On March 11, 2026, Russia could have vetoed a UN resolution condemning Iran, its strategic partner, and chose to abstain. Meanwhile Russia nearly doubled its oil exports to Asia, filling the gap left by Iranian barrels. And Ukrainian crews were shooting down Iranian drones over the Gulf.
Moscow invited the leaders of all 22 Arab League states to its first Russian-Arab summit, set for October 15, 2025. Five days before, the Kremlin announced a postponement. According to Bloomberg, only Syria's president and the Arab League's secretary-general had agreed to come. Why did Russia lose the Arab world?
In December 2024, the Assad regime, which Russia had propped up since 2015, collapsed while Russian forces did nothing. Six months later, Washington and Brussels lifted sanctions, and Syria's new rulers are talking of peace with Israel. How did Moscow manage to lose its closest Arab ally?
Garry Kasparov sees Trump's second term as the Putinization of America, with Elon Musk as its leading oligarch. Alexander Dugin welcomes the same changes and calls Trump Putin's ideological twin. Both agree that Trump's America is starting to look like Putin's Russia. They differ only on whether that is a disaster.
In recent months, Europe has seen a coup plot in Romania, a blast at a Spanish defense factory and sabotage on a German frigate. All have been linked to Russian intelligence. While fighting openly in Ukraine, Moscow wages a quieter war against Europe through sabotage, cyberattacks, bribery and propaganda.