The legacy of the Soviet electrical grid has been a pernicious thorn in the side of the three Baltic states. In the late 2000s, they began negotiating their exit from the Soviet-era joint BRELL (Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) agreement, which also provides western Russia and Belarus with electricity. It took nearly a decade of neg

In its latest iteration of information operations across Africa, Russia is using online video gaming to wield influence and shape anti-Western narratives. African Dawn is widely touted by Western governments, think tanks and media as the latest tool in Moscow’s foreign information manipulation and interference playbook The online geopolitical gam

Emboldened by critiques of the Conservatives’ coziness with Russian oligarchs, Labour sets its sights on the pervasive influence of investments and interests in the United Kingdom. Starmer’s criticism of Conservative ties with Russian money paves the way for investigating the United Kingdom’s dependence on Chinese capital. Just as the Conserv

A third warning of disaster ahead comes from Sergey Tsivilyov, Russia’s energy minister. On September 9, he said that Russia has now exhausted the reserves of electrical power generation equipment that had been left over from Soviet times. He warned that Russia has little chance of replacing that capacity anytime soon due to Western sanctions tha

As the war wages on, the Kremlin leader is likely to be confronted with a serious deterioration in Russian capacities. He may be reduced to asking Beijing for help. China could provide the much-needed assistance, but it will come at a price: Moscow will have to make concessions that will render Russia Beijing’s junior partner, an arrangement that