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June 15, 2026 — No Comments

Extortion and the Crisis of Small Business Security in Peru

By Giovanni Giacalone - Central & South America Team

In recent years, Peru has experienced a dramatic increase in extortion targeting small and medium-sized business owners, transport operators, market vendors, construction contractors, and informal entrepreneurs. What had long existed as localized criminal racketeering has evolved into a broader system of organized extortion linked to transnational criminal groups, weakened institutions, prison-based networks, and the rapid expansion of urban insecurity. The phenomenon has become one of the central public security concerns in Peru, particularly in Lima and northern coastal cities.

The perpetrators seek to extract regular payments, commonly known as cupos, from businesses in exchange for “protection,” meaning immunity from violence carried out by the extortionists themselves. Extortion has spread across transportation companies, mototaxi associations, neighborhood stores, restaurants, construction sites, nightclubs, and even schools. Media reports and police investigations indicate that refusal to pay often results in shootings, grenade attacks, arson, or targeted killings.

A major factor in this transformation has been the expansion of the Venezuelan-origin criminal network known as the Tren de Aragua into Peru. According to investigations by the Peruvian National Police (PNP) and reporting by La República, factions associated with the group, including “Los Gallegos,” “Dinastía Alayón,” and “Los Injertos de Aragua,” have established extortion operations in Lima, Callao, Trujillo, and other urban areas. Primary sources from the Peruvian state also confirmed the scale of the problem. While the expansion of Tren de Aragua has contributed to the growth and sophistication of extortion networks in Peru, the problem itself is not new. Extortion long predates the group's arrival and is closely linked to broader issues such as urban insecurity, economic informality, and limited state presence in some communities.

One of the sectors most affected has been urban transportation. Bus companies and informal transport associations in Lima and Callao have reported systematic threats demanding daily or weekly payments. According to La República, members of “Los Injertos de Aragua” extorted public transportation firms through digital payment systems such as Yape, allowing criminals to collect payments anonymously while reducing physical exposure. The use of fintech applications illustrates how extortion practices have modernized technologically alongside Peru’s expanding informal digital economy.

Data published by Gestión, citing the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office’s Crime Observatory, documented at least 125 attacks related to extortion in Lima and Callao’s transportation sector between August 2024 and December 2025. The report noted that most victims were drivers, followed by passengers and fare collectors. This demonstrates that extortion has evolved beyond isolated threats into sustained systems of coercion affecting entire economic sectors.

Peruvian media coverage also highlights the psychological dimension of extortion. Victims frequently receive WhatsApp messages containing videos of firearms, photographs of family members, or recordings of previous murders. In one reported case involving a transportation entrepreneur in San Martín de Porres, criminals demanded 10,000 soles per month and threatened to “blow up” the victim’s house if payments stopped. The combination of digital intimidation and spectacular violence creates a climate of fear that discourages denunciation and weakens public trust in authorities.

Another important feature of the phenomenon is its relationship with Peru’s informal economy. A large proportion of Peruvian small businesses operate with limited legal protection, precarious access to banking, and minimal police presence. Extortion networks exploit these vulnerabilities. Informal transport operators, street vendors, and neighborhood businesses often lack insurance, legal representation, or the resources necessary to resist criminal pressure. In many districts, extortion effectively becomes an unofficial tax imposed by armed actors.

The testimonies of some of the extortion victims, who asked to remain anonymous, provide a rather clear modus operandi on the part of these criminal groups:

A 34-year-old dance teacher from central Lima told us that her business had been thriving until she began receiving disturbing WhatsApp messages demanding large sums of money in exchange for being allowed to continue operating safely. The messages included threats against her and her family, along with photos of places she frequently visited. One day, a funeral wreath was delivered to her apartment. That was the moment she decided to close her business and move abroad.

Another former business owner had to close his restaurant in Trujillo as it had become impossible for him to even reach the end of the month as the gang planning to extort him wanted all of his monthly income. Eventually, he moved to another area of the country and then abroad.

In some cases, the individuals involved in the extortion rings are as young as twelve, as explained by the Peruvian police and reported by Infobae in May 2026:

“Criminal organizations have begun recruiting even younger children for serious crimes in Callao. General Espinoza detailed that there have been “several cases” of 12-year-old children armed and participating as hitmen or extortionists.”

Scholars and journalists have noted that Peru’s extortion crisis differs from earlier forms of criminal taxation seen during the internal conflict of the 1980s and 1990s. Contemporary extortion networks are decentralized, entrepreneurial, and highly adaptive. Rather than operating through ideological insurgency, they function through flexible criminal markets. Investigative reporting in El Comercio revealed how some organizations linked to the Tren de Aragua combined extortion with shell companies and international money transfers, indicating increasing financial sophistication.

*Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko, pexels.com.*

For instance, on April 19, 2026, the National Police of Peru (PNP) managed to dismantle the criminal gang “Bunker Gota Colombo,” dedicated to extortion, inside its center of operations located in the southern Lima district of Villa El Salvador.

The detainees, eight foreign nationals and one Peruvian citizen, are being investigated for the alleged crimes of illegal manufacture and possession of firearms, as well as aggravated extortion linked to predatory lending practices. During the searches, authorities seized four sticks of dynamite allegedly used to intimidate victims. Officers also confiscated 33 cell phones, seven notebooks containing detailed records of loans and collections, 13 motorcycles, and one car.

The operation began following a complaint filed by a woman living in Villa El Salvador, who reported receiving constant threats demanding that she make payments through a digital wallet.

The consequences for Peru’s economy and civil society are substantial. Extortion increases operating costs for small businesses, discourages entrepreneurship, reduces investment in vulnerable neighborhoods, and reinforces informality. For many entrepreneurs, paying cupos becomes normalized as a cost of survival. In some cases, business owners close operations entirely or migrate internally to avoid threats. The burden falls disproportionately on lower-income Peruvians whose livelihoods depend on small-scale commerce.

Ultimately, the recent extortion phenomenon in Peru reveals a broader crisis of governance and the institutional capability to provide efficient urban security. The expansion of criminal organizations, the weakness of institutional enforcement, the growth of informal labor markets, and the technological adaptation of extortion practices have combined to create an environment in which violence becomes economically rational for criminal actors. As long as state legitimacy remains fragile and economic precarity widespread, extortion is likely to remain one of the defining challenges facing Peruvian society and for law enforcement.

June 13, 2026 — No Comments

How Russia is Reportedly Replacing Spies with Criminals in the UK

By Isabella Sutherland - Military Strategy & Intelligence Team

Over one hundred and fifty arson and explosive plots across Europe have been linked to Russia between February 2022 and Februry 2026, and very few carried out by Russian nationals^[1]. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western security services have documented a sharp increase in Russian intelligence operations conducted through criminal proxies, disposable agents, and deniable intermediaries. R v Roussev & Others and R v Dylan Earl & Others together demonstrate that traditional UK counter-espionage frameworks were not designed to address remotely directed intelligence networks and task-based criminal operatives.

Available evidence suggests that Russia’s accelerated use of criminal proxies in the UK is enabled by multiple interacting factors, including the structural degradation of professional HUMINT capacity through mass coordinated diplomatic expulsions; depletion of Russian intelligence in Ukraine; the ideological contrast from Cold War-style long-term communist recruitment with Putin’s Russia, and the technological infrastructure which has made remote proxy control operationally viable at scale. The 2022 invasion was an accelerant rather than the origin of a new tradecraft.

Double Depletion

Russia’s professional HUMINT presence in the UK had begun to decline before 2022. The Salisbury poisoning triggered the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in 2018, the largest of its kind since the Cold War, removing a significant layer of embassy-based intelligence officers. Following the full-scale invasion in 2022, a coordinated Western response expelled over 700 Russian officials across more than 34 countries. The overwhelming majority were intelligence officers using diplomatic cover; this huge capacity cannot be quickly or easily replaced ^[2].

The Ukraine war introduced a compounding depletion. Russia’s intelligence services including the FSB, SVR, and GRU have been substantially redirected toward the war effort, consuming intelligence resources which could have otherwise been deployed in Western Europe^[3]. These combined factors made proxy substitution both preferable and increasingly attractive. [al1]

Why ideology cannot fill the gap

Two main enabling conditions explain why proxy actors seem to have become one of the main instruments of Russia in the UK instead of rebuilding its network of professional officers after the mass expulsions.

