships or blowing them up.
Many British and US ships have got caught up in the blitz as they have brought cargo to and from foreign ports through the Suez Canal.
Russia is providing the group satellite targeting data for its missiles and drones, the Wall Street Journal has now revealed.
The data is reaching the group after being passed through members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards embedded with the militants.
The newspaper cited two European defence officials and a person familiar with the matter.
Cooperation between Russia and Iran comes as the pair get closer – with Iran sending weapons for Putin to use in Ukraine.
The “Axis of Evil” was on show this week with Vlad’s emotions boiling over at the final press conference of his three-day BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.
Granted the last question at the event, the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg pressed Putin on how he can justify the war and continued conflict.
Putin denied that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its backing of sprawling conflicts around the world had not threatened his own country’s security.
The Houthis launched their campaign following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack as they sought to help their Iranian-proxy pal.
Car carrier Galaxy Leader was snatched by the Houthis when crack troops flew onto it with a helicopter in November last year.
Earlier this month footage emerged of a drone striking a British oil tanker causing a massive explosion.
The Houthis have kept up the attacks over the last year as Israel has continued its war against Hamas in Gaza.
It comes as secret documents show the last orders by slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The orders – for the Israeli hostages still held by the terror group he ran – include an order to “take care of the lives of enemy prisoners and secure them, since they are the bargaining chip in our hands”.
The handwritten notes – Sinwar’s “final wills and instructions” – were published by Palestinian paper Al-Quds.
Another note tells his fighters that the only way to release Palestinian prisoners from jail is to guard “the enemy’s prisoners”.
He adds that those who carry out their “duty” will be rewarded.
The documents also include identifying details about 71 remaining hostages, including their names, ages, and genders.
Graphic images shared online on Thursday appeared to show his dead body in the ruins of the struck building in Rafah, with a horrific head wound.
The army later released footage of Sinwar’s final moments, hunched over and wounded inside a bombed building in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel shared declassified footage that showed Sinwar fleeing into secret Gaza tunnels on the night before the October 7 attacks.
The Houthis, designated a “global terrorist” group by Washington, have previously draped it in Yemeni and Palestinian flags and anti-American and anti-Israeli banners.
Around 12 per cent of all global trade normally passes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the now-under-attack 20-mile-wide stretch of the Red Sea also known as the “Gate of Tears”.
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