Germany will allow German-made tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help defend against Russia if the United States agrees to send its own tanks, a Berlin government source told Reuters.

Ukraine has pleaded for new modern Western weapons, especially heavy battle tanks, so it can regain momentum this year following some battlefield successes in the second half of 2022 against Russian forces that invaded last February.

Berlin has veto power over any decision to export its Leopard tanks, fielded by NATO-allied armies across Europe and seen by defence experts as the most suitable for Ukraine.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has stressed the condition about U.S. tanks several times in recent days behind closed doors, the German government source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked about Germany’s stipulation, said: “The president believes that each country should make their own sovereign decisions on what steps of security assistance and what kinds of equipment they are able to provide Ukraine.”

The Western allies have avoided taking the risk of NATO appearing to confront Russia directly and have not sent Ukraine the most potent weapons available.

U.S. officials said Biden’s administration is next expected to approve Stryker armoured vehicles for Ukraine produced in Canada for the U.S. Army but is not poised to send U.S. tanks, including the M1 Abrams.

On Thursday, Germany’s new Defence Minister Boris Pistorius will host U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Then on Friday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and defence leaders from roughly 50 countries will confer at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the latest in a series of meetings since the invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation” to safeguard Russian security.

Ukraine and its allies accuse Moscow of an unprovoked war to grab territory and to erase the independence of a fellow ex-Soviet republic and neighbour. Western countries have provided a steady supply of weapons to Ukraine.

Attention will be focused on Germany in particular at Friday’s meeting.

This week, Britain raised the pressure on Berlin by becoming the first Western country to send tanks, pledging a squadron of its Challengers. Polish President Andrzej Duda said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday that it was crucial to provide modern tanks and missiles to Ukraine because he feared Russia was preparing a new offensive. Poland and Finland have already said they will send Leopard tanks if Germany approves them.

Ukraine has relied primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tank variants.

Germany’s Leopard 2 tank is regarded as one of the West’s best. The tank weighs more than 60 tons (60,000 kilograms), has a 120mm smoothbore gun and can hit targets at a distance of up to five kilometres (three miles).

Ukraine says the tanks would give its troops the mobile firepower to drive Russian troops out in decisive battles.

In a speech by video link to the Davos forum, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Western supplies of tanks and air defence systems to ward off Russia’s frequent missile strikes should come more quickly and be delivered faster than Moscow is able to carry out attacks.

“The supplying of Ukraine with air defence systems must outpace Russia’s next missile attacks,” Zelenskiy said. “The supplies of Western tanks must outpace another invasion of Russian tanks.”

In a tweet, Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said it was time for the United States to start supplying Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles.

“Long-range missiles will allow Ukraine to effectively destroy Russian logistics in the occupied territories: depots in the rear, equipment, command posts … the time for ATACMS has come. What are we waiting for?” Podolyak asked.

A helicopter crashed in fog near a nursery outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday, killing 14 people, including Ukraine’s interior minister, and a child.

Ukrainian officials have not suggested the crash was an attack by Russian forces.

The crash was “a terrible tragedy” and “the pain is unspeakable”, Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app.

Later in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said he had asked the SBU intelligence service to begin a criminal investigation.

The SBU said it was considering several possible causes, including a breach of flight rules, a technical malfunction and the intentional destruction of the helicopter.

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Germany will allow German-made tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help defend against Russia if the United States agrees to send its own tanks, a Berlin government source told Reuters.

* Ukraine’s interior minister and a child were among at least 14 people killed when a helicopter crashed into a nursery and set it ablaze in a suburb of the capital Kyiv.

* The national police chief said aside from Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, 42, others killed in the crash included his first deputy, Yevheniy Yenin, and the ministry’s state secretary.

* It was not immediately clear what caused the helicopter to crash. President Zelenskiy has asked for an investigation.

* Zelenskiy said in a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos that Western supplies of tanks and air defence units should come more quickly and be delivered faster than Russia was able to carry out attacks.

* Canada has summoned Russia’s ambassador to Ottawa over attacks against civilians in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro that killed at least 45 people, including several children.