First is ideology. The Cold War model of espionage depended on Western recruits motivated by a genuine commitment to Soviet communism. Putin’s modern statist nationalist anti-Western ideological framework may not hold the same appeal _[4]. This is not a temporary gap, but a seemingly increasingly entrenched [al2] feature of post-Soviet Russia; money, coercion, and criminal leverage now substitute this void.

Second is technology in the era of the ‘Gig Economy’ defined by a free-market, predominantly online system where short-term positions common and organisations buy workers for temporary engagements ^[al3]^[5]. Encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram, cryptocurrency payments, and remote tasking are central to this on-demand workforce. It creates the operational infrastructure for control over proxy actors without physical presence. Russian handlers direct the local actors anonymously through digital channels, making attribution difficult and the handler-agent relationship difficult to trace. Without this infrastructure, [al4] the expulsion of embassy-based officers would have significantly reduced Russian capability.

The Hitman and the Arsonist

Six Bulgarian nationals, the so-called ‘Minions Ring’, led by Orlin Roussev and directed through Russian intermediary and fugitive Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek, operated in a networked structured utilising fake passports in a layered principal-agent system. The group conducted semi-professional surveillance on journalists, politicians, and military facilities across the UK and Europe between 2020 and 2023, compiling reconnaissance on targets whom they planned to kidnap and kill.[al5] The defendants were recruited and tasked over Telegram, motivated by reward sums of nearly €1 million. No Russian nationals were directly involved in UK operations. This case demonstrates a structured operation purpose-built for intelligence collection and the closest contemporary example to traditional espionage.

The case of Dylan Earl takes a slightly different form. It was a task based, financially motivated operation with less sophistication. The 20 year old from Leicestershire with international criminal links was recruited on Telegram by a Wagner Group handler and tasked to organise arson attacks on London warehouses storing humanitarian aid and Starlink equipment for Ukraine, and to plan the kidnapping of a prominent Russia dissident. He recruited further assisting agents, none of whom had previously met, creating a layered principal-agent system in which the Russian connection was several steps removed from the physical act. The March 2024 arson caused over £1m damage. Earl and his co-defendant Jake Reeves became the first people convicted under the National Security Act 2023 for activity linked to a foreign state. This new legislation was explicitly designed to capture actors whose operations fall short of traditional espionage. Counter Terrorism Policing described this as a clear example of a Russian-state linked organisation using British proxies to carry out serious criminal activity on its behalf ^[6].

Frameworks need fixing

These cases reveal a core tradecraft shift to the absence of Russian nationals physically present in UK operations. No professional intelligence officers; no embassy infrastructure; no ideological commitment.

The National Security Act 2023 represents a genuine institutional acknowledgement of this shift. By extending criminal liability to actors who assist foreign states without formal intelligence roles, it closes a significant legislative gap posed by the proxy model. However, prosecution after the fact is not the same as disrupting recruitment further up the chain. Traditional counter-espionage frameworks built around identifying and expelling professional officers are necessary but no longer sufficient alone. The UK must engage with digital platforms and financial infrastructure through which proxy recruitment operates and pursue closer cooperation with the private sector, especially at a time when transatlantic intelligence-sharing is under unprecedented strain. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia Report 2020 warned that the UK had failed to fully assess the scope of Russian interference, prosecutions since the full-scale invasion suggest that this assessment remains incomplete ^[7].

Russia’s shift towards criminal proxies is not a temporary adaptation to temporary Western pressure, but the path of least resistance to modernising effective tradecraft. It is a structural response to an irreplaceable HUMINT deficit, a post-ideological recruitment environment, and a digital infrastructure purpose-built for deniable covert action. With the escalation of the Ukraine war, comes the parallel escalation of the ‘shadow war’ which cannot be won by expelling diplomats alone.

^[1]Courthouse News Service. (2025, October 24). Men sentenced over London arson attack masterminded by Russia as part of a wider sabotage campaign. Men sentenced over London arson attack masterminded by Russia as part of a wider sabotage campaign | Courthouse News Service

^[2]Riehle, K. P. (2024). Soviet and Russian Diplomatic Expulsions: How Many and Why? International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 37(4), 1238–1263. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2023.2272216

^[3]Congressional Research Service. (2025). Russia’s foreign intelligence services (IF12865). Congress.gov. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Services | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

^[4]Snegovaya, M., & McGlynn, J. (2025). Dissecting Putin’s regime ideology. Post-Soviet Affairs, 41(1), 42–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2024.2386838

^[5]Richterova, D., Grossfeld, E., Long, M. & Bury, P. (2024). Russian Sabotage in the Gig-Economy Era. The RUSI Journal, 169(5), 10–21. Full article: Russian Sabotage in the Gig-Economy Era

^[6] Counter Terrorism Policing. (2025, October 28). Men jailed for London warehouse arson. Counter Terror Business. Men who organised Russia-backed arson at London warehouse jailed | Counter Terrorism Policing

^[7]Intelligence & Security Committee of Parliament. (2020). Russia (HC 632). Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. HC 632 – Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament – Russia

June 4, 2026 — No Comments

The Strategic Logic of China’s April 2026 Supply Chain Regulations

By Sandra Watson Parcels - China & Asia Team

The April 2026 Chinese State Council regulations on industrial and supply chain security introduce a compliance trap with no clean exit. Foreign companies operating in both Western and Chinese markets now face a structural dilemma: complying with Western export controls or sanctions may qualify as grounds for designation and penalty under Chinese law, while failing to comply risks Western penalties. This is not an incidental feature of the regulations. It is their strategic function. The regulations comprise two instruments, the Provisions on the Security of Industrial and Supply Chains and the Provisions on Countering Improper Extraterritorial Jurisdiction by Foreign States, and expand the capacity to investigate, restrict, and penalise foreign companies and governments accordingly. They are the latest iteration of a framework treating economic interdependence as an instrument of state power, one that has grown more institutionalised and operationally precise over time.

The Expanding Toolkit

China has built a set of interwoven economic pressure tools over the past several years. The April 2025 licensing controls on seven medium and heavy rare earth elements (samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium) established Beijing's capacity to restrict access to materials where it controls over 80 percent of global processing capacity. While some extraterritorial features of later 2025 measures were suspended until November 2026, the core licensing framework remains active. The April 2026 supply chain security regulations extend this framework. The Provisions on Security of Industrial and Supply Chains permit Chinese authorities to designate foreign entities as threats to industrial security and impose escalating responses including trade restrictions, investment blocks, and visa limitations. The criteria for designation are extensive and include acts as routine as complying with foreign export controls or sanctions.

The counter-extraterritorial provisions operationalise this trap. The Provisions on Countering Improper Extraterritorial Jurisdiction give Chinese authorities broad discretion to penalise companies that comply with foreign controls, without requiring proof of intent. Complying with European Union (EU) or United States (US) rules is sufficient grounds for designation. The practical consequences are hesitation, delayed investment decisions, and in some cases withdrawal from market positions that would otherwise support allied supply chain goals. The legal framework does not require companies to choose China. It requires them to avoid choosing against it.

Strategic Patterns and Objectives

This approach follows patterns established in earlier measures where Beijing arranged economic instruments in response to actions it opposed, whether on Taiwan, technology security, or alliance coordination. The consistent objective has been to encourage restraint among governments and self-censorship among firms without crossing into armed conflict. The G7 trade ministers addressed this in their May 2026 statement from Paris, expressing concern about economic coercion through export restrictions that risk supply chain disruptions, particularly for critical minerals, and undermine economic security and resilience. That G7 trade ministers felt compelled to address this directly in a formal communiqué reflects how far the issue has moved from technical trade policy into the domain of security strategy. Western policy frameworks have yet to fully institutionalise that shift. The strategic logic is to slow or complicate moves toward supply-chain independence in sectors including defence, electric vehicles, renewables, and advanced manufacturing. By concentrating leverage at processing chokepoints rather than raw material extraction alone, the approach creates costs that are asymmetric and difficult for individual states to absorb unilaterally.

