The car accident involving Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar in late July 2026 raised a number of questions not only regarding the organisation of her security but also concerning potential shortcomings and significant counterintelligence gaps in the protection of the head of state. The incident attracted additional attention because the...
Russia is expanding its network of drone launch bases along NATO’s eastern border
Amid Russia’s ongoing hybrid escalation, Moscow has begun rapidly developing and upgrading infrastructure in the European part of the Russian Federation to support the large-scale deployment of long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). On 16 August 2026, The Telegraph reported that satellite imagery had identified at least 10 newly established or...
Russia is using its own financial platform A7 to circumvent sanctions
The A7 payment system was established and launched in 2024 by Promsvyazbank (PSB), a Russian state-owned bank serving the country’s Defence Supply Base (DSB). In the Russian Federation, the entity is legally registered as LLC A7 (Obshchestvo s ogranichennoi otvetstvennostiu A7). Promsvyazbank provided the newly established company with its own...
Timber under a foreign flag: How Central Asia became a hub for evading sanctions on Belarusian wood
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on 2 March 2022 the European Union imposed a complete ban on the export of Belarusian timber, while the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) fully suspended all trade certificates for materials of Belarusian and Russian origin. This deprived Belarusian companies of the right to legally...
Freedom of speech as a loophole for Kremlin propaganda in the EU
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the European Union’s subsequent ban on state-controlled Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik, the Kremlin retained alternative channels for spreading its ideological and propagandistic narratives. One of the most effective has been niche book publishing across EU countries. Works...
From sanctions to Europe’s shadow fuel market
The energy “restructuring” of the European Union that began in 2022 was intended to deprive Moscow of revenue from raw material exports and to secure the European market. However, the rejection of direct supplies and the hasty redesign of logistics routes produced an unexpected side effect: while regulators and customs...
The Republika party in the European Parliament has become a mouthpiece for Russian narratives
On the far-right periphery of an informal pro-Russian grouping within the European Parliament are two Slovak Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), Milan Uhrik and Milan Mazurek, representing the political movement Republika. Established in 2021 by former members of the Slovak neo-fascist party ĽSNS, of which both individuals were previously...
Paris and Berlin call for reform of the EU diplomatic service
On 17 July 2026, the 26th Franco-German Council of Ministers took place at Augustusburg Castle in Brühl. Against the backdrop of the protracted military conflict in Ukraine and yet another crisis in the Middle East, Paris and Berlin issued a joint statement containing a direct ultimatum to Brussels’ foreign policy...
The Russian Orthodox Church in Europe as an instrument of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) outside Russia performs functions that go far beyond ordinary religious ministry through its involvement in spreading propaganda, justifying aggression, and assisting the espionage activities of Russian special services. Its European network comprises more than 600 centres and includes churches, communities, and monasteries that may have...
How Greece saved Russian LNG from the sanctions
In July 2026, one of the most acute diplomatic crises since the start of the sanctions confrontation with Moscow erupted at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. The adoption of the EU’s 21st sanctions package — designed as a final blow to the Kremlin’s financial and energy revenues — was...