France has adopted a more open stance toward the potential sale of the French-Italian SAMP/T air defense system to Türkiye, signaling a shift after years of staunch opposition.

Sources speaking to Reuters indicated that this change in posture followed discussions between French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on June 25, held on the sidelines of a meeting ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Türkiye.

However, Reuters reported that negotiations remain in their early stages. “There was clearly a lack of transparency before, but now there is transparency,” a source familiar with the talks said.

Conversely, the French presidency stated that the Reuters report contained “significant inaccuracies” and declined to confirm the information. The Elysée Palace did not specify what those inaccuracies were and refused to elaborate.

Sources noted that while Paris has set aside some of the political reservations that previously blocked progress, hesitations still persist.

Türkiye, France, and Italy initiated cooperation between 2017 and 2018 under a potential long-range air defense program, which envisioned joint development and co-production. However, the project ground to a halt as relations between Paris and Ankara deteriorated over disputes in Syria, Libya, and the Eastern Mediterranean, the latter involving Greece and Cyprus.

The SAMP/T, also known as “Mamba,” is manufactured by Eurosam, a French-Italian consortium that brings together MBDA France, MBDA Italy, and Thales. The system can track dozens of targets simultaneously, intercept multiple threats at once, and is marketed as the only European-made system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.

Frequently described as the closest European equivalent to the US Patriot system, analysts remain divided on its efficacy. Analysts point out that the system has not been deployed in active combat for years.

Türkiye is seeking to acquire the system as part of its planned integrated air and missile defense network, known as the “Steel Dome” (Çelik Kubbe).

A source added that Meloni and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the matter during a telephone call on July 3.

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters in June that Ankara is evaluating options, including the US Patriot and the SAMP/T systems, and remains open to cooperation that includes technology transfer and co-production.

A Turkish official noted that the process had been stalled since 2020 due to tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean and European Union sanctions. “At present, there seems to be political will from all three parties (Türkiye, Italy, France) to move this process forward,” the official said.

Outside of Paris and Rome, Singapore is the only country to have imported the system. However, in recent years, the system has been transferred to Ukraine, and France deployed it this year to help the United Arab Emirates defend itself against Iranian missile strikes. Additionally, Italy deployed the system to Türkiye in mid-June as part of NATO defense planning.

Any potential agreement would likely center on the next-generation version of the system, which is currently being distributed to the French and Italian militaries.

Officials stated that Erdogan and Macron are scheduled to hold a meeting to discuss bilateral issues within the framework of the NATO summit. Erdogan had previously sought to persuade Macron to drop his opposition during the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, following a thaw in bilateral relations.

Two sources cautioned that France would need to appease Greece and Cyprus regarding any potential sale. France has signed strategic defense agreements with both nations.

For years, Turkish officials have privately and publicly viewed France as the primary political obstacle to the program. Italy, by contrast, has long favored sharing the SAMP/T system with Türkiye to deepen defense industry cooperation.

The issue regained momentum last year as Ankara intensified efforts to strengthen its missile defense capabilities amid regional instability, and as NATO allies re-evaluated defense cooperation and capability requirements.

Sources emphasized that France’s newly open posture should not be interpreted as an approved sale.

“This is just a beginning,” said Murat Aslan, a defense and security researcher at the Ankara-based think tank SETA. “Even if France agrees to the sale, there is a long road ahead.”

The rapid expansion of data centers powering artificial intelligence systems is increasingly triggering legal battles over environmental concerns.

According to a report by the London School of Economics (LSE) cited by The Guardian in its annual climate litigation review, non-governmental organizations, local communities, and environmental activists from Chile to Ireland and the US are seeking to block the construction and operation of data centers through the courts, citing high energy consumption, water usage, and associated climate risks.

Researchers analyzed approximately 3,600 climate lawsuits filed globally since 2015, detecting a rise in cases linked to data centers.

The legal proceedings focus on energy supply sources, the volume of water used to cool servers, and environmental pollution.

One of the earliest cases in this field was filed against a Google project in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

In 2020, local residents and municipal officials challenged a construction permit granted for a massive data center in the Cerrillos area, arguing that it threatened the water resources of a city already struggling with drought.

The court ruled that the project’s climate impacts had been inadequately assessed and ordered a review of the decision.