* The United States aims to break the dynamic of grinding warfare and near-frozen Ukrainian front lines with newly announced military capabilities, a senior Pentagon official said.

* Russian President Putin, visiting an air defence factory in St Petersburg, said Russia’s military industrial might meant “victory is assured, I have no doubt about it.”

* Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov accused the United States of preparing the ground for the conflict in Ukraine as part of what he called a hybrid war against Moscow. He also said Moscow saw no prospects of peace talks.

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(JTA) — In a decision that could lead to the dissolution of Israel’s new government coalition, the country’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a minister who has been previously convicted in multiple fraud cases is not fit to serve in government.

The Court ruled 10-1 to disqualify Aryeh Deri, a longtime lawmaker and leader of a haredi Orthodox party, from his role as health and interior minister, citing his conviction last year for tax fraud. Deri had also previously served nearly two years in prison for taking bribes two decades ago.

If Deri pulls the 11 lawmakers from his Shas Party out of the ruling coalition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would lose his majority. The coalition currently controls 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament.

Leaders of the coalition issued a statement vowing to use “legal means … to correct the injustice,” The Washington Post reported.

Netanyahu did not issue a statement on Wednesday. If he ignores the decision, he could plunge Israel into a constitutional crisis at a time when his new far-right government is already facing massive domestic protests and is under international scrutiny for proposals that would curtail the Supreme Court’s power. In recent years, the Supreme Court has banned Israeli construction on private Palestinian lands in the West Bank, forced the acceptance of non-Orthodox conversions and guaranteed some rights to gay couples — all of which the new government opposes.

Netanyahu has also been under investigation in multiple corruption cases for years.

The prime minister appeared at least initially to sympathize with Deri, visiting him at his home. “When my brother is in distress, I come to him,” The New York Times quoted Netanyahu as saying.

Deri wields considerable power as head of the interior and health ministries, each with a massive budget. The Interior Ministry also helps determine policy on civil and immigration issues, an area of interest for the haredi Orthodox community as it seeks to expand its influence.

A statement on Twitter suggested Deri would not go gently. “I intend to continue with great strength and boldness the social revolution our rabbis of blessed memory launched for Jewish identity and assistance for the weak,” he said. “We will do this with power, standing tall, with God’s help.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Israel’s Supreme Court bans lawmaker from minister post, setting up potential coalition crisis appeared first on The Forward.

In a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday, a small group of journalists, mostly from Mexico, gathered in a remote-viewing room. They were there to watch the proceedings down the hall, in the courtroom itself, where the object of their interest would soon appear. The anticipation was palpable as Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public security, the well-connected “architect” of the Mexican side of the drug war, stepped into view of the cameras and onto the television screen before the journalists.

With his white hair, navy suit, and gray tie, García Luna looked every bit of his former job: being a top cop in Mexico. Now, federal prosecutors are accusing him of colluding and collaborating with drug cartels.

The trial holds the potential for explosive revelations about the brutal 16-yearlong drug war in Mexico. Though the proceedings may not receive as much fanfare as that of the notorious kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, García Luna holds an insider’s knowledge of the conflict in all its unflattering detail, including potential criminal behavior by top Mexican and U.S. officials.

García Luna was the top security official under former President Felipe Calderón, who launched the Mexican drug war in 2006. Fueled by U.S. funds, equipment, and support, the violence has only deepened in Mexico. The conflict has seen some 400,000 people killed, 82,000 have disappeared, and hundreds of thousands displaced.

García Luna, who flaunted his relationship with the U.S., has long been a confidant and right-hand man to Mexican leaders, including former presidents, amassing a collection of Mexican government and U.S. intelligence. At the same time, prosecutors say García Luna worked with the Sinaloa and Beltrán-Leyva cartels by accepting bribes, establishing protection rackets, providing sensitive information, arresting rival cartel members, and helping them traffic drugs into the U.S., in addition to immigration-related charges.

“This just shows the power of organized crime and the futility of the strategy we’ve pursued for the past 40 years.”

García Luna’s defense attorneys deny any wrongdoing by their client. At the close of the first day of jury selection, one of the lawyers told reporters outside the court that García Luna had not been offered a deal by the U.S. government and that they would continue with the trial: “There’s been no offers, there’s been no deals. We’re not interested unless they want to dismiss the charges,” said César de Castro, García Luna’s lead attorney.