Implications for Europe and Allied Partners

European states, including Italy, face direct exposure. Many industries remain dependent on Chinese processing capacity for critical minerals used in batteries, defence systems, and green technology. European defence procurement in particular relies on rare earth elements for guidance systems, radar, and propulsion technologies where alternative processing capacity outside China remains limited. The April 2026 regulations mean companies with exposure in both markets now face that compliance trap directly. The compliance trap does not affect companies in isolation. When one state faces economic pressure, others frequently hesitate to act in solidarity, which deepens instead of eases vulnerability. This fragmentation is what the regulatory framework exploits. But fragmentation is not inevitable. It reflects political incentives that individual states have so far been unwilling to override. Understanding why collective hesitation persists matters as much as documenting it.

North America illustrates both the exposure and the gap. American companies operating in China that comply with US forced labour due diligence or technology transfer requirements now risk designation under the new regulations. What a compliance officer treats as routine legal obligation, Chinese authorities may treat as a qualifying act. Canada's experiencefollowing the Meng Wanzhou arrest demonstrated how targeted pressure can leave a middle power with limited unilateral options, and the broader pattern holds: collective resistance breaks down as individual states calculate that bilateral accommodation is less costly than holding a common line. For middle powers, the compliance trap is easier to navigate collectively than alone. Canada's positioning on critical minerals compounds this. The advantage cited in recent policy discussions rests on extraction capacity, not processing capacity. Canada extracts. Others process. That is the specific gap the current regulatory leverage exploits.

Policy Considerations

Addressing this challenge requires treating economic coercion as structural, not periodic trade friction. Generic diversification language understates what that requires. Public investment should target processing capacity in allied jurisdictions directly, since extraction diversification alone does not address the chokepoint through which current leverage operates. For the G7 and EU, this means jointly funding processing infrastructure rather than leaving it to market incentives that have so far failed to close the gap. Within NATO, early warning and coordinated response mechanisms for economic coercion deserve the same institutional attention currently given to cyber threats. For companies, resilience planning should map exposure at the processing stage specifically, not just at the extraction or finished goods level, since that is where the compliance trap bites hardest. Due diligence frameworks and open market arrangements among allied and partner states would reduce the dilemmas companies currently face, but only if governments provide clarity on which compliance obligations take precedence and under what conditions. The compliance trap is a legal design. Dismantling it requires a legal and institutional response, not only a supply chain one.

Concluding Assessment

The April 2026 regulations add legal precision and institutional reach to a framework that has been developing for several years. The compliance trap they formalise is not a byproduct of competing regulatory systems. It is a structural feature designed to raise the cost of coordinated responses while remaining below the threshold of direct confrontation. The chokepoint is processing, not extraction, and current Western policy responses have not consistently targeted it. Treating these instruments with the same analytical seriousness as military or cyber threats is warranted, not because the risks are equivalent, but because the effects on industrial capacity, alliance cohesion, and strategic autonomy are consequential and harder to reverse. The vulnerabilities are understood. The processing gap is specific enough to act on. The question is whether policy follows analysis.

June 2, 2026 — No Comments

KFOR MSU Securing the Ibar Bridge

By Geraldina Botter - Italy Team

Since 2012, Italian Carabinieri of the KFOR Multinational Specialised Unit (MSU) have patrolled the Austerlitz Bridge in Mitrovica, twenty-four hours a day. Twenty-seven years after the Kosovo War and nearly two decades into Kosovo's declaration of independence, the bridge remains the sharpest measure of how far EU-facilitated dialogue has come, and how far it still has to go^[1].

The Austerlitz Bridge as a measure of impasse

Officially known as the New Bridge, a hundred-meter steel structure crossing the Ibar River was originally conceived to connect the two sides of Mitrovica. Following the conflict, French KFOR forces invested nearly €1.5 million in its reconstruction as part of post-war stabilisation efforts. "Austerlitz", recalling Napoleon's decisive victory over Austro-Russian forces, proved an evocative designation: far from being an infrastructure, the bridge became a geopolitical boundary, embodying the unresolved disputes over sovereignty, governance, and identity that continue to define Kosovo's post-conflict impasse.

The Mitrovica partition runs deeper than the water. Formalized into two distinct municipalities in 2013 under the Brussels Agreement, Ethnic Serbs populate the northern bank, while ethnic Albanians the southern. While the bridge remains open only to pedestrian crossings, many residents have not crossed it for more than 15 years^[2]. Now viewed as a symbol of division, since 2012 it has been patrolled 24/7 by Italian Carabinieri from KFOR-MSU to maintain peace and stability in the area and to deter illegal activities.

In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, French KFOR troops established a military checkpoint on the bridge; recurring outbreaks of violence, spanning from the 2000 attacks and the 2004 riots to the 2011 barricade crisis and the 2017 wall demolition, consolidated its status as a recurrent flashpoint for interethnic confrontation. Over the years, it has repeatedly been barricaded, reopened, and politically contested through EU-mediated dialogue, calling for its "revitalisation". Yet, political stakes have sharpened with Pristina’s efforts to consolidate control in the north, deepening the community's sense of alienation and marginalisation. While the struggle continues, it stands as a symbol of the impasse, entrenching ethnic divisions beyond the spatial dimension, thereby underscoring the stagnation of the EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina to this day.

Carabinieri hybrid model of Stability Policing

Spanning twenty-seven years of NATO's continuous presence, the Italian-led Multinational Specialised Unit has remained central within the mission's security architecture. Based in Pristina under the direct authority of the KFOR Commander (and currently led by Colonel Di Fiore), it is a highly specialized multinational unit of Italian Carabinieri, working alongside Czech Military Police and Moldovan soldiers. In accordance with UNSC 1244, its mandate is oriented towards guaranteeing a safe and secure environment (SASE) and freedom of movement (FOM) for all communities across Kosovo. Operating as a third responder alongside KFOR forces, MSU acts as a gendarmerie unit that blends military capabilities with a policing background.

Defined as Stability Policing, the concept emerged from the Alliance's experience in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late 1990s to fill the "security gap^[3]" when local police forces are either absent, insufficient, or unable to perform their functions, while conventional military units remain ill-suited for public order and community-oriented tasks. In this sense, MSU was designed to fill that gap, combining deterrence capabilities with policing functions, institutional legitimacy with operational flexibility, and community proximity with response readiness.

Translated into 24/7 presence on both sides under Operation "Austerlitz", MSU aims to preserve stability through situational awareness activities, criminal intelligence gathering, and crowd and riot control.

Beyond the bridge itself, mirroring the mandate of SFOR, the unit conducts patrols throughout northern Kosovo, supports KFOR Tactical Reserve operations, performs military police functions, coordinates with EULEX, and contributes to the ongoing assessment of Kosovo Police self-sufficiency. Through training in CRC, CQB, and tactical reserve procedures, combined with joint exercises, Carabinieri exemplifies the broader evolution of Stability Policing at the intersection of deterrence, public order management, and institutional support.

Drawing on its long-standing tradition of territorial policing, public order management, and proximity-based security practices, the Carabinieri has gained a considerable degree of legitimacy in Kosovo’s polarized environment, being perceived as impartial by both Kosovo Albanian and Kosovo Serb communities. In sharp contrast to other external security actors, this local trust holds a strategic value extending beyond tactical duties, proving that the management of interethnic tensions depends as much on legitimacy and local trust as on deterrence.

Conclusion

From the Western Balkans to the Middle East, MSU’s hybrid model has proven not only durable but exportable, filling a vacuum that conventional military deployments cannot provide and purely civilian missions cannot sustain. As a police force operating in post-conflict zones thousands of miles from home, their unusual blend of law-enforcement expertise and military capability provides a far more tailored response to today’s “not-quite-wars”.

Far from being an urban infrastructure, Austerlitz Bridge is a barometer of a political process still in motion, where Carabinieri presence remains one of the indicators of where normalisation actually stands. With Pristina's administrative consolidation, Belgrade's influence over Kosovo's Serb communities, and Trump's territorial solutions, northern Kosovo remains caught between competing pressures that military presence alone cannot resolve. Today, the “bridge issue” is in no way a matter of logistics; it is a struggle of competing symbols and perceptions that goes beyond spatial dimensions, where MSU holds that space open.

