Monday 15 June 2026 One of the most curious political developments of the early twenty-first century has been the emergence of a complex and often uncomfortable relationship between the Russian state and a range of far-right political movements across Europe and North America. The relationship is frequently misunderstood. It is often portrayed either as a vast conspiracy directed from Moscow or as an entirely fabricated phenomenon invented by Russia’s critics. The reality lie

Monday 15 June 2026 For much of the first three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war was often measured by maps. Analysts scrutinised advances and retreats around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Robotyne or Pokrovsk. Yet by mid-2026 another battlefield has become equally significant: the contest over energy infrastructure. Ukraine has increasingly shifted from a strategy of merely defending territory towards one of systematically degrading the economic foundations tha

Monday 15 June 2026 The announcement of a peace agreement between the United States and Iran marks one of the most consequential diplomatic developments in the Middle East for decades. After months of military confrontation, attacks on shipping, severe disruption to global energy markets and a persistent risk of a wider regional war, the declaration by Washington and Tehran that a framework for peace has been reached has been greeted with relief across much of the world. Oil

Sunday 14 June 2026 Every generation believes that the one following it has somehow gone wrong. The complaint is almost as old as civilisation itself. Ancient Greek writers lamented the decline of youth. Victorian commentators worried that industrialisation was producing a generation without moral fibre. The so-called “Baby Boomers” criticised Generation X for cynicism and apathy, while Millennials were accused of entitlement and self-absorption. Today much of the same critic

Sunday 14 June 2026 The post-Cold War period was marked by an assumption that security could be enjoyed as a dividend of prosperity. Defence budgets across much of Europe declined, military industries consolidated and governments increasingly treated war as a remote contingency rather than a present reality. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shattered that illusion. The subsequent years have revealed a fundamental truth that policymakers had long preferred to ig

Sunday 14 June 2026 The story of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) of Saint Petersburg is one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of modern information warfare. Emerging from relative obscurity in the early 2010s, the organisation evolved from a domestic propaganda enterprise into a global symbol of state-sponsored online influence operations. Its rise reflected not merely technological innovation but a deeper transformation in the way political power is exercised