For close observers of Mexico, García Luna’s trial could provide not only a glimpse into the inner workings of the failed drug war, but also some high-level accountability — a vanishingly rare occurrence for the many families touched by the war’s violence.

“This just shows the power of organized crime and the futility of the strategy we’ve pursued for the past 40 years,” said Adam Isacson, the director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America. “The only way there would be justice for the victims is if not just García Luna, but an entire class of corrupt Mexican and perhaps U.S. political and law enforcement leaders get named and have charges filed against them.”

Before taking his seat in the presidential cabinet, García Luna began his law enforcement career in 1989 at the Center for Investigation and National Security, an agency created with the help of the CIA. He worked in counterterror and counterinsurgency before joining the Federal Preventive Police in 1999, where he grew close to the inner circle of newly elected President Vicente Fox.

A year later, Fox dissolved the Federal Preventive Police and replaced it with the Federal Investigation Agency, or AFI, with García Luna at the head. The AFI, modeled after the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, had a budget in the millions. At his new perch, García Luna showed a flare for the dramatic: Some AFI operations were broadcast on live television. In one instance, after a high-profile kidnapping rescue, an AFI official gave the victim a t-shirt to wear that read “THANK YOU AFI.”

In 2006, when the right-wing President Felipe Calderón assumed office, García Luna was again promoted, this time appointed secretary of public security. He was now Mexico’s top law enforcement official and Calderón’s closest confidant. He oversaw the country’s prisons and a sprawling intelligence-gathering network. In short order, Calderón launched the drug war and García Luna sent the Federal Police and military into the streets.

His roles in security brought García Luna into close contact with his U.S. counterparts. Robert Mueller, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, and others were all on his meeting agenda. As The Intercept previously reported, U.S. State Department cables called García Luna a “trusted liaison, partner and friend of the FBI.” Another cable outlines a meeting between John Brennan, who would later become director of the CIA, and García Luna: “Garcia Luna expressed his appreciation for President Calderon’s undivided commitment to fighting organized crime and his satisfaction with U.S.-Mexican cooperation, suggesting if both sides held firm we would see a reduction in violence.”

“Having someone like García Luna is extraordinarily beneficial, and they” — U.S. officials — “were not going to stop having the benefit of that huge open door just because the guy was most likely taking money, or extorting money, out of traffickers and committing all kinds of crimes,” said Oswaldo Zavala, a journalist and professor at the City University of New York.

Prosecutors have asked the court to reject evidence “depicting meetings between him and senior U.S. government officials.” They’ve also asked that there be no mention of Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the former Mexican secretary of national defense who was arrested by the U.S. in 2019 but whose charges were later dropped in a diplomatic scandal that shook the U.S.-Mexico security relationship.

García Luna is no stranger to headlines. Sinaloa leader El Chapo’s 2018 trial saw a raft of bombshell allegations against García Luna. Jesus “El Rey” Zambada, one of El Chapo’s closest collaborators, testified that the Sinaloa and Beltrán-Leyva cartels gave García Luna nearly $60 million. Court records suggest El Rey will be a key witness at García Luna’s trial.

García Luna denied the accusations, threatening to sue El Rey for defamation. He tweeted old pictures of himself with Hillary Clinton, who at the time was secretary of state, and other U.S. officials.

The allegations against García Luna in El Chapo’s trial were only the most recent. For close to two decades, Mexican journalists have published books and investigations, exposing the alleged links between García Luna and organized crime. As secretary of public security, García Luna was also the subject of multiple investigations by Mexican officials.

Meanwhile, calamity tended to befall those who could potentially damage García Luna’s standing. Two officials who began probing his alleged links with the Sinaloa cartel died in an airplane crash in 2008. That same year, Javier Herrera Valles, a top Federal Police official, wrote Felipe Calderón a letter accusing García Luna of ties to organized crime. Herrera Valles was arrested shortly thereafter on unsubstantiated charges that he was working with the Sinaloa cartel and tortured in prison. He was exonerated and released in 2012.

