Nathan Cleary has spoken from his hospital bed after undergoing surgery for the horrific ankle injury he suffered during Penrith’s preliminary final defeat by the Newcastle Knights on Sunday.

The Panthers captain sustained a confirmed compound fracture of the tibia and fibula in his left leg.

Cleary shared an emotional update on Instagram, thanking those who had contacted him and promising to return to the field. In the accompanying photo, he raised both thumbs.

‘Surgery done… Thank you so much to everyone that has reached out, the support has been unbelievable.’

The Penrith playmaker acknowledged that the day after the injury had been among the most difficult of his career as he started to come to terms with the setback.

‘Yesterday sucked but it’s all part of the journey and it’s made me even more grateful for the people I have around me.’

He finished the post with a determined message: ‘I’ll be back.’

Cleary confirmed that the operation was complete but did not reveal any details about the procedure.

He also stopped short of offering a potential timeframe for his return to rugby league.

Instead, his message centred on the gratitude he feels towards those supporting him through the ordeal.

Cleary described the reaction to his injury and the messages he had received as ‘unbelievable’.

Several club sources told The Sydney Morning Herald that it was the worst leg break they had witnessed. In the immediate aftermath, Panthers medical staff helped paramedics keep Cleary’s leg straight because of fears that the injury could cut off the blood supply to his left foot.

The force of the injury caused a bone to break through the skin near his ankle. A Panthers source compared the bleeding wound to a ‘bullet wound’.

Multiple club sources described Cleary’s injury as the worst leg break they had seen.

Cleary’s foot was left pointing in a different direction, prompting urgent concern about circulation and the risk of serious complications.

Some Penrith staff reportedly only realised the extent of the damage when they saw the tackle replayed on Accor Stadium’s big screen before reaching him.

There were also fears the trauma could have caused syndesmosis damage, although that injury has not been confirmed.

The halfback was taken by ambulance to hospital for emergency surgery after Phoenix Crossland’s hip-drop tackle ended his afternoon.

Adding to his ordeal, Cleary had entered the match with a broken fifth metatarsal in his right foot, a separate injury that also requires an operation.

‘He will have to get the other foot done as well, because that was broken,’ his father and coach Ivan said.

The Panthers had previously described that problem as a ‘stress-related bone issue’, with Cleary starting on the bench before entering the game in the 26th minute.

Less than 10 minutes later, he was receiving urgent treatment as shocked teammates and opponents gathered around him.

Newcastle’s Francis Manuleleua immediately signalled for medical assistance, while Cleary was given pain relief through a green whistle.

The Herald reported he could spend up to six months on the sidelines, provided there were no surgical complications.

His mother Bec was reportedly in tears in the crowd, while Ivan faced the distressing task of continuing to coach after watching his son suffer the injury.

‘That’s why I was probably even more emotional, because I knew how hard he worked and what he put himself through to actually get himself to play today,’ Ivan said.

The Panthers coach visited Nathan and their family at half-time, and later revealed his son had watched the remainder of the loss in the ambulance.

‘He watched the game in the ambulance apparently and made him feel worse,’ Ivan said.

Penrith captain Isaah Yeo described Cleary as ‘one of my best mates’ and ‘your brother out there’ as he reflected on the distress among the players.

Crossland was sent off and subsequently referred directly to the NRL judiciary, leaving his grand final availability unresolved.

Referee Gerard Sutton told the Newcastle hooker he had made a ‘definite action to twist’ before bringing his weight down on Cleary’s leg, creating an ‘extreme risk of serious injury’.

Despite playing the entire second half with 12 men, Newcastle won 22-14 to book a grand final clash with the Sydney Roosters.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that Iran could have “nothing left to trade for anything” within about two weeks, once its remaining oil shipments reach China. He argued that the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign has pushed Tehran “to its knees” and is prompting the regime to pursue a deal.

Bessent said roughly 15 million barrels of Iranian oil remain at sea as the United States enforces a blockade on Iran’s exports. Once those shipments are delivered, Tehran could be close to losing one of its last significant sources of revenue.

“I am confident, given that there are only 15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water, that Iran will have nothing left to trade for anything,” Bessent told Fox News’s Larry Kudlow on Sunday Morning Futures.

He estimated that the remaining supply would be delivered within approximately two weeks.

