Author: Klaus Holz

The autumn of 2025 marked a new stage in the Russian-European confrontation. Previously, violations of the airspace of European countries by Russian drones were episodic, but now they have acquired a systemic and massive nature. September saw the peak of alarming incidents. In Poland and Romania, Germany and Denmark, drone...

Russia In modern Europe, which strives to remain a model of democracy and transparency in politics, nevertheless, corruption scandals break through from time to time. But some of them cause more than just indignation, they become a mirror of deeper processes that take place in the heart of European institutions....

One of the important objects of concentration by the Russian special services was and remains Britain. This is not only about espionage in the classical sense, Russian special services have also noted high-profile cases related to the physical elimination of persons disliked by the Kremlin. Suffice it to recall one...

For observers who monitor the activities of the Russian tanker fleet, which is often called the "shadow one," an interesting question remains: the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed in this area by the US, the European Union, and other jurisdictions. You can often hear about tankers transporting Russian oil changing...

Russia is one of the world’s largest arms exporters. Officially, contracts for deliveries of military equipment are signed with dozens of countries and annual turnover runs into billions of dollars. But behind the façade of legal exports there are frequent reports of clandestine shipments to criminal, paramilitary, or terrorist organizations....

Until recently, Russia’s presence in France was perceived largely as part of cultural exchange and economic cooperation. However, after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and especially following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has increasingly been associated with destabilisation, covert pressure, and a threat to democratic institutions....

Unsettled times in every era have always provided fertile ground for making profit, even of questionable ethical nature. War, however, most clearly illustrates the principle that all means are fair when it comes to profit. As the saying goes – money has no smell. Although this was never meant in...

In August, it became known that Vladimir Matveyev, an electrical engineer from the “Volgoneft-212” tanker that sank in December 2024 in the Black Sea with a cargo of fuel oil, allegedly collected arrears in wages in court from the shipowner “Kama Shipping”, which the Russians are now apparently making the...

Recently, the issue of staffing the Russian “shadow” tanker fleet has begun to receive some attention, but its main focus is on business directly related to the Kremlin's oil empire. At the same time, several structures that are daughters of powerful global maritime corporations are still under Russian jurisdiction, and...

One of the central issues on today’s civilizational agenda is energy. Humanity’s growing needs require ever more energy, and the world’s leading minds are seeking all possible reliable sources of supply to counterbalance traditional hydrocarbons and nuclear power. Yet oil and gas are in no hurry to surrender their positions,...