The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | December 19th, 2025: Ukraine Blows Up Russian Ship In The Mediterranean & Brown University Killer Found Dead
19 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It's Friday, the 19th of December, and I do hope you're having an excellent holiday season. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, a major expansion of Ukraine's campaign against Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers.
For the first time in the war, Ukraine has struck a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean Sea, delivering another significant blow to Russia's energy revenues and their clandestine global shipping network. Later in the show, the manhunt for the Brown University shooter has come to an end. The suspect, who is now also linked to the murder of an MIT professor, has been identified and found dead.
But key questions about motive, well, they remain unanswered. I'll have the details. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. We've been tracking Ukraine's increasingly aggressive campaign against Russia's so-called shadow fleet. That's the armada of tankers that Moscow relies on to quietly move sanctioned oil around the world. And this week, Kyiv crossed an important new threshold.
For the first time since the war began, Ukraine struck a Russian Shadow Fleet tanker operating in the heavily trafficked waters of the Mediterranean Sea, dramatically expanding the geographic scope of its maritime campaign and signaling that no part of Russia's sanctions evasion network is beyond reach.
An anonymous official with Ukraine Security Service, the SBU, announced a successful strike on Friday, telling Reuters the attack targeted an Oman flagged tanker called the Kendall, which, despite its flag, operates as part of Russia's covert oil export system.
The vessel was reportedly empty when it was hit by long range explosive laden aerial drones, but sustained critical damage, forcing it out of operation. That's according to the SBU official. The source declined, however, to specify when the attack took place or to give the precise location of the tanker.
But data from marine traffic showed the Kendall in the eastern Mediterranean near Crete as it traveled to a Russian port in the Baltic Sea from the Indian port of Sika. India, as our regular PDB listeners know, remains a major buyer of Russian oil, providing an ongoing financial lifeline to the Kremlin.
although those purchases have been squeezed by sanctions imposed from the Trump administration in late October. It also remains unclear how the drones reached their target, though the official said the operation involved, quote, multi-stage measures.
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Chapter 2: What recent action did Ukraine take against Russia's shadow fleet?
Just last week, for example, Ukrainian drones struck a luke oil operated offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea, nearly a thousand miles away from the front lines, halting operations on one of Russia's most important offshore assets. Now, we've already seen the economic ripple effects of Kyiv's intensifying campaign against Russian energy.
In recent weeks, insurance premiums for vessels operating near Russian ports have surged and some insurers have pulled back entirely. Analysts have noted that Russia is now being forced to offer steeper discounts on its oil, not because it can't find buyers, but because the costs and risks of moving that oil keep rising. and the Mediterranean strike adds another layer of pressure.
Shadow fleet tankers operating in distant waters have long assumed that Ukraine's reach was limited, that once oil left the Black Sea, it was effectively safe. That assumption has now been effectively torpedoed by Ukraine's security service. See what I did there? I used the word torpedoed in a story about hitting a tanker. Yeah, you're welcome.
Embarrassingly for Russian President Putin, the announcement of the strike came while he was holding his annual end-of-year press conference.
During the press conference, Putin, with a straight face and apparently no sense of irony, declared that Ukraine is not ready for peace, despite the fact that Kyiv has offered up major concessions like abandoning their NATO ambitions, not to mention that Ukraine's leadership continues to engage with U.S. officials on ironing out a potential ceasefire framework.
Putin, who has consistently rebuffed efforts by the Trump administration to negotiate a settlement, claimed that Russia would, quote, love to live in peace next year, of course Putin would, but only if Ukraine essentially surrenders much of their territory to Moscow and forgoes Western security guarantees.
As for Kiev's strike in the Mediterranean, Putin vowed a response but attempted to downplay its impact, saying Ukraine was attempting to raise insurance premiums but that their efforts were largely futile and would not significantly disrupt Moscow's oil trade. But the facts, well, they tell a different story.
With costs spiking and the pool of international oil buyers shrinking, the Kremlin is in increasingly dire financial straits. Coming up next, after nearly a week, the manhunt for the Brown University shooter has come to an end. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a moment of your time, if I could, to talk about personal finances. Now, that's an important topic.
Let me ask you a question. Do you owe $10,000 or more in credit card debt or personal loans? I mean, with credit card debt at all-time highs, it's important to know now that Debt Relief Advocates is urgently notifying consumers of debt relief now being made available designed to aid consumers who have out-of-control credit card debt.
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Chapter 3: How did Ukraine's strike impact Russia's energy revenues?
But the mystery has only deepened, as investigators also linked the gunman to the murder of an MIT professor earlier this week. Police have identified the suspect as Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown student whose body was discovered Thursday night in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire.
Authorities say he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities said they believe Valente was acting alone when he entered Brown's engineering building during a final exam review session last Saturday and opened fire, killing two students and wounding nine others.
Investigators said they recovered two guns on Thursday that were found next to Valente's corpse, including a 9mm pistol they believe was used in the shooting. Now, this is where the case takes a strange turn. Two days after the mass shooting at Brown, investigators say Valente killed MIT physicist Nuno Lorero at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
As we reported earlier this week on the PDB, Lurero died Tuesday morning at a Boston hospital after he was shot inside his Brooklyn home the night before. So, now how are the two shootings connected? Well, authorities have not yet disclosed many details about the evidence linking Valente to Lurero's murder, but said they are sure that they have their man.
Prosecutors in Boston say a rental car linked to Valente was seen near Lurero's home and that an IP address associated with the killer's phone accessed the internet in the area. The two had also reportedly crossed paths decades ago. According to a report from Reuters, Valente and Loureiro had attended the same academic program in Lisbon, Portugal, between 1995 and 2000.
While what that relationship amounted to, if anything, remains unclear, officials said they believe Valente specifically targeted Loureiro. While the officials said there is no longer an ongoing threat to the community, many of the most pressing questions remain unanswered. Chief among them, what was his motive?
At a press conference Thursday night, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Nerona said, quote, I don't think we have any idea why now or why Brown or why these students or why in this classroom. As to how Valente managed to evade authorities for so long, officials said he was relatively sophisticated in hiding his tracks.
Prosecutors said he used a phone that was harder to track and avoided using credit cards linked to his name. At one point, he also switched the license plates on his rental car to evade authorities. It's also worth remembering that from the start, the case was hampered by a very thin evidentiary trail.
Early on, officials acknowledged the campus had limited surveillance coverage, forcing detectives to lean heavily on public and residential security footage to build a timeline. So after nearly a week-long manhunt, how did authorities finally crack the case open? Well, I'm glad you asked.
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