The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | May 17th, 2025: Iran’s Secret Weapons Lab Revealed & Russia’s Battlefield Recovery
17 May 2025
In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: Iran is caught red-handed. A new report reveals a previously unknown nuclear weapons development site, along with a covert missile production facility hidden behind oil and petrochemical operations. Alireza Jafarzadeh from the National Council of Resistance of Iran joins us to explain how the discovery was made. On the Eastern Front, Russian forces appear to be withstanding heavy casualties—and replacing losses fast enough to reinforce troop strength. George Barros from the Institute for the Study of War shares a new battlefield assessment and what it says about Moscow’s long-term strategy. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Beam: Visit https://shopbeam.com/MIKEand use code MIKE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. We'll start things off with a troubling new report out of Iran, a previously undisclosed nuclear weapons development site, who would have thought, and a covert missile production program hidden behind the facade of oil and petrochemical infrastructure.
Now, Alireza Jafrazadeh from the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the organization that helped expose this site, will join us to break it down. Later in the show, news from the battlefield in Ukraine. A new assessment suggests that Russian forces, though battered, are still managing to replace their losses and may even be growing in strength.
George Boros, friend of the show, and he's from the Institute for the Study of War, he'll join us with the latest. And George, by the way, just got back from Ukraine, so he'll have some interesting observations. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. A new report is raising alarms about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
An Iranian opposition group says it has uncovered a previously unknown nuclear weapons facility deep in Semnan province. That's far from the regime's established nuclear sites. Known internally as the Rainbow Site, well, doesn't that sound cheery? The compound spans nearly 2,500 acres and has operated for over a decade under the cover of a chemical company called Diba Energy Seba.
According to sources inside Iran, the facility's real purpose is the extraction of tritium, that's a radioactive material used to enhance nuclear weapons with no real legitimate civilian use. Now, the timing of this report is significant as it comes as the Trump administration engages in sensitive nuclear negotiations with Tehran. Joining us now is Ali Reza Jafrizadeh.
He's the deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the NCRI. His organization helped to expose this facility. Ali Reza, thank you very much for joining us here on The Situation Report. Thank you so much, Mike. Always a pleasure to be on your Situation Report. I appreciate you saying that. Well, let's get stuck into it.
Let's talk first of all about this newly identified facility inside Iran. How did your organization spot this? How did this come about?
Well, this information came from the network inside Iran of the main Iranian opposition movement known as the MEK, which has a very large presence all over the country. They are very good in terms of the track record. This is the same movement that exposed the nuclear site in Natanz and Iraq in August of 2002, which triggered the IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites for the first time.
And then there were a host of other nuclear sites, experts, facilities, programs that this movement has exposed. The reason they're able to do it consistently is that they are all over the country. They are the movement for change in Iran. They have to monitor the activities of the Iranian regime, both for their own protection, but also in order to bring about change in the country.
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