The EU Commission has proposed a new budget for the period from 2028 to 2034 which totals some two trillion euros - around 700 billion euros more than is planned in the current budget. At the same time, less money is to be allocated to fixed areas, in a bid...
Sticking point gas supplies: is Fico’s blockade justified?
Slovakia is blocking the adoption of the 18th EU sanctions package against Russia. It foresees a halt to Russian gas supplies from the end of 2027, to which Slovakia cannot agree without substantial compensation from Brussels, the country's Prime Minister Robert Fico insists. The move has sparked controversy even among...
Trump Sends a New Message to Putin
The President toughens his stance with more arms for Ukraine. It took six months, but President Trump seems to have concluded that Vladimir Putin doesn’t want peace in Ukraine. The Russian will have a “lovely” talk with the President “and then the missiles go off that night,” Mr. Trump said...
Countering Russian Cruise Missiles and Long-Range Drones
Russian long-range drone and cruise missile developments, production increases, and Western interceptor capabilities. Over the past week, Russia has launched over 1,800 Geran-2 (the indigenized version of the Iranian Shahed-136) alongside decoy long-range drones. This marks a sharp increase in the average intensity of long-range drone attacks per day, peaking...
Spain’s Baffling Russian Gas Addiction
The EU has published tough new measures to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports. It’s now facing opposition from an unexpected member. After years of hesitation, the EU has published a bold plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels. But as with NATO’s pledge to raise defense spending, Spain has...
Europe: It’s the Age of the Tiger Not the Ostrich
The continent is at risk. The demand to do nothing is not a rational response. There is a class of intellectuals, politicians, academics, and bureaucrats, European as well as American, who think differently about Russia. They tell us the country is nasty and possibly a bit overzealous in its foreign...
Massive US Sanctions on Russia?
US President Donald Trump, apparently fed up with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, promised on July 14 to renew arms supplies to Ukraine and threatened to impose sanctions on countries trading with Russia if no ceasefire is reached within 50 days. The economic sanctions pledge appears to be a U-turn...
Putin’s Real Life Crime Drama
53-year-old Roman Starovoit, Putin’s minister of transport, left his office in the 19th-century building in Moscow city center on July 7, recently remodeled in the ponderous traditional Russian style reserved for ministries, and walked past the big golden two-headed eagle at the entrance. He drove his beloved new Tesla to...
American Startup for the FSB General’s Son
How a financier сlose to Putin’s friends bought an American company with access to the data of millions of air passengers in the US and Europe — and made the son of the FSB’s First Deputy Director a partner in a similar project in Russia. How a financier сlose to Putin’s...
Belgrade Syndicate
Russian elites are obtaining Serbian passports with visa-free access to the EU during the war. Among them are an FSB special forces member, a friend of Nikolay Patrushev, nuclear weapons manufacturers, a close associate of Ramzan Kadyrov, and dozens of others. “We said it would be great to get passports”...