Yet, deeper questions remain unaddressed. While the EU-facilitated dialogue advances slowly and intermittently, Russia's war in Ukraine redirects Alliance attention, reactivating anxieties about the vulnerability of Europe's periphery. With the Ankara NATO Summit scheduled on 7–8 July 2026, the question of the Alliance's long-term commitment to the Western Balkans demands a substantive answer. In the geopolitical vacuum of enlargement fatigue^[4] and an eastward-shifted Alliance, Italy's enduring presence stands as a security provider for a community that is still shaping its own future.

^[1] Baccini, F. (2025); Tra Pristina, Belgrado, UE e Trump. Nubi scure su Mitrovica. Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa. Available at: https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/cp_article/tra-pristina-belgrado-ue-e-trump-nubi-scure-su-mitrovica/

^[2] Elfversson, E., Gusic, I. and Meye, M-T., (2023); The bridge to violence: Mapping and understanding conflict-related violence in postwar Mitrovica. Journal of Peace Research, 61(4), pp.576–594. doi:10.1177/00223433221147942. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00223433221147942

^[3] Tancon Lutteri, F. (2020). EUROGENDFOR: The Origins. European gendarmeries, from their origins to the European Gendarmerie Force. The CoESPU Magazine, (4), 14. https://www.coespu.org/index.php/articles/eurogendfor-origins

^[4] Othonos, A. (2010). Why Has the European Union Not Been Able to Counter 'Enlargement Fatigue'?. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 6(1). https://www.jcer.net/index.php/jcer/article/view/124/192

May 18, 2026 — No Comments

Putin Hints at Ending Ukraine War, Can Russia’s Economy cope?

By Sorin Dojan - Russia Team

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday (9 May) that he thought the war with Ukraine is “coming to an end”, more than four years after the start of Russia’s large-scale military campaign in Ukraine, which significantly altered European security dynamics and regional trade patterns. Three days later, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the government now forecasts GDP growth of 0.4% in 2026, significantly down from the 1.3% previously expected.

For many looking at the latest string of data coming from the Kremlin, ending a four-year war that has driven consumer prices higher in the process sounds like the first hurdle in a series of challenges to overcome. These range from stubbornly persistent inflation and high interest rates to a militarised economy losing momentum and a shrinking GDP growth. Russia's economy entered recession in 2022, and the recovery that followed was uneven, marked by persistent declines in retail sales, sluggish income growth in some parts of the country, and regional budget constraints^[1].

Amid the economic disruptions caused by sanctions, certain industries emerged to keep the economy afloat. But the winners that underpinned Russia’s economy during the war could suffer disproportionately from any future economic redress. The challenge for the regime will then be to find alternative paths to growth in a heavily sanctioned economy with limited export strings and partners.

What to do with the military industrial complex?

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world witnessed a highly coordinated sanctions response, with the West collectively imposing almost 24,000 punitive measures against individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft as of August 2025, according to Castellum.AI, an AI-powered agency specialising in Anti-Money Laundering (AML).

The Russian economic revival that emerged later was highly volatile and disproportionate, with weapons-producing regions among the war’s economic winners, as evidenced by regional tax collection data. On the other hand, the regions mostly pressured were the ones bordering Ukraine, those specialising in ferrous metal production and places with industries heavily sanctioned by the West^[2].

The Russian military-industrial complex operates differently from its American counterpart. Whereas the US defence industry relies heavily on private investment, Russian companies in this industry largely depend on state subsidies, making the government a major contributor to the military-industrial complex^[3].

There is no doubt that Russia has overinvested in its military to boost production and growth, but above all to replace the hardware damaged in the war. In 2025, the defence sector absorbed 15.9 trillion roubles in 2025, or around 7.2% of the country’s revised GDP forecast for that year. For comparison, its close ally, China, spent around 1.7% of its GDP on the military, according to World Bank data, yet Beijing is not involved in a costly war forcing the state to implement extensive stabilisation measures.

The question that then emerges is what happens to such government spending once the war comes to an end?

One would be tempted to assume a return to the pre-2022 status quo, but that would depend on the West lifting sanctions and allowing Russia’s once-productive industries (particularly Europe-destined commodities) to resume humming at full speed.

There is no guarantee of success. As recently as last week, European diplomats and officials cited by POLITICO said the bloc was getting ready to impose a fresh wave of sanctions, this time targeting Moscow’s shadow fleet of ageing tankers. The EU is also eyeing the opportunity to impose sanctions that were previously opposed by ex-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, including punitive measures against Patriarch Kirill and other members of the Russian Orthodox Church. French politician and Minister Delegate for Europe Benjamin Haddad said in April that it was not the time to lift sanctions on the Kremlin but rather “step up […] pressure”, namely on the Russian energy sector.

For now, it is expected that Russia will maintain the same level of military investment to replenish military stockpiles and replace personnel lost on the battlefield^[4]. Yet for how long that can be justified is subject to debate. As one Carnegie analyst put it: “Any attempt to rapidly cut spending will result in collapse. But nor can the military machine be fed indefinitely.”

NVO, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Defence investment is not necessarily conducive to a thriving economy. According to a RUSI study, defence expenditure plays little role in promoting economic growth; a European Commission report separately stated that “it is impossible to determine if this tendency [to spend more on defence] is favourable or negative to growth.”

It is not hard to imagine why. The military-industrial complex is part of a command economy, largely detached from market forces that drive flexibility and a more efficient resource reallocation. At the macro level, such inflated expenditure is only justified in times of war^[5].

In Russia’s case, being left with an overinflated military-industrial complex that serves as one of the few engines of growth is dangerous to its future economic recovery. Disinvest too soon and you might risk upsetting an overexpanded industrial workforce. But choosing to continue allocating resources toward military procurement rather than civilian economic activity is equally unproductive.

Either way, Putin’s speech in early May signals more than just a willingness to pull out from a war that has cost the Kremlin thousands of lives. Instead, his remarks come against the backdrop of a Russian economy showing signs of “stagflation”. The central bank interest rate stands at 14.5% as of April 2026, significantly higher than the rates in Western economies. Core inflation hovered at 6.3% in Q1 2026, up from 5% registered in the previous quarter.

If Novak’s statement serves any good in this context, it might be that it could force the Kremlin to give peace a genuine chance after four years of sustained military operations with significant economic and human consequences. At what cost could peace come for the national economy? It remains to be seen.

^[1] Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Iikka Korhonen, and Elina Ribakova, War-Induced Economic Convergence in Russian Regions (Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2025).

^[2] Andrey Yushkov and Michael Alexeev. “Russian Regions in Wartime: Fiscal and Economic Effects of the Russo-Ukrainian War,” Post-Soviet Affairs 40, no. 4 (2024): 313–325. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2024.2355047.

^[3] Gorodnichenko, Korhonen and Ribakova, War-Induced Economic Convergence, 6.

^[4] Maria Snegovaya, Nicholas Fenton, Tina Dolbaia, and Max Bergmann, The Russian Wartime Economy: From Sugar High to Hangover(Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2025).

^[5] Dmitry Gorenburg, Samuel Bendett, Ken Gause, Pavel Luzin, Gabriela Iveliz Rosa-Hernandez, Paul Schwartz, and Elizabeth Wishnick, Crafting the Russian War Economy: The Effects of Export Controls on Russia’s Defense Industrial Production (CNA Corporation, 2024).

May 5, 2026 — No Comments

Euro-American Intel Sharing: Trump’s Second Term Threat

By Elena de Mitri - UK & European Affairs Team

Intelligence cooperation has always been fundamental for allied countries that share similar interests, values, and objectives in order to rationalise resources and expertise. Cooperation is particularly developed among transatlantic allies, including the US and many European countries.

While it tends to be relatively stable, even in the face of disagreements with a partner’s actions and policies, concerns have recently been raised in many European countries regarding the current Trump administration and the stability of such cooperation, due to the fear that the US government could weaponise and politicise intelligence flows and information shared by the partners in order to achieve political objectives. Among confrontational behaviour by the US administration, European partners are learning how to deal with an increasingly risky relationship.

An increasingly shaky relationship?