“Probably within the next two weeks, they are going to make their final deliveries of oil to China, and then they will have nothing,” Bessent said. “It is an empty set, and I believe they are feeling the pressure here and that’s why they want a deal.”

Bessent spoke as President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s latest offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while indicating that negotiations could resume this week. Trump said Iran is now seeking terms that Washington might have accepted before the war began.

“They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make,” Trump told Axios on Sunday. “It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand.”

Bessent said Iran’s offer to reopen the strait within seven days should not be viewed as a major concession, noting that millions of barrels of oil from other countries are already passing through the waterway under U.S. protection.

“The straits are open,” Bessent said. “If you take out the Iranian oil, which we are not letting out, we’re averaging now 15 to 22 million barrels a day; it was at about 20 pre-conflict.”

He presented the oil flows as a stark indication of the balance of power in the strategic waterway.

“Think of it this way: the score is United States, one billion — more than one billion barrels have gotten out — and Iran, zero.”

The blockade is operating alongside Operation Economic Outcast, a broad financial pressure campaign that Bessent launched at Trump’s direction in late August. The effort is aimed at cutting off Iran’s remaining economic lifelines and excluding the regime from the international financial system.

The initiative has reached beyond Iran’s borders. Treasury officials have contacted more than 50 countries, urging governments, banks, airlines, and companies to choose between preserving business ties with Tehran and retaining access to the United States. Jonathan Burke, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, recently carried that message to Iran’s commercial partners during visits to the Middle East and Europe.

Bessent pointed to several developments as evidence of the campaign’s impact. He said U.S. pressure led Turkey and Oman to take action against Iran’s Mahan Air, the United Arab Emirates to suspend Iranian airline service and restrict Bank Melli, and Turkey to act against Bank Mellat. Treasury has also widened its focus to Iran’s maritime, cryptocurrency, and other sanctions-evasion networks.

Bessent said Sunday that the combined measures are steadily cutting Iran off from the global economy.

“They are isolated from the world,” he said. “They are a pariah state.”

Trump echoed Bessent’s assessment Sunday evening, describing the economic campaign and U.S. military pressure as complementary parts of the broader conflict with Iran.

Asked by Fox News whether Treasury’s economic campaign could help the United States prevail, Trump said he expected both economic and military pressure to produce results.

“I think both,” Trump said. “I think we’ll win it both ways.”

He also said the United States had “already won it, really, from a military standpoint,” while warning that the campaign against Iran may not yet be finished.

“That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped that,” he said. “But we’re certainly winning it very big.”

Trump predicted the conflict would end “very soon” and cast preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as the overriding U.S. objective.

“And the key is Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump emphasized. “That’s the key to the whole thing.”

That nuclear demand is now at the center of efforts to revive negotiations. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that mediators are pressing Tehran to offer a concession on its nuclear program following Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal, although Iran has so far given them little indication that it is prepared to do so.

Tehran has sought relief from the blockade and sanctions, access to billions of dollars in frozen assets and other concessions as part of a return to negotiations. Washington, meanwhile, has insisted that Iran address its nuclear program and sees little reason to surrender leverage that administration officials argue is strengthening by the day.

Bessent made clear that he sees the pressure campaign as serving a purpose beyond simply bringing Tehran back to the negotiating table: changing the terms under which Iran arrives there and ensuring that any new agreement is harder for the regime to abandon.

“My job is to make sure that, when they come with a deal, that they want to stick to it,” Bessent said, pointing to Iran’s failure to abide by the previous memorandum of understanding.

This time, he argued, Washington intends to negotiate from a dramatically different position.

“Next time, if there is a deal — and that’s at President Trump’s discretion — they will stick to it,” Bessent said. “Because they are on their knees.”

Joshua Klein is a reporter for – News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

Seemingly minor details on a van outside a British military base may have helped expose a group of suspected terrorists after an alleged Iranian plot was stopped at the last moment.

One of three vans intercepted near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire yesterday drew suspicion because the phone number and business lettering displayed on its side appeared to be fabricated.

Five men were stopped in the vans, which were reportedly packed with explosives, around 350 yards from the airbase. RAF Fairford has been used by American forces to launch air strikes against the regime in Tehran.

The farmer who alerted police said the vehicles immediately seemed suspicious because the information painted on their sides did not appear genuine.