With a change in presidential administration in 2012, García Luna left Mexico for Miami, where he lived a lavish lifestyle. He established a security consulting company called GL & Associates Consulting, or GLAC. Former law enforcement officers served on the board of GLAC, including Jose Rodriguez, the former top CIA official who ordered the destruction of CIA torture tapes. In December 2019, García Luna was arrested in Texas. (García Luna’s lawyers said in court filings that he made his wealth through legitimate means after arriving in the U.S.)

With his drug war machinations, close relationships with top officials from both sides of the border, and contacts with a raft of drug cartel operatives, García Luna left in his wake a host of potential witnesses against him. Many are themselves narcos who were arrested and turned on the cartels, such as Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal, who wrote in a 2012 public letter that García Luna had taken bribes.

According to previously sealed sentencing records, first reported by Aristegui Noticias and reviewed by The Intercept, between 2008 and 2010, La Barbie, who found Christianity after his arrest, fed information to the DEA, the FBI, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as “possibly communications with intelligence services in the United States.” Little is known of what La Barbie fed U.S. officials. His contact with the American agencies suggests the U.S. government may have known of the allegations against García Luna a decade before his indictment.

“This is all guesswork,” said Isacson, of the Washington Office on Latin America. “I suspect that the DEA may have still found him useful for some things. You have several cartels in Mexico and some of them are clearly not working with García Luna — a sort of ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation.”

Other narco witnesses expected to testify include Sergio “El Grande” Barragan, a former lieutenant for the Beltran-Leyva Organization, and Ivan “La Reina” Reyes Arzate, a Federal Police officer with close ties to the DEA, who was sentenced for feeding information to organized crime.

The DEA and the CIA referred all questions about García Luna to federal prosecutors. The Justice Department declined to comment. ICE and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests.

“If he becomes the scapegoat for everything wrong with Mexico’s system and the rise of organized crime in Mexico, then they’re doing it wrong.”

The Mexican government, under the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, launched its own investigations into García Luna. In 2021, the government filed a lawsuit against the former security chief, his wife, and several associates, alleging that they stole $250 million in contracts with the government and laundered the money. (His defense lawyers in the Brooklyn case asked the court not to allow any evidence related to García Luna’s post-2012 life in Florida, saying it’s irrelevant to the charges.)

Last June, the Mexican government obtained its own arrest warrant for García Luna, alleging association with criminal groups and illicit enrichment. The arrest warrant included charges of illegal arms trafficking related to Fast and Furious, the botched operation in which the U.S. government attempted, but failed, to track firearms sold to Mexican organized crime. In December, during a presidential morning briefing, a top security official presented a slideshow describing who García Luna allegedly conspired with during his time in office.

Whether García Luna’s trial will implicate top Mexican or U.S. government officials remains to be seen. Critics of the drug war worry that if the focus remains narrowly on García Luna, the larger import of holding him to account will be missed, even as the conflict continues to become more militarized and the death toll mounts.

“He’s clearly the tip of a much larger iceberg,” said Isacson. “But if he becomes the scapegoat for everything wrong with Mexico’s system and the rise of organized crime in Mexico, then they’re doing it wrong.”

As Zavala, the CUNY professor, put it, “This is much more horrible, much more endless, much more difficult to stop than just one guy in a high office taking some bribes.”

The post Mexico’s Former Top Cop Is on Trial in New York. Will the U.S. Be Implicated? appeared first on The Intercept.

NASA launched its eco-friendly aviation contest last year to help the US reach net-zero carbon emissions from aviation by 2050, according to the agency.

Reuters

• NASA selected Boeing as the winner of its contest to build a new fuel-efficient plane. 
• The plane’s design – it will have single aisles and slim wings – is expected to cut emissions by up to 30%. 
• Check out a rendering of Boeing’s winning entry. 

Boeing has won a contest from NASA to build and test a new environmentally friendly airplane. 

According to Boeing, the plane will have “ultrathin wings” and only have single aisles, which could cut down fuel consumption and emissions by up to 30%. 

NASA didn’t reveal the other candidates in its contest, called the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator Project, which sought ways to lessen commercial airlines’ climate change impact. 

