Roman Levandovsky 🇺🇦 🇮🇱

The unwritten message to the world by China on its 6 tonnes Gallium (镓) export to Japan. We dominate the critical minerals. What you haven’t noticed is that we’ve built multiple tools that we can switch on/off. You restrict your AI GPUs export to us, we restrict the critical minerals at the chokepoint where your AI manufacturing start. “We are controlling our exports as per rules & regulations.” will be the latest buzz-sentence you’ll be hearing from China. Just like any other critical minerals. The bottleneck is refinery, not the mine. Gallium doesn't come from gallium mines. It's a byproduct of alumina refining. You don't ramp up gallium production. You ramp up aluminium production and the gallium comes with it. Another minerals that’s structurally inelastic in supply, and may be the most important fact about this market that nobody talks about. China controls ~90% of global primary gallium refining. Not the raw material Bauxite that gets dug up in Guinea, Australia, Brazil. But the step that turns bauxite into alumina and pulls high-purity gallium out. That's almost entirely Chinese. I’m aware that Gallium is also a by-product of Zinc(Sphalerite) but it’s not the main source of Gallium. The main story is around purification of Gallium to 6N(99.9999%) and above. 70% of 7N gallium purification capacity is in China, followed by Japan (22.7%). Japan's semiconductor industry which require Gallium runs through 1 country acting as a major chokepoint that Tokyo spent a decade pretending it could route around. I think we all know how that’s going. Japan couldn't. The "ex-China" supply chain was a pipedream, and remain largely so. Alumina smelters are being shut left right and centre outside of China. Kazakhstan? Volumes is somewhat restricted at ~40% of Japanese demand and the purity couldn't touch what the semiconductor needed. Restarting a gallium recovery line inside Japan itself was talked about at METI for years and never funded. Too expensive, too slow, no political sponsor willing to own the timeline. January 2026. China formally implements export controls on dual-use items, which included gallium and germanium to Japan. Gallium shipments: zero. Every month. Four in a row. Japan's high-purity gallium inventory covers 3-4 months of production at normal run rates. METI's internal assessment lands on a number: if the cutoff passes six months, more than 30% of domestic semiconductor production lines face shutdown risk. Mitsubishi Heavy's GaN capacity - curbing/idling. Sumitomo Electric is on similar boat. The world's third-largest economy discovers the hard way that a material it consumes is controlled by a single country that just shut the valve off. Until May, 6 tonnes was approved to be exported to Japan. 6 tonnes. The old diplomatic way was basic & repeatable: relationship thaws & controls relaxed. Relationship sours & controls tightened. Somewhat predictable. In 2026, that has changed. China decided to leverage its opportunity to indirectly choke US off from critical minerals – it was none other than Japan. The 6-tonne release is strategically chosen: Half a month's demand. Japan's normal monthly consumption runs around 12 tonnes. Six tonnes relieves civilian inventory pressure. It does not support capacity expansion. It does not fund R&D. It's a maintenance dose, not a growth injection, and everyone involved knows it. Just drip feed enough to keep Japan’s head above water. Civilian-purpose only, fully traced. Every gram flows to Sumitomo Electric and Shin-Etsu Chemical's civilian semiconductor divisions. End-user screening, usage audits, full chain-of-custody documentation. Zero path to military diversion. The paperwork alone is the enforcement mechanism. Germanium stays at absolute zero. Gallium cracked the door open. Germanium - the material for infrared seekers, thermal weapon sights, missile guidance optics remained “controlled”. Included in the same dual-use items list, treated with 2 separate ruling – civilian use vs military. No third-country routing. In March 2026, Japan attempted a transshipment route through a third country for gallium procurement. China's export review caught the shipment and voided it halfway. The message was clear as day: the entire chain is being watched & audited. The 6 tonnes release sends a clear message. This is not about Japan. Japan is the demo. What Beijing wants is a system where it writes the rules and everyone else operates inside them. The 6-tonne release establishes exactly that. The rules are now visible to every country in the critical mineral supply chain: Civilian semiconductor use, verified end-user, full traceability = you might get supply. Military applications, dual-use ambiguity, third-country routing = you get nothing. Every time. The volume you receive is the volume we allow. And we have the power to say so. Every shipment is conditional, every condition is enforceable, and every violation is detectable at the export-review level. This is China demonstrating the operating system for critical mineral governance to the entire world. The gallium tap is on. Slowly dripfeeding Japan. The germanium tap stays off. The system behind both decisions is the same system. And that system is now demonstrated, documented, and operational. The next time a critical mineral moves from "controlled" to "cut off," no one gets to claim they didn't see the playbook. Because you’ve read it here. Over and over again.

IRAN FM SPOX: Iran will decide how to use its unfrozen assets, with no restrictions on how the funds can be spent.

🚨Have $ASTS & Rakuten just won the $1B J-Leo award?🚨 A new filing by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs & Telecommunications (MIC) suggests they may have and that the government is designing the exact runway for them to win. 1/n

$ASTS: New all-time high in real-time short interest. I'd note that convert arbs have been net covering stock as it's moved lower, which means that actual outright shorting is much higher. Tick tock, tick tock ⏰ 6/22: 76.9M 6/19: 75.8M 6/18: 75.8M 6/17: 74.3M 6/16: 73.6M 6/15: 71.4M 6/12: 66.5M 6/11: 64.8M 6/10: 64.1M

Happy 1st birthday to the Tesla Robotaxi! Tesla’s Robotaxi was meant to be covering 50% of the US population by now. It's only managed a handful of cars in just one state. Musk moved the goalposts relentlessly and still missed every shot. Why do people listen to this idiot?

It's bleaker than what is officially revealed: (FULL STORY LINK IN COMMENTS):

$LPTH every other week more drone manufacturers and large defense firms keep getting hit by these export restrictions… as it gets harder and harder to source critical minerals like germanium and gallium for use in military optics, Lightpath continues to benefit.

I apologize for saying that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset. Apparently she’s just a member of a cult who’s leader is a Russian asset.

You guys don’t understand who is getting bailed out, it’s the banks. That is a lot of dough they won’t be getting back if these projects go under. Developer leaves the bag at the bank. It’s a backdoor bank bailout. Get your facts straight peeps.