A major incident was declared, while images shared online showed one of the vans carrying the words ‘Fuel 2You’ in red lettering, along with a telephone number.

Social media users circulated the photographs alongside details of a legitimate company based in Beaconsfield called ‘Fuel2U’, whose branding is green and black.

Observers also noted that the number beneath the apparent fake business name — 0742 418 2599 — had been grouped in a 434 format, a style predominantly associated with Iran.

British mobile numbers are generally written in a 533 or 56 format, meaning the number would typically appear as 07424 182599 or 07424 182 599. The number was also found to be out of service.

When the Daily Mail called the number this morning, a recorded message stated: ‘The number you have dialled is not in service. Please check the number and try your call again.’

Others questioned the use of a red logo for a fuel delivery business, noting that petrol pumps in Britain are typically green. Red is the colour commonly used for petrol pumps in Iran.

Fuel2U issued a statement categorically denying any connection to the incident at Fairford, saying it was ‘extremely concerned’ that its name had been placed on one of the vans.

The fuel delivery company also urged the public not to threaten its employees, warning that any threatening messages would be reported to police.

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A Fuel2U spokesman said: ‘We want to make it absolutely clear that neither the vehicle nor any of the individuals involved has any connection whatsoever with Fuel2U, its directors, employees or current business operations.

‘We are extremely concerned that our company’s name has been used without our knowledge or permission. We are cooperating fully with the relevant authorities and will assist them with any enquiries.’

It added: ‘Fuel2U strongly condemns any unlawful or dangerous activity. We thank the police, emergency services and specialist teams for their continuing work to protect the public and investigate this matter.

‘We understand that people may have questions, but we respectfully ask that members of the public do not contact or threaten our staff. Any threatening or abusive communications will be recorded and reported to the police.’

It is understood that Fuel2U has two vans and they were both in London yesterday.

The farmer also said that she spotted the vehicles ‘blocking the road’ while she was driving home, before seeing a ‘large group of hooded and ‘balaclava’d’ men’.

‘They would have seen the bright headlights,’ she said. ‘They probably thought we were the police (and) panicked.’

She added: ‘It would appear that by doing so I just derailed whatever they were planning.’

Officers arrived on the scene around 15 minutes after she dialled 999, she said.

A cordon was put in place near RAF Fairford and more than 80 evacuated households were unable to return home.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said he was ‘really grateful’ to the resident, who has asked not to be identified.

But he added that ‘she does only have a partial picture – and that’s as far as I wish to go this morning’.

US President Donald Trump said the alleged plotters were ‘looking to do big damage’ to the base. He added: ‘It was fantastic. Working with Britain, it was an amazing job.’

Vladimir Putin has revived a sinister Cold War-era nuclear system designed to ensure Russia could launch a retaliatory strike even if a devastating attack eliminated the country’s leadership.

Deep beneath a remote mountain in Russia’s central Ural wilderness, a vast underground command centre has undergone a major expansion. The work appears to mark a revival of the Soviet Union’s notorious “Dead Hand” nuclear strategy.

Known as Facility 1335, the bunker is located near the tiny village of Kytlym. Soldiers now protect the heavily fortified military complex, which sits hundreds of miles from the nearest city amid terrain that is difficult to cross.

The site forms part of Russia’s “Perimeter” system, known in the West as Dead Hand. It was created to preserve Moscow’s ability to retaliate against an enemy after a catastrophic attack had severed communications with the country’s leadership.

In such a scenario, Facility 1335 would send radio signals to mobile missile launchers and any surviving launch silos, ordering a full-scale retaliatory strike.

Satellite imagery, construction records and photographs shared online by Russian soldiers have exposed the extraordinary scale of the project.

Experts say the renewed investment indicates that the Kremlin is once again placing major importance on nuclear command infrastructure capable of surviving a devastating attack. Facility 1335 itself is reportedly built to withstand American bunker-busting bombs.

A joint investigation by The Sunday Times, Danwatch and the Dossier Centre uncovered construction work worth hundreds of millions of pounds at the site. The project includes new tunnels and at least 24 underground chambers.

Facility 1335 and the wider Soviet Perimeter network are believed to have fallen dormant after the end of the Cold War. The system was originally built in the 1980s, when tensions between the nuclear superpowers were at their height.

