Eastern Europe / Features
MARTINS: The successes and failures of the Ukrainian drone industry
By mid-2014, after the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in Donbas, an industry emerged that would become the pillar of Ukrainian national defence, driving innovations that would influence modern warfare.
How Kazakhstan and Western oil major partners could take $27bn yearly hit from Ukraine’s drone attacks on Black Sea port
Moscow, on the other hand, might lose a mere $0.6bn annually, argues analyst.
Russian arms revenues rise 23% as domestic war demand offsets export collapse
Russia’s leading defence firms recorded strong revenue growth in 2024, driven by surging domestic demand for weapons to sustain the war in Ukraine, even as Western sanctions and falling arms exports weighed on international sales,
The Age of Electricity is here -IEA
Electricity is becoming the most important source of energy, but the International Energy Agency warned that the world is entering a period of heightened energy insecurity marked by geopolitical volatility, rising demand, and an oil glut.
LONG READ: De-dollarisation gathering momentum, driven by geopolitics and ballooning debt fears
De-dollarisation is gathering momentum, but the process of switching to settling global trade in multiple currencies is going at a glacial pace. The problem is that once glaciers start moving, they are impossible to stop.
Surging US and Russian LNG exports push gas prices to 18-month low
LNG prices in Europe have dropped to their lowest levels in 18 months, thanks to surging supply and subdued demand across the continent.
Russian middle-class investors have $14bn of frozen stocks abroad
Millions of Russian citizens who invested in foreign stocks and bonds before the war in Ukraine remain locked out of their assets, three years after sweeping Western sanctions froze Russian-linked holdings across global financial markets.
Demographic shifts threaten long-term growth in Emerging Europe, EBRD warns
Economies are "getting old before they get rich” as labour shortages, rising pension costs and declining working-age populations take their toll on region.
INTERVIEW: Ukraine’s "cheap, fast and brutally effective” innovation positioning it as European defence hub
Ukraine has become a centre for defence and dual-use technological innovation since the start of the war with Russia, Maria Repko of Kyiv-based think-tank CES tells bne IntelliNews.
A Ukrainian army of 600,000 men is still the second biggest in Europe
One of the proposals in the US 28-point peace plan is that Ukraine reduce its armed forces to 600,000 men. Bankova has already rejected that proposal, but it would still leave Ukraine with the second biggest army in Europe after Russia’s.
India confronts stricter US sanctions as Russian oil imports decline
India’s reliance on discounted Russian crude — a pillar of its energy strategy since 2022 — has come under renewed strain as Washington tightens sanctions and imposes fresh tariffs on Moscow’s energy sector.
LONG READ: How oil price discounts became a barometer of the sanction’s effectiveness
When Russian troops crossed into Ukraine in February 2022, the country’s main crude export blend, Urals, was still trading in line with its traditional discount to Brent of $2. A month later Russia discounted it by $30 to find buyers.
New jet engines compound Russia’s glide bomb headache for Ukraine
The Russian air force is lobbing as many as 5,000 glide bombs at Ukrainian positions every month, including some bombs weighing 3,000 kg that are powerful enough to destroy any defences.
Ukraine's Energoatom scandal escalates as Zelenskiy dithers on implementing a strong response
The Operation Midas scandal involving close associates of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and senior Ukrainian officials in a $100mn kickback scandal continues to expand and threatens to bring the government down.
China’s LNG tanker shadow fleet – reality or fiction?
China appears to be constructing a discreet fleet of LNG tankers capable of moving sanctioned Russian fuel in what is an emerging tactic that would allow Moscow to preserve export revenue while tightening the energy relationship between the two.
Ukraine’s Energoatom corruption stole money to protect Ukraine’s power stations, caused blackouts
A Russian missile barrage has plunged Ukraine into darkness as winter approaches but could have been avoided. Money earmarked to build effective defences against Russia’s sustained missile attacks was stolen, leaving them defenceless.
EXPLAINER: Lukoil scrambles to sell its international operations
Time is running short for Russia’s second-biggest oil producer to divest its vast international business, after it was hit with US sanctions that will soon render its assets outside Russia effectively inoperable.
Bottleneck on the border, truckers baffled by major snarl-up on Kazakhstan-Russia frontier
Tens of thousands of goods vehicles stranded. Yet nobody is quite clear on what is going on.
EU LNG imports set for record high in November as US supply surges
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports into the European Union are on track to hit an all-time monthly high in November, driven by a sharp rise in shipments from the United States.
LGBTQ+ Russians fleeing Georgia say country mirrors Kremlin's playbook
Russian émigrés who once saw Georgia as a safe haven now warn the country is replicating Russia's systematic persecution of LGBTQ+ people, forcing them to flee once more