Environmental impacts of projects in Chile and Ireland taken to court

In Ireland, which the report’s authors describe as one of the global flashpoints of conflicts over data centers, the situation is even more acute.

According to data shared in the report, more than 20% of the country’s total electricity consumption is allocated to this sector.

Despite government plans to further expand the sector, environmental organizations are pursuing legal action against official decisions that allow new facilities to use fossil fuels for several more years before transitioning to renewable sources.

Lawsuits in the US and UK force companies to make commitments

Environmental requirements for data centers are also tightening in the US. Officials in the city of Pittsburg, California, imposed obligations on a new data center to use renewable energy and opt for recycled water for equipment cooling.

At the same time, lawsuits in several states are challenging regulatory bodies that have approved the construction of fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure to meet growing computing capacity demands.

A project belonging to Elon Musk’s xAI company in the state of Mississippi has also faced legal pressure.

Plaintiffs argue that the company used methane generators without obtaining the necessary environmental permits, thereby violating the Clean Air Act. The US Department of Justice, meanwhile, defended the project, highlighting its economic significance.

Similar disputes are occurring across Europe.

In the United Kingdom, activists successfully secured a review of the environmental assessment report for a planned mega-scale data center project in Buckinghamshire.

Following the judicial process, official authorities acknowledged deficiencies in the approval process, while the contractor agreed to undertake additional environmental commitments.

According to the experts who prepared the study, these lawsuits demonstrate that judicial processes have become a new tool for regulating rapidly expanding digital infrastructure.

Even if projects are not halted entirely, the lawsuits force companies and official bodies to account for climate risks, transparently disclose resource consumption data, and re-evaluate their energy strategies.

As reported by The Guardian, study co-author Associate Professor Joana Setzer of the London School of Economics commented on the issue: “The issue here is not necessarily to stop development, but to prevent the lock-in of fossil fuel dependency.”

“This is an opportunity to direct highly energy-intensive projects toward renewable energy sources while we still have the chance,” Setzer added.

A joint report by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), titled “Brazil and Russia Relations: Political Convergence and Economic Development,” states that relations between the two countries are characterized by a structural imbalance and a paradoxical gap between major political ambitions and weak commercial-economic results.

Experts from both nations approached the current economic relations through differing lenses. Russian analysts emphasized the depth and resilience of ties in certain sectors despite mounting external pressures.

Meanwhile, CEBRI experts defined the relationship as a model of “incomplete cooperation,” shaped by periodic diplomatic alignments driven by advocacy for a multipolar world order on the international stage, paired with economic ties that remain highly vulnerable to external challenges.

Brazilian experts outline structural barriers to relations

CEBRI analysts identified the collapse of the Soviet Union, the establishment of BRICS, and the conflict in Ukraine as the primary drivers of modern Russian-Brazilian relations. According to their assessment, none of these factors have enabled the parties to fully realize their cooperation potential.

Domestic instability in Russia during the post-Soviet period, combined with economic reforms in Brazil, led to a prolonged mutual distance between the two nations.

While acknowledging that the creation of BRICS offered an opportunity to deepen cooperation, the Brazilian experts stated that expectations ultimately outpaced concrete results.

Structural constraints and political shifts within Brazil prevented political consensus from translating into sustainable cooperation.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s victory in the 2022 presidential election influenced the nature of the rapprochement with Russia.

Although analyses of United Nations voting records show both countries taking similar positions—thereby reinforcing their image as advocates for a multipolar world order—the report noted that this alignment is cyclical rather than structural in nature.

The experts noted that while military operations in Ukraine have prompted Russia to seek new partners and have reinforced Brazil’s role as a pragmatic mediator in a fragmented international system, opportunities to deepen bilateral economic cooperation remain limited.

Major Brazilian corporations are unable to operate fully in the Russian market due to the risk of secondary sanctions that could be imposed by their US and European partners.

The majority of trade routes between the two countries have been disrupted by sanctions. The world’s largest maritime shipping companies, including the Swiss-Italian joint venture MSC, Denmark’s Maersk, France’s CMA CGM Group, and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, have refused to transport Russian cargo.