“The SFD program has the potential to make a major contribution toward a sustainable future,” Boeing’s chief engineer said in a statement. 

“It represents an opportunity to design, build and fly a full-scale experimental plane, while solving novel technical problems.”

Check out a rendering of Boeing’s winning entry into NASA’s contest: 

Ukrainians look on a part of destroyed Russian Su-25 on display in Kyiv on May 8, 2022.

STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• Russia lost several combat aircraft to crashes in the final months of 2022.
• Some of those losses reflect the toll the war in Ukraine has taken on Russia’s air force.
• Others, which involved jets not being used in the war, may reflect the toll of Western sanctions.

Militaries expect to lose aircraft in combat, and even in peacetime there will be accidents when operating fast, complex jets, but a series of crashes by Russian combat jets may indicate that Western sanctions are cutting into Moscow’s ability to maintain its warplanes.

“Sanctions placed on Russia by the West could well be affecting Russia’s ability to manufacture and maintain parts needed to keep aircraft safe,” Michael Bohnert, an engineer and analyst at the Rand Corporation, a US think tank, wrote in a November essay.

Bohnert pointed to at least six crashes between September and late November.

Accidents involving older Su-25 ground-attack aircraft, a newer Su-34 ground-attack aircraft that crashed into an apartment building in Russia, and a MiG-31 fighter that crashed on takeoff are not that surprising. Those models have flown extensively in combat over Ukraine, so the incidents may reflect the wear and tear on them.

Russian emergency personnel remove parts of a Su-34 jet that crashed in a residential area in the town of Yeysk on October 18.

STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images

However, two crashes involved planes that weren’t being used in Ukraine. In mid-October, an Su-34 crashed into an apartment building in the city of Yeysk. A week later, an Su-30 fighter crashed into a residential building in Siberia.

The initial investigation of the Su-34 crash “pointed to a technical malfunction of the aircraft,” according to Russian authorities.

“What’s interesting is that even aircraft not involved in the Russian invasion are crashing,” Bohnert wrote of the October crashes. “These aircraft were being used as training platforms, and their combat counterparts have limited use in the current war.”

Crashes of multiple aircraft types, involving jets that have and have not seen combat, suggests a pattern. “While mechanical failures are expected in aircraft over time, a rapid increase in fleetwide mechanical failures may indicate that something fundamental has changed,” Bohnert wrote.

The question is what has changed in Russian aircraft reliability and maintenance? Specifically, are Western sanctions that have deprived Russian aviation of imported parts to blame? Russian airlines are already cannibalizing jetliners for spare parts that sanctions have made unavailable.

At the same time, there are indications that Russia is suffering from a lack of qualified military pilots as well as sloppy ground crews.

Russian troops work on Su-24 aircraft at the Hamaimim air base in Syria in May 2016.

Friedemann Kohler/picture alliance via Getty Images

Bohnert sees three possible causes for the crashes: a lack of skilled mechanics, not enough third-party companies to manufacture or repair aviation parts, or a lack of tools and materials to make or fix these parts.

However, Bohnert doesn’t see any of these explanations as sufficient by themselves. For example, while Western experts cite sloppy maintenance practices such as ground crews failing to remove covers from sensors before takeoff, Bohnert thinks a lack of competent mechanics isn’t likely.

“While Russian airbases have been attacked, damage has not been extensive and maintainers probably would not have been transferred to forward combat units,” he wrote.

Mobilization has affected small- and medium-sized companies that make aviation parts, but the crashes began before Putin ordered the mobilization on September 21. That leaves a shortage of manufacturing tools and raw materials because of Western sanctions.

This still leaves the problem of precisely attributing the reasons for the crashes. “We have seen continued and possibly increasing mechanical failures with Russian military and civilian aircraft,” Bohnert told Insider. “It has been difficult to ascertain why.”

The site where a Russian military aircraft crashed into a residential building in the city of Irkutsk on October 23.

REUTERS/Stringer

For example, measuring the impact of mobilization on Russian manufacturing is difficult, as is determining how many aircraft parts Russia is covertly importing. Details on transshipments into Russia may appear in trade flow reports or company annual reports, but this information may take months or even years to surface.

