The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), held from June 3 to June 6, 2026, and intended to showcase Vladimir Putin's international stature, opened and closed against a backdrop of smoke from Ukrainian drone attacks. On the morning of June 3, the forum's opening day, a major fire broke out at the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal. On June 6, the day the forum concluded, the attacks were repeated. But what did Vladimir Putin's conduct at the forum actually reveal?
Russia itself – now attempting to reclaim its former colonial possessions by military force – that is associated in many African countries with the struggle against colonialism. Alongside its military presence, Russia has been expanding its informational influence in Africa and recruiting mercenaries there to fight against Ukraine
President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policies, his redux of the Monroe Doctrine, and the threats to abandon NATO have triggered a collective angst from the US’s most powerful and proven allies.
Russia is accelerating the informational and psychological phase of its preparations for a potential future war with NATO, experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warn.
Across the years and various administrations there have been attempts through policy to weaken the dollar. US exports and manufacturing competitiveness can suffer when a strong dollar deters foreign sales, limits profits, and inhibits reinvestment.
In order to justify and ‘sacralise’ Russia's war against Ukraine, the Moscow Patriarchate is introducing the quasi-religious imperial ideology of the ‘Russian world’, in which this war is presented as ‘sacred’ and as a ‘metaphysical’ confrontation of the Orthodox ‘Holy Rus’ with the ‘satanic West’.
The debate over the cause of the war in Ukraine often centers on a single question: “Was it Putin’s imperial impulses that led to the Kremlin’s invasion, or the West’s disregard for Russia’s security concerns?”?
When Vladimir Putin reviewed his troops during Russia’s Victory Day parade there was more than one ironic twist in the air. Aside from the threat of Ukrainian drone attacks, hanging over Moscow was the reality that Russia’s vaunted military power is a mirage.
