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,...
Exercise West-2025: spy networks and new security challenges. Geopolitical tensions on Europe’s eastern borders
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....
Shadow of the drones over Europe. How war in Ukraine and Russian drones rewrite the EU priorities
Three years into Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Europe faces an entirely new security reality. The war itself, Russia’s increasingly regular strikes on border regions of Eastern European countries, and the repeated incursions of drones into EU airspace have made defense and security the number-one priority. What used to be...
State Contracts are the fodder base of сorruption on Polish railway
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...
Signa’s corruption empire: European business on the hook of russian capital
It has become almost axiomatic: behind every major corruption scandal in Europe, one inevitably finds a Russian trail. Moscow skillfully identifies unscrupulous players, offers them the chance to enrich themselves, and gradually ensnares them in a web of tainted money—erasing whatever moral compass they once had. In the process, funds...
Obstacles on Montenegro’s path to the EU
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...
Hungary acts countrary to the EU on the issue of russian oil
Hungary continues to receive Russian crude oil through the southern branch of the Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline – an exemption allowed by the EU due to the particular dependence of Budapest and Bratislava on supplies of Russian “black gold.” The Druzhba pipeline runs from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine, delivering oil...
China and Russia are holding Serbia back on the way to the EU
The Republic of Serbia has held the status of an EU candidate country since 2012 and has been in membership negotiations since 2014, but the process remains far from completion. Meanwhile, authoritarian powers such as China and Russia are by no means “sitting idly by.” Both autocracies, each in their...
NATO’s inland sea becomes a theatre of hybrid warfare
After Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Alliance, the Baltic Sea has effectively become an inland sea of NATO. Since then, alliance members have been staging one naval exercise after another in these waters. In September 2023, off the coasts of Latvia and Estonia, two weeks of “Northern Coasts” exercises...
The Magnitsky case: echoes in Dubai
The city of Dubai (UAE) is not only located at the crossroads of trade routes and serves as a global financial center. For quite some time now, Dubai has also become a specific place of concentration for individuals from around the world accused of crime and corruption. Dubai enjoys a...