Soon after the start of the second Trump presidency in January 2025, European intelligence agencies started voicing concerns about the risk of over-relying on US intelligence. Tariffs and frequent political quarrels haven’t helped either as disagreements with the current administration could endanger transatlantic relationships in an unprecedented way. Transatlantic relations have been under strain since then. The changing tide was particularly represented by the March 2025 suspension of intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Lasted only for a few days, the suspension was enacted to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in diplomatic talks with Russia to reach a peace deal. However, such a move also sent a clear message to US allies: lack of cooperation towards US objectives could have grave consequences, including the weaponisation of intelligence.

Other developments have strengthened this view. This year’s Annual Threat Assessment and its dismissal of transatlantic security cooperation, coupled with the unusual appointments of politically aligned individuals as directors of US intelligence agencies, usually reserved for established non-partisan practitioners, has marked a significant change in the country’s policy towards the war in Ukraine, as both moves were partially reflecting Russian positions on the conflict. More recently, the appointment of General Joshua Rudd, who previously served in the Indo-Pacific Command, as head of the National Security Agency, one of the main intelligence agencies in the US, strengthened this shift towards a stronger focus on China. Finally, purges of established US intelligence officers, due to their involvement in cases perceived as anti-Trump, might ultimately undermine established relations among practitioners from allied countries, as trust heavily relies on personal relationships.

Intelligence cooperation has always been upheld through subsequent administrations. However, the instability and opaqueness brought about by the second Trump administration has left allies wondering whether they should become more self-sufficient. After the Signal scandal in March 2025, the denial of any wrongdoing by involved US officials and the grave breach of operations security rules left allied intelligence services wondering whether sharing sensitive information with US government officials remains feasible as its disclosure could compromise sources and operations. Perceptions of unreliability might threaten trust among national intelligence services, which is fundamental to maintaining the current high-level cooperation. As a consequence, many European intelligence agencies showed increased worries that the intelligence they were sharing with the US would either be leaked or, even worse, be shared to non-allied countries without their permission, thus breaking a long-established rule. Some of them, including the Dutch intelligence agencies, have scaled down intelligence sharing with the US due to concerns that the current administration may politicise intelligence and possibly share sensitive information with Russia, in line with the country’s repositioning along Russian narratives of the conflict in Ukraine.

Finally, US increasingly assertive and coercive behaviour towards traditionally allied countries has made European intelligence services even more worried about sharing information with the US. As president Trump was publicly talking about annexing Canada, one of his closest advisers was pushing to remove Canada from the Five Eyes, the most important intelligence-sharing network in the world, in order to pressure the country into becoming the 51st state. While this remained a suggestion, it was reported that US government officials were actively discussing it. On the other hand, after the US government declared its intention to take control of Greenland, which is part of the Danish Kingdom, due to security concerns in the Arctic, the Danish Defence Intelligence Services categorised the US as a threat to the country, amid alleged demands from the US government to gather intelligence on Greenland.

The importance of transatlantic intelligence cooperation

Intelligence cooperation has long been fundamental to achieve security objectives, especially as the nature of the current threats has become increasingly transnational. Intelligence agencies face numerous, complex threats and resources are usually too scarce to effectively deal with threats by themselves. As a consequence, cooperation among intelligence agencies of countries with similar objectives and values has greatly increased since the Cold War, in order to combine resources and fill expertise gaps. This is especially important nowadays, as current threats are increasingly ambiguous, murky and well-concealed. Cooperation is quite consistent in areas such as terrorism and transnational crime, in which reaching shared goals is relatively easier.

Continued cooperation relies on and reinforces a shared worldview and perception of current threats. It is no surprise then that US and European intelligence agencies have developed a strong relationship in this field. The US has currently various levels of partnerships with European countries, dating back to the Second World War. While some countries are considered privileged partners, other are "less important" so information sharing with them is more limited. However, they remain critical partners for the US due to their easier access and specific expertise, including linguistic expertise. Moreover, multilateral forms of cooperation with other European partners happen in the context of specific alliances, such as NATO, or informal organizations.

Even when transatlantic allies were involved in disputes and fights about each others’ foreign policy and trade policies, intelligence sharing was upheld. As a matter of fact, when European countries disagreed with US military actions during the War on Terror, they would still provide important intelligence to help the US government achieve its objectives. This continued cooperation has highlighted how strong relations and shared interests, including especially the fight against terrorism, allowed intelligence agencies to overcome political disagreements. However, the behaviour of the current US administration has been threatening these relationships in an unprecedented way. This has brought European countries to discuss the possibility of reducing their cooperation with the US, in order to protect their national interests.

Prospects for a more independent Europe

Replacing the US intelligence contribution is not an easy task. While European countries have advanced tools and capabilities, they lack the scale and coordination role that the US possesses. Such scale allows US intelligence agencies to provide more timely and higher quality assessments, as they can benefit from the use of big data techniques and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, if the US was to stop or greatly limit intelligence sharing, European countries, along with Ukraine, would have to rely on a lower quantity and quality of information. Indeed, replacing US capabilities would require long term investments in human capabilities and advanced tools.

President Donald Trump poses for a family photo with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and European leaders before their multilateral meeting, Monday, August 18, 2025, in the Cross Hall on the State Floor of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

However, it is not an impossible task. In January 2026, it was reported that France was providing a growing amount of technical intelligence to Ukraine, likely referring primarily to satellite imagery. Such intelligence was previously mostly provided by the US, but the March 2025 suspension of intelligence sharing and the subsequent pause in some weapon shipments to Ukraine prompted European countries to take a more prominent role. While intelligence sharing was quickly restored, this suspension amplified already existing worries about the politicisation of intelligence by the US government. Amongst calls to replace resources and capabilities offered by the US and work towards European independence in the security sector, progress tends to be quite slow. A key factor in this struggle is the size and structure of actors in the field. No actor, including the European Union, possesses the same financial resources and in-house capabilities as the US, the latter requiring a long time to be developed.

At the same time, the Trump administration is also seeking to reduce its involvement in the continent and has openly taken a more hostile approach to its European allies. As a consequence, European intelligence services are expanding cooperation among them, with important steps taken at the EU level. As prominent officials from European intelligence agencies have started giving more importance to EU-wide agencies and the number of intelligence officials embedded in representation offices in Brussels has grown, internal pushes to develop autonomous capabilities have been growing, although emphasising the importance of maintaining cooperation with the US. Some are instead calling for the creation of an intelligence cooperation agency dedicated to the European Union to make better use of intelligence provided by member states. However, such an agency would have to overcome numerous challenges, including the voluntary nature of intelligence sharing in the European block, which leaves critical information in the hands of member states that have repeatedly been wary of sharing too much. Moreover, some European countries are widely considered untrustworthy due to their ties to third party countries such as Russia and China. As a consequence, cooperation will likely include a limited group of countries that share generally stronger ties, including in security. This is already happening inside NATO, as more and more intelligence is now being shared on a smaller scale rather than with all the member states. Bilaterally, cooperation among key countries, including the UK, France and Germany, has already been strengthened in order to deal with the instability caused by the current US administration. This strengthened cooperation will likely mark an important, and possibly permanent, shift from the critical role that the US attained until now.

Conclusion

Relations among European and US intelligence services have been described recently as generally good, as high ranking officers of European intelligence services have stressed the importance to keep up cooperation with the US. However, evolving and multifaceted tensions between the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean are increasingly affecting transatlantic relations, especially in regard to security. The shift towards the Russian narrative of the conflict in Ukraine and frequent disagreements between European countries and the US have positioned the latter as a riskier alliance for European countries. Such repositioning might impact intelligence sharing, which is considered fundamental in many fields. While some countries are reconsidering their intelligence ties to the US, others have already started scaling down sharing, especially in areas of particular concerns. European intelligence officials have openly stated that cooperation in this field hasn’t stopped and that the US remains an ally, as US intelligence agencies are trying to ease European worries. However, further transatlantic tensions might have an unprecedented impact on security relations.

