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Evening Brief: Israel Takes out Hezbollah Leader in Lebanon, Trump Calls Ukraine Ungrateful Again, Royal Navy Intercepts Russian Ships in English Channel

BY Guy D. McCardle

On a weekend when Israel took out Hezbollah’s military brain in Beirut, Trump hammered Kyiv as “ungrateful” while peace negotiators in Geneva pushed a bruising plan on Ukraine, and HMS Severn slid up alongside Russian warships in the English Channel, you could feel the whole security picture from the Levant to the North Atlantic tightening like a ratchet. It’s Sunday November 23rd, 2025. Here is your SOFREP Evening Brief.

President Trump returns to the White House on Marine One. Image Credit: New York Times

Beirut Blast Takes Out Hezbollah’s Military Brain: Israel Says Tabatabai Is Dead

The strike that shook Beirut’s southern suburb on November 23 did more than collapse part of a nine-story building in Haret Hreik. It ripped a key piece out of Hezbollah’s war machine. According to the Israeli Defense Forces, the airstrike killed Haytham Ali Tabatabai, the group’s de facto military chief of staff and one of the most experienced commanders Hezbollah had left.

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This was not a random hit. Israeli leaders say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greenlit the operation after top defense officials recommended it. The target was clear. Tabatabai had been central to Hezbollah’s rearmament and operational planning after the 2024 conflict, a war that gutted the group’s senior ranks. He had been with Hezbollah since the 1980s, commanded the Radwan Force, led operations in Syria, and was elevated to military chief of staff as the organization tried to rebuild. In Israeli eyes, he was the architect of the next round of fighting.

When the missiles arrived, they tore into a neighborhood Hezbollah has long treated as a sanctuary. The Lebanese health ministry reported at least one death and twenty-one wounded, though some local sources said the toll may reach five. Vehicles in the street burned, and debris littered the area. It was the first Israeli strike on Beirut in months, a sign that Jerusalem is willing to push deeper into Lebanese territory to disrupt Hezbollah’s plans.

Israeli officials have accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire by smuggling weapons and expanding its drone production. The strike, they argue, was a preemptive move aimed at crippling that effort before it matures. Defense Minister Israel Katz framed the message in blunt terms when he said that anyone who raises a hand against Israel will have that hand cut off. The IDF followed up by releasing footage showing the strike’s precision, reinforcing the sense that this was a calculated removal of a high-value figure.

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Hezbollah called the attack a red line but did not immediately confirm Tabatabai’s death. The organization now faces a difficult choice. It can retaliate and risk a wider conflict before finishing its rebuilding, or it can absorb the loss and focus on preserving what remains of its command structure. Either way, the pressure is rising along the northern frontier.

A removal like this does not end the threat, but it forces Hezbollah to rethink its operational tempo and leadership path at a moment when Israel is determined to act anywhere and anytime it sees a gathering danger.

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Trump Slams Kyiv as ‘Ungrateful’ While Tough Peace Talks Grind On

Donald Trump took another public swing at Ukraine on Sunday, railing against what he called a lack of gratitude from Kyiv at the exact moment diplomats were wrestling in Geneva with a brutal peace proposal that could redefine the war.

On Truth Social, Trump wrote in all caps that “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA.” It is the latest in a series of shots he has taken at President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government since returning to office, framing Ukraine as ungrateful and Europe as freeloading off US security guarantees while still feeding Moscow’s energy revenues.

The timing was no accident. In Geneva, US, Ukrainian, and European officials gathered around a 28-point peace proposal that reads like a checklist of Moscow’s strategic demands. The plan would require Ukraine to give up some of the territory it fought to win back, cap its own military strength, and shelve its NATO ambitions. Ukrainian leaders have described it as one of the hardest moments since Russia’s full-scale invasion, saying that signing on would feel like trading away the country’s dignity for a fragile pause in the fighting.

Trump, for his part, went back to a familiar line, claiming the war never would have happened if he had stayed in office and if there had been what he calls “strong and proper” leadership in both Washington and Kyiv. He continues to cast the conflict as avoidable and pins blame squarely on Joe Biden, using Ukraine policy as a live-fire talking point in his running political battle with the current administration.

Kyiv is walking a tightrope. Despite Trump’s broadside, Zelensky publicly thanked the former president for US security support, an attempt to keep channels open with a Washington that is divided over how long and how far to back Ukraine. His team has signaled it will keep working with American counterparts on the details of the Geneva plan even as they bristle at its terms.

Across the table, key European allies like Britain, France, and Germany are wary. They worry that a deal on these terms would hollow out Ukraine’s sovereignty and leave it exposed to the next round of pressure from Moscow. For now, Trump’s narrative of Ukrainian ingratitude clashes directly with Kyiv’s repeated public thanks and the harsh reality that the price for peace being floated in Geneva looks a lot like retreat.

 

HMS Severn Shadows Russian Warships As Channel Tensions Climb

Two Russian ships tried to slip through the English Channel, but the Royal Navy was waiting. Over the past two weeks, the River class offshore patrol vessel HMS Severn intercepted and shadowed the Russian corvette RFN Stoikiy and the tanker Yelnya as they pushed west through the Dover Strait and into one of the most tightly watched stretches of water on the planet.

The mission was textbook presence and deterrence. Severn stayed close while the pair moved down the Channel, reporting their movements, checking behavior against expected patterns, and making sure there were no surprises. Off Brittany, a NATO ally took over the close escort, but Severn did not simply peel away. She remained in the wider area, ready to move back in if the Russians tried anything clever.

This was not an isolated blip. The UK Ministry of Defence says Russian naval activity around British waters has jumped about 30 percent in the last two years, a trend line that points in one direction: more contact, more friction, and more chances for something to go wrong. A lot of that traffic is not innocent passage. Moscow has been pushing intelligence collectors and dual use ships around critical sea lanes and undersea infrastructure, looking for weak seams in NATO’s defenses.

One of the clearest examples is the Russian spy ship Yantar. Recently, RAF crews monitoring Yantar off Scotland reported that the vessel used lasers against their aircraft, an act London slammed as reckless and dangerous. You do not aim lasers at aircrews by accident. That is a message, and not a subtle one.

London’s response is to widen the surveillance net. Alongside ships like Severn on home waters, the UK has pushed three RAF P 8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to Iceland to help NATO watch Russian ships and submarines moving through the North Atlantic and into the Arctic. The intent is clear: from the English Channel to the High North, the alliance wants eyes on hull numbers and hull habits, every day.

For the Royal Navy, this kind of escort and shadow work is not a photo op. Patrol vessels like Severn may not carry big missiles, but they buy time, information, and political breathing room. Every time a Russian warship passes under a Royal Navy bridge wing instead of cruising unobserved, the message is the same. The Channel is watched, the approaches are guarded, and if Moscow wants to probe, someone in grey paint will be there to meet them.

 

 

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