In the end, Russian aircraft maintenance may face a mix of problems. “The likely causes of the failures remain some combination of personnel, tooling, and increased demand for domestic production limiting the supply and/or the quality of spare parts,” Bohnert said.

As the war in Ukraine continues, combat will wear out aircraft and trained pilots. Pre-war stocks of spare parts will be depleted, especially of imported components and materials.

Substitutions may help a bit: Iran, for example, has been resourceful in either secretly acquiring or producing parts for its US-made 1970s-era F-14 and F-4 fighters or in cannibalizing parts from some planes to keep others flying. But that’s not a reliable way to maintain an air force.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master’s in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter headquarters is seen in San Francisco, California, United States on October 28, 2022

Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency

• A statue of Twitter’s bird logo sold for $100,000 at auction, according to multiple reports.
• The statue was part of Twitter’s fire sale that included hundreds of surplus items.
• The auction house would not comment on the identity of purchaser of the big-ticket item.

A three-and-a-half-foot tall statue of Twitter’s bird logo sold at auction for $100,000, according to multiple reports. 

The online auction opened on Tuesday morning, and by the afternoon, bidding was at $12,000 for the statue. Bids started at between $25 and $50 for all items.

The identity of the big-ticket buyer is unknown, as Heritage Global Partners, which is running the auction, declined to comment or share information about the buyers or bidding prices.

Hundreds of items are being sold in Twitter’s fire sale of surplus office supplies. The items are being auctioned off by Heritage Global Partners. 

A spokesperson for the firm, which sells surplus and distressed assets, previously told Fortune that the Twitter auction “has nothing to do with their financial position” and that “if anyone genuinely thinks that the revenue from selling a couple computers and chairs will pay for the mountain there, then they’re a moron.”

Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has made changes to the company since he acquired it for $44 billion last October. He almost immediately started cutting expenses by firing thousands of Twitter employees, and discontinuing the company’s free lunches and other company perks. 

A larger neon version of the Twitter logo sold for $40,000 at the auction, according to SFGate. The two Twitter birds caused a last-minute bidding war, SFGate reported, with the bid for the statue tripling in the hour before bidding closed. Leading up to the end, both birds were above $30,000.

Other items in the sale include phone charging bikes, industrial kitchen equipment like pizza ovens, and iMac monitors. 

HGP declined to comment on the bid prices for the Twitter logo statue and other items.

M3GAN 2.0 is slated for 2025.

Universal Pictures

• “M3GAN” is getting a sequel, set for release in 2025.
• It’s earned $95 million worldwide in just over two weeks of release, and was made for $12 million.
• It shows the power of a potential merger between its production companies, Blumhouse and Atomic Monster.

“M3GAN” is coming back.

Production studios Blumhouse and Atomic Monster announced on Wednesday that they’ve greenlit a sequel to their hit horror movie, about an AI-powered doll that torments any humans she thinks will harm her owner.

The sequel, titled “M3GAN 2.0,” is set for release on January 17, 2025. Stars Allison Williams and Violet McGraw are expected to return.

“M3GAN” has been a box-office smash since debuting on January 6, earning $95 million at the global box office so far, $60 million of which is from the US.

It was made for just $12 million, according to IMDb Pro.

Blumhouse and Atomic Monster — two leading horror-movie studios led by Jason Blum and James Wan, respectively — are in talks to merge, The New York Times first reported in November. 

“James is probably 70 to 80 percent artist and 30 to 20 percent business person, and I am the reverse,” Blum told the Times. “We really do complement each other, yin and yang, which is part of what makes this so exciting.”

“M3GAN,” which the two studios combined forces on, presents a look at the power of the potential merger.

Wan has directed and/or produced the “Conjuring” franchise, and Blumhouse specializes in low-cost horror hits that make big profits, such as “Get Out” and the 2018 “Halloween” reboot.

Blumhouse has a first-look deal with Universal, which distributed “M3GAN” to theaters. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell was giddy at the prospect of the Blumhouse-Atomic Monster merger during a conference last month.

“If that should happen, we are going to be in an absolutely impregnable position,” Shell said.