April 21, 2026 — No Comments

Narcotrafficking in Latin America: Limits and Future Challenges

By Elisabetta Semeraro and Anna Hasani - Crime, Extremism and Terrorism Team

Narcotrafficking represents a persistent transnational threat for security worldwide and affects Latin American countries greatly. Despite decades of anti-drug policies and the proliferation of control instruments, ranging from law enforcement and militarisation to border control and international cooperation, the region continues to experience high levels of trafficking, violence, and criminal diversification. This paradox raises a central analytical problem. States have invested heavily in anti-drug policies, yet their effectiveness remains highly contested. This is especially true given the growing development of hybrid narco-trafficking. This article aims to analyse primarily the anti-drug control measures at regional level in Latin America and their lack of effectiveness. In this analysis, effectiveness refers to the capacity of anti-drug instruments to reduce trafficking flows. It also includes their ability to disrupt criminal networks and limit the systemic violence associated with drug economies. This definition deliberately moves beyond a narrow focus on drug seizures or arrests, metrics that often reflect enforcement activity rather than structural impact, and encompasses the broader question of whether existing policies are adequate to address the evolving nature of the threat.

Anti-drug instruments

The World Drug Report 2025 from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, referred to data from 2023, shows a sustained increase in cocaine production and trafficking in South America, consolidating long-established routes from the Andean region towards North America and Europe. The data shows geographic diversification and route adaptation. This is particularly visible across the Caribbean region and key maritime corridors.

The report also highlights a connection between trafficking routes and rising levels of violence, especially in strategic transit countries where organised criminal groups compete over territorial control over export routes. The expansion of cocaine markets has increased competition between criminal groups. In some areas, this has led to higher homicide rates. It has also strengthened the role of criminal networks within political and administrative structures.

In parallel to the global drug control architecture led by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Latin America has developed a regional framework aimed at coordinating anti-drug policies. The central institutional actor in this framework is the Organisation of American States (OAS), within which the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) operates as the principal technical and policy body on drug-related issues. Established in 1986, CICAD was designed to promote hemispheric cooperation, policy harmonisation, and capacity-building among Member States. It operates through specialised units addressing both demand reduction (through prevention and rehabilitation programmes) and supply reduction, including capacity building for law enforcement across maritime, aerial and emerging threat areas.

At the regional level, Latin America is not lacking institutional instruments. On the contrary, it has a dense network of cooperative mechanisms. These include technical assistance, training programs, maritime interdiction coordination, and intelligence exchange. The persistence of trafficking flows documented by the UNODC data does not stem from a vacuum of governance, but rather from the complex interaction between institutional capacity, political prioritisation, and criminal adaptability with the concerning emergence of new trends in drug trafficking. The MEM, for instance, operates as a peer-review mechanism without binding sanctions or enforcement powers: compliance depends entirely on the political will of individual member States rather than on external obligation. As a result, implementation is highly uneven across the region. Countries with stronger institutions and more stable governance structures tend to engage more substantively with CICAD's recommendations, while States characterised by weaker rule of law, limited institutional capacity, or high levels of corruption within law enforcement agencies apply these instruments selectively or superficially. In contexts where criminal networks have penetrated political and administrative structures, anti-drug policies may be formally adopted but systematically undermined in practice.

Additionally, traditional law enforcement mechanisms, built on the logic of territorial control, physical interdiction, and centralised criminal structures, are meeting their structural limits. Crucially, this is not merely a matter of insufficient resources or political will: it is a question of conceptual design. The existing anti-drug architecture was constructed to address a problem defined by geography: ports, borders, production zones, transit corridors. As criminal organisations have recognized this enforcement gap, they have not simply adapted their routes; they have begun to migrate toward an entirely different operational dimension, one for which current frameworks offer no adequate response. It is precisely this failure of territorially-bound policies that has created the conditions enabling the digital transformation of drug trafficking.

Building on this structural shift, one of the most significant developments for the future of drug trafficking is the growing role of digital technologies in the distribution and commercialisation of illicit substances. Historically, Latin American criminal organisations relied on territorial control and physical routes; contemporary markets increasingly integrate clearnet online platforms, forums, encrypted messaging applications, and digital payment systems (such as Bitcoin and Monero). This evolution completely reconfigures the territorial dimension: production, payment, and distribution are connected by a digital thread.

An analysis conducted by UNODC e Web-IQ on shipping advertisements for synthetic drugs on darknet marketplaces shows that, in the observed sample (June-July 2021), Mexico appears as the main declared shipping origin (45.51%), followed by Colombia (14.74%) and Brazil (13.46%). These data make clear that the phenomenon is particularly widespread in the geographic area under examination.

What may be even more surprising is the ease with which online trafficking can be accessed. The dark web is no longer the primary trend. Social media platforms, open forums (Reddit and Dread), dating applications (Grindr and Tinder), and Telegram channels are now far more accessible, require minimal technical skills, and involve lower exposure to risk. The use of hashtags and emojis takes on an entirely different function from the one we are accustomed to: they convey messages related to the sale and/or purchase of illicit substances. In this context, images, icons, or symbols that visually reference the product replace conventional textual language, reducing the risk of content removal by platforms.

From an investigative standpoint, this model introduces structural challenges: access to platforms, such as Telegram, can occur through SIM-hosting services, and users can select a country different from their residence, further complicating geolocation. Even a State with strong control over ports and borders may face a transactional chain that separates communication, payment and delivery.

While online platforms have modified how sellers and buyers establish contact, cryptocurrencies have redefined the financial foundations of contemporary narcotrafficking. Recent literature highlights how transnational criminal organisations exploit the pseudonymous and decentralised nature of blockchain systems to transfer money rapidly, but mostly, opaquely.

Traditionally, laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking followed the three classic stages of placement, layering, and integration: introducing money into the financial system, stratifying it through complex transactions, and reintegrating it into the legal economy. In the digital context, these stages do not disappear but rather hybridise and compress over time. Proceeds derived from drug sales can be converted almost immediately into Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stablecoins, transferred across multiple wallets, fragmented through mixing services or tumblers, and subsequently sent to exchanges located in jurisdictions with weaker controls.

*Image by Tima Miroshnichenko, pixels.com*

The relevance of this phenomenon in Latin America also emerges clearly from empirical data. Between July 2019 and June 2020 the region received significant volumes of cryptocurrencies, with Brazil exceeding 8 billion dollars, followed by Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, all with flows in the order of billions. In Latin America, this transformation has assumed even greater significance. Mexican cartels, Colombian organisations, and criminal networks active in Brazil or the Andean countries have historically built their power on cash management, networks of front men, and strong territorial entrenchment. With the integration of cryptocurrencies, value is no longer necessarily stored in physical deposits, real estate, or cover businesses, but in cryptographic keys accessible from anywhere. However, the effectiveness of investigative tools depends heavily on the level of cooperation, regulatory harmonisation, and the technical capacity of national authorities. In Latin American contexts where investigative resources are limited or where judicial assistance requests take significant time, the temporal window between transaction and possible State intervention narrows dramatically.

Ultimately, digital finance represents the new field of competition between States and criminal organisations. It is not merely a matter of repressing individual transactions, but of understanding and dismantling a financial ecosystem that enables criminal groups to operate on a transnational scale. The financial dimension is therefore not an accessory element of online trafficking, but its strategic foundation: it is there that the economic sustainability of criminal networks - and consequently the effectiveness of countermeasures - is determined.

Conclusions

The analysis developed in this article points to a structural tension at the heart of contemporary anti-drug policy in Latin America. On one side, a dense institutional architecture, built around the UN drug control system, CICAD's technical instruments, and bilateral cooperation agreements, provides a formal framework for regional coordination. On the other hand, the persistence and growth of trafficking flows documented by the UNODC's most recent data reveals the limits of this architecture when confronted with criminal organisations that are adaptive, transnational, and increasingly operating beyond territorial logic.

The core weakness, as argued throughout, is not merely one of resources or political commitment, though both remain critical variables. It is fundamentally a problem of design: the existing instruments were built to address a territorially-defined threat, relying on physical interdiction, border control, and supply-side enforcement. Criminal networks have exposed this limitation by shifting to digital infrastructure. They now rely on encrypted platforms, automated distribution systems, and cryptocurrency-based financial flows. These developments dissolve the spatial anchors on which traditional enforcement depends.

