Thursday 5 February 2026 Russia’s shadow mail system is one of the least visible yet most consequential adaptations to the sanctions regime imposed since 2022. While attention has focused on oil tankers without flags, payment chains routed through third countries and the rebranding of dual-use components, the quiet reconstruction of postal and courier logistics has played a critical enabling role. Sanctions do not merely restrict goods and money; they disrupt the mundane conn

Thursday 5 February 2026 The decision by the United States Department of the Treasury to investigate whether the Swiss National Bank has engaged in currency manipulation reopens an old and uneasy debate about the boundary between legitimate monetary policy and covert economic statecraft. Switzerland, long accustomed to presenting herself as a neutral custodian of financial stability, now finds that neutrality questioned not in the realm of diplomacy or security, but in the fo

Thursday 5 February 2026 Germany’s recurring proposal for a ‘two-speed Europe’ has returned to the centre of continental debate at a moment of acute geopolitical stress. War on Europe’s eastern flank, economic divergence within the eurozone, demographic imbalance, and the persistent challenge of enlargement have combined to revive an idea that has never quite disappeared from Berlin’s strategic imagination. The proposal is simple in outline but complex in consequence: a core

Thursday 5 February 2026 The question of who might succeed Vladimir Putin as President of Russia is not merely an academic exercise for foreign policy specialists. It is central to understanding how the Kremlin may evolve, how the war against Ukraine could unfold in future years and how the post-Putin order might be consolidated internally within the Russian Federation. For more than a quarter of a century Putin has shaped the Russian state around his own personality, instinc

Thursday 5 February 2026 The Israeli defence establishment has long treated the battlefield as a laboratory. Nowhere is this more evident than in the development of active protection systems for armoured vehicles, of which the Iron Fist system represents one of the most ambitious and conceptually revealing examples. Although often overshadowed in public discussion by Israel’s missile defence architecture, Iron Fist illustrates how Israeli military thinking has adapted to the

Thursday 5 February 2026 The security situation in eastern Ukraine, especially close to the front line, has deteriorated significantly over recent months. For many observers this decline is not merely a series of isolated incidents but a structural shift in the nature of the conflict. What was once a volatile but managed line of contact has become an arena of increasing violence, heightened uncertainty and considerable risk for combatants and civilians alike. Here we seek to