Despite an increase in trade volume, the structure of bilateral trade remains highly asymmetric. Brazilian partners noted that this situation reflects mutual economic complementarity rather than a genuine diversification of trade ties. Brazil’s exports to Russia consist predominantly of agricultural products. In recent years, soybeans accounted for 33%, meat for 28%, and coffee for 18% of these exports. Conversely, Russia’s exports to Brazil rely on a narrow group of strategic commodities, primarily diesel fuel, fertilizers, and industrial raw materials. Fertilizers constitute approximately 75% of Russian shipments to Brazil, underscoring the concentration of trade in a single sector. Brazil’s National Fertilizer Plan, adopted in 2025, aims to reduce import dependency over the next decade, which is identified as a factor that could weaken future bilateral trade flows.

According to data from Brazilian analysts, Russia was not among Brazil’s primary arms suppliers during the 2021–2025 period. Despite Brazil’s refusal to participate in anti-Russian sanctions and its decision not to send weapons to Kyiv, defense relations between the two countries have assumed a largely symbolic character since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) between the two economies also remains marginal, according to Central Bank of Brazil data. In 2024, Russia’s cumulative FDI in Brazil was recorded at $38.73 million, representing just 0.0044% of the country’s total inbound foreign investment. During the same period, Brazil’s investments in Russia stood at $1.69 million, accounting for a mere 0.00038% of total foreign investments.

CEBRI analysts concluded that Russia-Brazil relations present a model of selective and irregular engagement, characterized by a persistent gap between political ambitions and economic outcomes. The most prominent convergence is observed in periodic diplomatic contacts, while cooperation remains limited in areas requiring institutionalization and long-term coordination. This asymmetric economic structure leads to an unequal distribution of benefits.

Divergent proposals presented to advance cooperation

Brazilian experts noted that the fundamental challenge in advancing relations lies in restructuring the pattern of economic and technological interdependence. The report stated: “The countries must move away from a model of relations predominantly based on the trade of natural resources and low-value-added goods.”

CEBRI analysts proposed the following conditions to establish a balanced and sustainable partnership:

• Diversifying bilateral trade,
• Increasing mutual investments,
• Developing cooperation in high-technology sectors,
• Strengthening engagement in the service sector,
• Expanding cooperation in more complex branches of the manufacturing industry.

This process envisions the gradual opening of the Russian economy to foreign investment, including Brazilian capital, alongside measures to facilitate the access of Brazilian products to the Russian market. Furthermore, according to CEBRI experts, increased Russian investment in Brazil’s technology sectors could strengthen Brazil’s productive potential.

In contrast, Russian analysts argue that deepening cooperation is possible by expanding commercial interaction in traditional sectors where Russia holds distinct competitive advantages. Projections indicate that Brazil’s demand for fertilizers will increase by 20% by 2030, and the role of its agro-industrial complex, which accounts for 25% of the country’s GDP, will become even more critical. Increasing the market share of Russian companies in fertilizer production and establishing full-cycle production-logistics chains could turn Brazil into a hub for expanding shipments to other Latin American countries.

Russian experts link the diversification of the export structure to the implementation of joint investment projects and the deepening of high-tech cooperation. The utilization of online e-commerce platforms to promote consumer goods by Russian small and medium-sized enterprises is also highlighting itself as a new and rapidly growing area of interaction.

Russian experts listed the most promising areas of cooperation as follows:

• Oil and gas exploration and production,
• Exploitation of uranium and lithium deposits,
• Fertilizer production and modernization of oil refining facilities,
• Agricultural trade,
• Renewable energy sources and the green economy,
• Aerospace industry and nuclear energy,
• Transportation and logistics,
• Information technologies,
• Defense industry.

Regarding the joint production of uranium and lithium in Brazil, the Brazilian government is currently conducting negotiations with the Russian company Tenex, a subsidiary of Rosatom. The report noted that Russia is prepared to share its experience in developing peaceful nuclear technology and to support the implementation of artificial intelligence, digital government services, and automation solutions across various fields. Significant potential was also identified in municipal-level interactions, including smart city technologies, as demonstrated by ongoing contacts between the municipalities of Moscow and Rio de Janeiro.

Russian analysts also pointed to the necessity of establishing alternative payment mechanisms to bypass Western sanctions. Potential options include processing payments through third countries, using national currencies in bilateral trade, and partially transitioning to the Chinese yuan for settlements on Russian exports.

Ultimately, the authors of the report concluded that the complementary nature of the two economies and their shared interest in strategic autonomy demonstrate that, despite the irregular structure of their relations, significant untapped potential remains to be realized.