This evolution demands a corresponding shift in policy thinking. Effective responses will require not only updated technical capabilities in digital investigation and blockchain analysis, but deeper structural reforms: greater binding commitment among States, reduced tolerance for institutional corruption, and a recognition that anti-drug policy cannot be separated from broader matters of governance, inequality, and State legitimacy. As long as enforcement frameworks remain anchored to a model of territorial control while criminal economies operate across digital and physical dimensions simultaneously, the gap between institutional effort and actual impact will persist, and likely widen.

April 20, 2026 — No Comments

How the Energy Crisis Impacts Women’s Safety and Rights

By Maria Makurat - Human Rights and AI, Cyber Team

Introduction

The conflict in the Middle East and the dilemma over the Strait of Hormuz is proving to be a new challenge for the world on both the macro and micro levels. As energy and gas fuel prices increase, other prices, such as food, pesticides,and supplies, go up as well. This crisis goes beyond certain borders and has both short and long-lasting effects on several impacts areas at both the economic and social levels. The European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the FEMM Committee have conducted an analysis from a gendered viewpoint when considering the consequences of rising energy prices on costs of living in 2024. This should also be continuously used to highlight current conflicts and their impact on the safety of women. Rising energy costs are undermining women’s safety by limiting access to healthcare, humanitarian aid, and essential services. Considering, that one cannot tell for sure how long this conflict will persist and what the long-term effects of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz will entail for the EU and the rest of the World, questions should be asked in order to make possible predictions for the future. Using international relations theories, whilst considering some new challenging views such as quantum international relations and the debate between positivist and non-positivist approaches will be taken into account when trying to analyse the rapid changing landscape and conflicts that have an impact on the safety of women.

Rising energy costs and possible impacts on women

Since 2019, the world has been experiencing many conflicts, challenges and new hurdles. During 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit world-wide, causing many institutions to close but also provided vital assistance to women during that time. The pandemic caused a significant increase in domestic violence which has also been called by UN Women “The Shadow Pandemic”. Now, countries face long-term challenges resulting from the pandemic but also climate change policies, economic hurdles due to increased EU spending on defence as well as investment in alternative resources. In Germany, during the last international women’s day 2025, social help institutions such as “Frauennotruf” have called for a strike in order to raise awareness of how cutting funds for such said institutions can have negative impacts on the safety of women. Already in 2022, the DKG (German Hospital Society) has warned that due to rising energy costs, hospitals face the risk of bankruptcy which can again have severe consequences for access to supplies for women in terms of pregnancy and other support.

Women in Germany are increasingly facing a problem: there is not only a general decline in doctors in the regional areas but the number of women doctors is also descreasing.. Looking at the new household funding, many cuts will have to be made in both smaller larger cities in Germany. Cities are considering to close certain cultural institutions (e.g Berlin wants to save up 130 million euros) to save money as well as closing around 18 emergency rooms in Baden-Württemberg alone which could impact around 90 000 patients increasing the strain on the social health system. When analysing said issues, diving into the micro and macro level becomes complex but necessary when wanting to find possible explanations and suggestions for further research. The micro level, when leaning more towards feminist theories is vital when wanting to understand the impact specifically on women however, also considering a more realism and constructivism approach is necessary since one also must take the institutions (e.g EU, UN, other country-specific institutions) into account.

Dr. med. Alicia Baier for instance has released a study on how women increasingly face issues when wanting to receive abortion or just medical advice concerning abortion. She writes that for instance in Germany, there is an alarming trend, that due to having less and less doctors available (especially in the outskirts of cities) and Hospitals decreasing their capacities in order to save up costs, women face the danger of not receiving enough medical treatment. Women face the danger of giving birth on their way to the hospital.^[1] These developments show that rising energy costs are not only an economic issue, but also a security concern, as they reduce women’s access to healthcare and essential services. Using international relations methodologies remain essential when wanting to analyse this issue.

What about international relations theories and new strands of thought?

The impact of the conflicts on the safety of women remains complex and should be continuously analysed through an international relations lens whilst also considering new possible ways of researching such as quantum international relations, feminist debate between positivist and non-positivist approaches.

Looking further at the consequences of closing the Strait of Hormuz and the overall energy crisis, one also has to consider the humanitarian aid for women and children such as in Sudan: “Humanitarian supply chains are fragile. When routes close and costs surge, the help we can deliver shrinks – and the people who need it most are the ones who lose it first.” Again when using a macro viewpoint whilst also considering the micro level, one has to consider the long-term consequences of these crises for the safety of women and children. Could these shortages lead to further local conflicts in Sudan and other areas that need humanitarian aid? Considering, for instance, Sjoberg, gender perspectives are essential to understanding how conflict and economic crises affect security at the individual level. (Sjoberg 2024), one should also consider here the impact of institutions and state behaviour, considering realism and liberalism, when wanting to continuously assess the impact of the energy crisis on the safety of women.

Looking further, humanitarian aid is strained for instance also for women in Afghanistan: “The cost of delivering $172,000 worth of nutrition supplies to children and pregnant women in Afghanistan via freight air was $316,000, nearly double the cost of the goods themselves.” Ships are forced to take the long route around Cape of Good Hope which causes delays, more costs and of course rising insecurities. Considering further the micro level, delayed necessities such as also childbirth supplies, maternal care and food in general can increase vulnerability for women and potential unrest as well as conflicts in refugee camps. A feminist approach in analysing the conflict here is essential to understand the impact on a micro level however, also taking the larger scope by including positivist (quantitative data) as well as non-positivist (interviews) methods into account is equally important to find potential solutions and new trains of thought. As Sjoberg also points out that a multimethod is best when tackling international relations issues in relation to women’s peace and security, one also has to take caution in having clear aims and research questions when analysing certain conflicts.

An interesting new approach in international relations is considered to even implement quantitative ways of thinking when analysing international relations issues such as by Der Derian and Wendt. The theory focuses on the human science arguing that world politics is not fixed but more entangled (especially individuals), uncertain, shaped by observers and that due to a superposition, actors can hold multiple overlapping state identities.^[2] Putting emphasis on individuals and the connectivity would also fit with a

feminist approach due to the micro cantered view. The theory still requires further development to find a clear path of analysis, which is also pointed by the researchers that one grand theory is not strived here, but the development of using more strongly sociological and human science trains of thought in international relations is of importance when wanting to understand the impact of conflicts on the safety and security of women.

Concluding thoughts and open questions

As can be seen, research has already started taking place to look more specifically at the impact of the energy crisis and overall world crisis (e.g. Iran war) on the safety of women. What one can say for sure at this point is the following: women are specifically impacted by the conflicts and energy crisis such as in receiving aid, maternal supplies and the general cost of living. Using classical international relations theories isessential however, the more strongly emerging human science approach is taking shape when wanting to fully understand how women are impacted. Here one can ask further questions, do we need one grand theory, orshould we continue with a multimethod approach? Does one run the risk of losing sight when using too many trainsof thought or is it indeed necessary to understand the micro individual level? Perhaps one can for the sake of argument try to develop one grand theory to analyse a specific women’s security conflict (e.g. energy crisis on women) and see how far one can go.

^[1] Dr. med. Alicia Baier, “Das Patriachat im Uterus”, Droemer Verlag, 2025, pg 156,

^[2] Der Derian, James, and Alexander Wendt (eds), “Quantum International Relations: A Human Science for World Politics” (New York, 2022; online edn, Oxford Academic, 23 June 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197568200.001.0001, accessed 31 Mar. 2026.

April 13, 2026 — No Comments

Are Russian-Serbian relations more vulnerable now than ever?

By Sorin Dojan - Russia Team

Take a stroll through the streets of Pristina, Kosovo, and at one point you will come across the statue of a smiling Bill Clinton, a stone’s throw away from a chic boutique named Hillary.

To many wondering how a presidential couple became the unlikely heroes in a partially recognised country like Kosovo, 1999 might offer a clue. Between March and June that year, a NATO coalition bombed Yugoslavia in response to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo.

To Russians, this marked the beginning of a tumultuous relationship with the West. To Serbs, it reminded them of how vulnerable their country was when, after the 1990s Yugoslav wars, they found themselves surrounded by NATO and the European Union (EU), as the two expanded eastwards. Yet both Russia and Serbia found an ally in each other.