Putin has now revived the programme amid growing concerns in Moscow about a possible Western attack. The Facility 1335 bunker, positioned beside Kytlym’s population of about 2,000, has been reopened and substantially expanded. The village lies 1,300 feet above sea level and is surrounded by coniferous forest.

The Russian president has repeatedly threatened escalation during the war in Ukraine, including raising the possibility of using nuclear weapons and warning NATO members. His rhetoric has intensified after drone attacks on Moscow and strategically important Russian oil infrastructure.

A senior Russian military figure described Facility 1335 as the place where “strategic missile forces will fulfil their historic mission of retaliation against any enemy”.

Satellite images reveal extensive building activity and a significant military presence at the site. Open-source material has now also produced what are believed to be the first photographs of the facility.

The images show soldiers guarding the entrance alongside a machine gun turret. Another photograph appears to offer an unprecedented view inside the bunker’s tunnel network.

One image shows a man standing in a passage measuring four metres across and 10 metres high, dimensions that correspond with schematics found in the construction records examined by investigators.

The bunker’s development is recorded in a paper trail running to millions of pages, including tenders and building contracts issued between 2011 and 2024. Together, the documents put the value of the work at the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds.

Construction is thought to have consumed around 20,000 tonnes of steel—roughly the weight of three Eiffel Towers—and 150,000 square metres of concrete.

‘It is an enormous construction,’ Professor Per Golterman at the Institute for Construction and Mechanical Technology at the Technical University of Denmark said after estimating the project used as much concrete as that needed to construct a large multi-storey building.

While this gigantic doomsday infrastructure is being built in Russia, Danish intelligence warned of a ‘low but growing risk’ of a Kremlin-ordered attack on a NATO country, adding that Moscow was under more pressure than ever since its invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this week, NATO fighter jets in Poland and Romania were scrambled after Russian drones came close to their borders with Ukraine.

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The first official clue towards the revival of the Dead Hand scheme was mentioned by Putin in a meeting with military advisers in 2020.

‘We are aware that a lot depends on the survivability of these systems and their ability to continue operating in a combat environment’, Putin said in transcripts released by the Kremlin.

‘They have told me that the creation of an absolutely secure facility for controlling strategic nuclear forces, among others, is nearing completion, and that it will have a very high safety margin.’ 

It was around this time that procurement for the bunker project, which was carved into the granite mountain of Kosvinsky Kamen just outside Kytlym, was at its height.

361.4km of cable, 5,429 lamps, 30 transformers, 160 ventilation units and 648 drilling tools were all ordered to the site between 2020 and 2021 – hundreds of miles from the nearest city and surrounded by coniferous forests.

Satellite pictures show huge piles of excavated earth accumulating on the mountainside over years of construction from 2022 to 2025. Meanwhile, the building was tracked on paper too, documenting the job from start to finish, from tunneling to internal fit-outs.

The successful US bombing of nuclear bunkers in Iran adds further pressure on Russia and reduces a sense of safety. 

Tom Roseth, expert in Russian security policy at the Norwegian Staff College, said: ‘It appears that the Russians are securing this facility against every type of attack. To protect 1335 and the command-and-control facilities of the nuclear forces, they therefore have to dig even deeper and reinforce the site even more.

‘The expansion of Facility 1335 follows a major upgrade of Russia’s nuclear forces, which has been given high priority within the Russian armed forces. The perimeter will once again be given priority now, in a more tense geopolitical situation in which Russia sees itself as being in conflict with the West.’

Pictures of the outside have been shared on social media by Russian soldiers stationed at the new part of the facility – a military camp called Unit 20003.

The camp has been totally revamped and has grown hugely since its creation in the 1980s, where troops are drilled and undergo specialist training.

Retired Major General VG Khalin, who served in Russia’s main intelligence directorate, explained the Perimeter system in 2022 in the Russian newspaper Veteran-Rocketman, saying it started in 1973.

He added: ‘Currently, plans are underway to place its automation system on experimental combat duty at Facility 1335. Thus, its life cycle is currently approximately sixty years.’

Colonel Yu Andreev said in the same publication that Facility 1335 ‘was placed on combat duty in 2023’.

Russia’s reinforcement of its fortifications coincides with America’s.

The US is upgrading the Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado and the Raven Rock Mountain complex in Pennsylvania, dubbed the underground Pentagon.