Author: Klaus Holz

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,...

The autumn of 2025 has drawn the attention of the international community to two major military events. The first was a parade in Beijing, showcasing China’s rapidly advancing military capabilities, and the second is the large-scale Zapad-2025 exercises currently taking place in Belarus with the participation of Russian armed forces....

Corruption schemes in the field of railway state contracts in Poland reveal systemic problems that stretch from contractor selection to the padding of contracts with “necessary” components and the exaggeration of required volumes of work. When millions of złoty appear on tender papers, Poland’s “railway economy” often looks less like...

Russia and corruption remain the main obstacles to Montenegro’s accession to the European Union. Although Russia is gradually losing its influence in the Western Balkans, the Kremlin has no intention of simply accepting this. Moscow is making every effort to continue interfering in the internal affairs of countries in the...