Iran has announced it is closing the Strait of Hormuz to all maritime traffic - including tankers and merchant ships - and warned that "any passage will be treated as a legitimate target." If this is actually carried out, the consequences won't stay in the Middle East. About a fifth of the world's oil passes through that narrow sea passage, and that means something for the pumps in the Balkans too.

What Tehran Announced

According to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, 18 US military targets were struck in two waves - air bases in Kuwait (Ali al-Salem and Ahmad al-Jaber) and in Bahrain (Sheikh Isa). The Iranian army separately claims it carried out drone attacks on communication and radar systems linked to the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The commander of the Guard's air forces, Brigadier General Sayed Majid Musavi, declared that Iran would "turn the region into hell" if Washington keeps threatening the security of Hormuz.

What's Confirmed and What Isn't

And here comes the part the tabloid headlines skip. Most of these claims come exclusively from the Iranian side and from Iranian state agencies. There's no independent confirmation of the scale of the damage, nor any official US assessment. That doesn't mean nothing happened - but it means the figures and "historic defeats" should be read with caution. In war, the first casualty is always the truth, and the second is the exact numbers.

The picture is further muddied by outside propaganda from both sides. Donald Trump said Iranian officials had supposedly asked for a ceasefire - a claim the Revolutionary Guard immediately rejected as "a smokescreen for war." Who's begging whom, who's attacking whom - at this stage every side tells a version tailored for the home audience.

Why the Balkans Should Pay Attention

Sticking to what's certain: if Hormuz really closes, even temporarily, the price of oil jumps, ship insurance gets more expensive, and alternative routes become longer and costlier. This isn't an abstraction for a region that imports almost everything that burns in its tanks. When a strait thousands of kilometers away closes, the bill reaches our pumps too - fast and without explanation.

That's why the real question isn't whose missiles hit more precisely, but how long the world can afford an escalation like this before the economic consequences grow heavier than the military ones. And until then, the smartest thing is to read carefully - and not take either side at its word.