In December this year, Argentina announced the start of negotiations with the UK on the possible lifting of the arms embargo imposed after the Falklands (Malvinas) War in 1982. However, these statements by Argentine President Javier Milei were officially denied by the British government. To understand the current debate surrounding...
Sex scandal in Spain: lessons for Europe
In December 2025, Spain was rocked by an unprecedented political scandal involving not only corruption, but also sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour by high-ranking members of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), which traditionally considers itself one of the main defenders of gender equality in the country. In the summer,...
“Between two giants”: how the confrontation between the USA and China presents Europe with a historic choice
Since the early 2010s, the geopolitical rivalry between the two major powers, the US and China, has gone far beyond bilateral relations. This struggle, which includes trade wars, technological competition, and ideological conflicts, is shaping new rules for global politics and economics, which has become particularly noticeable in the outgoing...
A crisis of confidence and growing instability: the UK on the brink of 2026
The year 2025 will go down in British history as another period of deepening socio-political division and slowing economic growth. The results of the outgoing year show that Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government has faced extremely low levels of trust, while economic indicators have faced difficult challenges that create a...
Sanctions and Romanian passports with false origins
An investigation launched by the Romanian prosecutor's office in 2024 uncovered a large-scale corruption scheme that allowed Russian citizens to illegally obtain Romanian citizenship and, accordingly, European Union passports. According to the investigation, the scheme operated from at least 2022 to 2024 and had a well-organized, transnational structure. The basis...
The Kremlin’s “Shadow Fleet”: from sanctions to espionage
With the outbreak of a full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, the world, and Europe in particular, faced a new form of "hybrid" warfare: covert operations in international waters. Central to this strategy has been the so-called Russian "shadow fleet," which comprises over 1,000 vessels registered under shell companies and...
War without tanks. Russian influence in the European Parliament
The European Parliament, as one of the key institutions of the European Union in matters of imposing sanctions against Russia, supporting Ukraine and the EU's overall foreign policy, is a particularly important target for influence by the Kremlin. In its resolutions, the European Parliament has repeatedly expressed concern that Russia...
International Russophile movement in Russia’s hybrid influence system
In December 2025, the Council of the European Union imposed sanctions against the International Russophile Movement (IRM), adding it to the list of organisations and individuals involved in ‘hybrid threats’ from Russia and its information operations in Europe. The EU Council's decision states that, along with a number of analysts,...
Starmer vs Abramovich: the final battle for £2.5 billion in humanitarian aid for victims of the war in Ukraine
In December 2025, the British government put an end to a story that began in the spring of 2022. British Prime Minister Keit Starmer announced that Abramovich had been given 90 days to voluntarily transfer £2.5 billion from the sale of Chelsea to humanitarian aid for Ukraine, after which the...
Uninvestigated death and missing data: the Serbian trail in Moscow
The death of Radomir Kurtic, a representative of the Serbian state defense company Jugoimport-SDPR, who died in Moscow on November 17, 2025, remained virtually unnoticed by the international community until mid-December, when it was reported by the Serbian media. The Military Security Service and the Information and Security Agency (BIA)...