Opinion
COMMENT: ANO’s election win to see looser Czech fiscal policy, firmer monetary stance
The victory of the populist, eurosceptic ANO party in Czechia’s parliamentary election on October 6 will likely usher in a looser fiscal stance that supports growth and reinforces the Czech National Bank’s recent hawkish shift.
COMMENT: Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian refineries have probably reduced throughput by 30.4%, less than headline figures suggest
Ukraine has been hitting Russian refineries and caused a fuel crisis that has spead across multiple regions. The headline figure is that oil refining has been reduced by 38% since August, but digging into it and the reduction is likely less.
MACRO ADVISORY: The unintended consequences of Western sanctions
Since 2014, Western nations have hit Russia with a total of 26,655 sanctions (to mid-September 2025), with 23,960 coming after February 2022. The largest target group, with 13,611 sanctions, is state officials, business owners, and oligarchs.
PANNIER: Few will mourn passing of Turkmen Iron Lady Atajanova and Uzbek Grey Cardinal Jurabekov
Their deaths seem to have been conveniently overlooked for the most part by the authorities of today.
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COMMENT: How Kyrgyzstan is becoming a Chinese province
Central Asia lies at the crossroads of major geopolitical and regional interests. Until recently, the countries of the region managed to balance between Russia, China, Turkey, and the collective West. Now China plays an increasingly impoortant role.
COMMENT: Russia’s demographic fall enters a more dangerous phase
When Vladimir Putin first came to power, Russia was grappling with a demographic crisis. A quarter of a century later, the country faces another one—this time more severe, more complex, and more resistant to the tools previously used to contain it.
BERTRAND: The return of geopolitical gravity
Four extraordinary events happened last week within the span of just 72 hours; a week which may well be remembered as one of the most consequential in the transition from Pax Americana to the multipolar world.
COMMENT: Trump is preparing a “back door” plan to blame EU for Ukraine’s failure - FT
European officials fear that US President Donald Trump’s dramatic U-turn on Ukraine is a back door plan to shift responsibility for the West’s failure to prevent Ukraine’s defeat in its war with Russia or help it recover afterwards.
COMMENT: Today world will watch as Trump meets Erdogan and does not mention his dismantling of Turkey’s democracy
As an analyst warns of a “near police state”, the president’s rival pleads from his jail cell for democrats everywhere to take an interest.
COMMENT: Uncertainty and geopolitics plague Russia’s negotiations with China on gas supply deals
China is now the only potential buyer of Russian Arctic gas and the only customer with the capacity to absorb significant amounts of gas from the Yamal Peninsula, home to some of the country’s largest reserves.
COMMENT: Ukraine has no choice but to escalate its refinery attacks
Vladimir Putin's meeting with Trump in Anchorage backfired. The Russian president is now confident that military escalation will not lead to a significant increase in US military aid to Ukraine, much less intervention.
COMMENT: Behind Venezuela's phantom cartel, Trump's endgame remains unclear
The US Navy deployment near Venezuela uses a fabricated drug cartel narrative to justify potential military action. But competing agendas between regime-change hawks and America First pragmatists leave the administration without a coherent strategy.
COMMENT: Russian drone and jet incursions highlight shortcomings in Nato’s multilayered air defence system
A spate of Russian drone incursions has stress-tested Nato’s air defences. On September 10, nineteen Russian drones violated Poland’s airspace — the alliance’s worst such breach in more than seventy-five years.
COMMENT: Can Ukraine avoid a macroeconomic collapse? - Shevchenko
“As Ukraine enters autumn 2025, its economy teeters on the brink of a new macroeconomic shock, with its recovery potential exhausted,” Kyrylo Shevchenko, the former head of the National Bank of Ukraine said in an opinion piece on September 18.
COMMENT: Billionaire Ivanishvili’s shadow rule pushes Georgia toward autocracy
Georgia, once celebrated as a post-Soviet democratic success story, has quietly slipped into authoritarianism under the stewardship of its elusive puppet master, Bidzina Ivanishvili, says a Central Asia-Caucasus Institute report.
Washington has “surrendered” in the Central Asia battle for influence, says ex-ambassador
Russia and China now dominate narrative across region, Daniel N. Rosenblum tells students at Yale. If US cuts itself off from the world, “we will ultimately be less secure and less prosperous,” he warns.
Europe faces harsh realities in Ukraine as long war looms - Ash
Timothy Ash, senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London, says European policymakers are belatedly waking up to the fact that the war in Ukraine is set to be prolonged — and that they alone may have to foot the bill.
COMMENT: US-brokered Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal exposes Russia’s strategic failures
The recent peace breakthrough between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a major diplomatic win for the United States and a setback for Russia, according to a new report published by the Atlantic Council.
COMMENT: Why Beijing will never take Taiwan
Xi Jinping needs to think again before he sends so many young Chinese men and women to their deaths on Taiwan, for if the PLA does one day dare to land, they will be buried here.
COMMENT: Ukraine’s coming financial storm
“A crisis is drawing ever closer. It will break in Ukraine, but it won’t begin on the frontlines, where the country’s battle-weary brigades continue to impose a brutal cost on the Russian invader," writes Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management.