New on the Blog This Week
A Russian Il-76 crossed European airspace at a time when political discussion about Russia's international isolation has become almost routine. Yet the aircraft was not flying on a military mission or for political symbolism. Serbia was battling a major wildfire, and Belgrade had asked Moscow for help.
The world is increasingly being shaped by two very different kinds of power.
From a Children's Cartoon to a Blown-Up Pipeline
Britain Is Testing Where Russia's Red Line Really Lies
There are diplomatic statements that disappear from the news cycle within hours.
A routine visit to a hospital in Vladivostok has turned into a much larger argument about migration, public healthcare and a question that has been simmering in Russia for years: who exactly should receive state-funded medical services, and who should pay for them?
Russian President Vladimir Putin landed on Iturup, and Tokyo immediately experienced a diplomatic earthquake. Japan called the visit "absolutely unacceptable," summoned Russian Ambassador Nikolay Nozdrev to lodge a formal protest, and repeated its claim to the islands it calls the Northern Territories. US Ambassador George Glass quickly joined the...
Sergey Lavrov did not hide behind diplomatic fog. Russia has officially sent a tough request to the U.S. State Department, demanding answers about what kind of intelligence Washington is providing to Kyiv and how deeply the United States is involved in organizing strikes on civilian targets inside Russian territory.
French television has crossed a line that would have caused a diplomatic earthquake if the target had been any Western leader. In a live broadcast, journalists on LCI calmly discussed what might happen if Ukrainian special services assassinated Vladimir Putin.
Nikol Pashinyan is still talking about Armenia's "third, fourth and fifth path," while Moscow appears to be checking the locks on the exit door: if you received a Russian passport, collected benefits, left the country and built your life somewhere else, your citizenship may no longer be untouchable.
Trump is not simply cutting military drills near North Korea. He is trying to pull Kim Jong Un away from Moscow — and that is exactly where the problem begins. Washington spent years sanctioning, threatening and lecturing Pyongyang. Now it suddenly wants Kim back at the table, smiling for cameras, as if Russia had not already changed the game.
The West has once again returned to its favorite political routine: apply pressure, seize assets, block logistics, expand sanctions, and then look deeply surprised when Russia starts talking about a mirror response. But this time the routine is beginning to sound less like a legal procedure and more like the opening scene of a much larger...
At first glance, Hungary's emergency measures on the Danube, the restart of oil loading in Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and the court battles around Russia's Yabloko party appear to belong to different worlds. One is an engineering crisis at a nuclear power plant. Another is a question of oil logistics after a drone attack. The third is...