Ever since Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, Russia has been Serbia’s main backer of sovereignty claims over Kosovo. This has proven particularly handy amid rising EU pressure on Belgrade to normalise ties with Pristina as a precondition for accession^[1]. And while the Serbian Government remains on track to join the EU^[2], this has not stopped the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) from securing another three months of Russian gas imports at the end of March 2026.

Call it ‘hedging’ or the practice of foreign policy balancing between competing forces^[3]. Serbia has done so since 2009, when it announced its ‘Four Pillars’ strategy to balance between the West, Russia and China^[4] at a time of EU ‘enlargement fatigue’^[5].

Yet rising tensions nowadays between Serbia, the EU and the US, as well as the former’s foreign policy inconsistencies, could dash Moscow’s hopes for a sustainable relationship, as Belgrade sticks to its strategic ambitions to join the EU.

Serbia, Russia and the wider geopolitical nexus

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has turned Serbia’s multi-vector foreign policy into a much more challenging tool to navigate. For once, it led to more criticism from the EU Commission, among other things, over Belgrade’s choice not to impose sanctions on Moscow following the full-scale attack. If, in 2021, the Commission had only 12 references to Russia in its Serbia report, that number rose to 57 in 2022 and 2023, and remained high thereafter^[6].

Yet a much stronger reply came from Washington. In November 2023, the US State Department targeted multiple individuals and entities over their alleged connection to what it described as Russian influence in the Western Balkans. As recently as September 2025, US officials sanctioned Serbia’s oil company NIS over its ties to the Kremlin’s energy sector.

For a small state like Serbia, sanctions translate into significant economic hardship. Belgrade could seek to buy more time by obtaining sanctions waivers from the US (it secured one at the end of March due to the US-Iran war) or by securing contract extensions with the Kremlin, but this would not make its multi-vector policy more sustainable.

The EU remains Serbia’s largest trading partner, accounting for little over 58% of the country’s total trade in 2024. Yet European patience could be running thin: during a visit to Belgrade, EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, urged the Serbian government to deliver on the reforms critical to accession prospects, adding that there are no ‘shortcuts for [EU] membership’. This includes aligning its foreign policies with the bloc, including those on Russia, with Brussels arguing in its 2022 report that Serbia’s close ties to Moscow raise questions about its strategic direction.

This is enough of a signal for the Kremlin to understand that Serbia’s hedging policy is under severe pressure at the moment. Relations between the two countries were already fraught after €800m of Serbian ammunition ended up in Ukraine through Belgrade’s trading partners between 2022 and 2024, prompting criticism from the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR. And overall trade, energy, and defence ties between Moscow and Belgrade have declined in recent years, despite the two continuing to tout their “Slavic brotherhood” as the underpinning of their relations. China, which is Serbia’s other significant non-Western partner, was the country’s second-largest source of foreign direct investment in 2024^[7].

If anything, Moscow’s leverage over Belgrade remains mostly in the energy sector and through its membership of the United Nations Security Council, where it can still oppose any Western-led move on Kosovo (although that did not prevent the US and its allies from bombing Yugoslavia in 1999). This will reassure the Kremlin in its relations with Serbia, particularly as Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic clings to power following a year marked by severe student-led anti-corruption protests. For now, the relationship still holds.

^[1] Vuk Vuksanovic, Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025), 73.

^[2] Republic of Serbia, “European Union Remains Serbia’s Strategic Development Framework,” srbija.gov.rs, January 19, 2026, https://www.srbija.gov.rs/vest/en/267475/european-union-remains-serbias-strategic-development-framework.php.

^[3] Evelyn Goh, “Understanding ‘Hedging’ in Asia-Pacific Security,” PacNet 43 (Pacific Forum CSIS, August 31, 2006), https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/pac0643.pdf.

^[4] Vuksanovic, Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West.

^[5] Anna Szolucha, “The EU and Enlargement Fatigue: Why has the European Union not been able to counter enlargement fatigue?”, Journal of Contemporary European Research 6, no 1.

^[6] European Commission, Serbia 2022 Report (Brussels: European Commission, October 12, 2022); European Commission, Serbia 2023 Report(Brussels: European Commission, 11 November 2023); European Commission, Serbia 2024 Report (Brussels: European Commission, 30 October 2024); European Commission, Serbia 2025 Report (Brussels: European Commission, 4 November 2025).

^[7] Filipović, Slobodan, and Katarina Zakić, “Economic Implications of Serbia’s Multi-Vector Foreign Policy,” The Review of International Affairs 76, no. 1195 (2025): 503–28, https://doi.org/10.18485/iipe_ria.2025.76.1195.6.

March 17, 2026 — No Comments

SDG 5 at Risk: The Global Backlash Against Gender Equality

By Sofia Sutera - Human Rights Team

Gender equality has long been considered one of the central pillars of the international human rights system. Through Sustainable Development Goal 5, the United Nations committed the global community to achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls by 2030.

Yet today the challenge appears increasingly different from what many policymakers envisioned a decade ago. Rather than focusing primarily on how to accelerate progress, governments, researchers, and human rights advocates are increasingly confronted with another question: how to respond to what many observers describe as a growing global backlash against gender equality.

Across multiple regions, the rise of anti-gender mobilisations and the diffusion of narratives portraying gender equality as a threat to social order are reshaping public debates. These developments raise serious concerns about the future of SDG 5. If these dynamics continue, progress toward gender equality may slow significantly, potentially making it more difficult to achieve the SDG 5 targets by the 2030 deadline.

From a human rights perspective, this shift is particularly alarming. Gender equality is not simply a policy objective. It is a fundamental component of the international human rights framework, embedded in instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and recognised as essential for the protection of dignity, equality, and democratic participation.

Gender Equality as a Contested Concept

A key factor contributing to the current backlash is the transformation of the concept of “gender” itself. Originally developed as an analytical category in social sciences to understand how power relations shape expectations and opportunities for women and men, the term has increasingly been reframed as a controversial ideological project.

In many political discourses, “gender” is portrayed as a concept that critics argue threatens the family, cultural traditions, or national identity. Rather than engaging with concrete questions of equality, anti-gender actors frequently frame gender-related policies as part of a broader ideological agenda imposed by international institutions, academic communities, or progressive elites.

This discursive strategy has proven remarkably effective. By framing gender equality as a broader cultural conflict, this narrative can shift public debate away from structural inequalities and toward concerns about social transformation. Discussions about wage gaps, political representation, reproductive rights, or gender-based violence are replaced by narratives centred on protecting children, defending traditions, or resisting external influence, as discussed in the work of Judith Butler.

Scholars have described this dynamic as the construction of gender as a “symbolic glue” capable of uniting diverse actors across religious, political, and nationalist movements. As highlighted in the volume Gender as Symbolic Glue, anti-gender narratives allow otherwise heterogeneous groups to mobilise around a shared sense of cultural threat.

Anti-gender Mobilisations in Europe

Europe has become one of the most visible arenas where these dynamics unfold. Over the past two decades, anti-gender campaigns have increasingly moved from religious discourse into broader political mobilisation.

These movements often present themselves as spontaneous civic initiatives defending families or parental rights. Research suggests that these movements often operate through networks linking religious organisations, civil society groups, and political actors. In several cases, mobilisations initially framed as grassroots initiatives have later been integrated into broader populist or nationalist political agendas.

Italy offers a particularly revealing example. Large-scale mobilisations such as the Family Day protests have demonstrated the ability of anti-gender actors to influence public debates and shape legislative processes. Campaigns opposing civil unions, gender equality education, or anti-discrimination laws have mobilised broad segments of society by framing gender equality policies as threats to cultural identity.

Research on these developments, including the work of Massimo Prearo, highlights how these mobilisations have contributed to a broader reconfiguration of political Catholicism and its interaction with right wing populist actors. In this context, gender equality becomes a central battleground in struggles over national identity, morality, and political authority.

Global Circulation of Anti-gender Narratives

Importantly, these dynamics are not confined to Europe. Anti-gender narratives circulate transnationally, adapting to local contexts while maintaining remarkably similar rhetorical structures.

Recent research on information environments and political narratives highlights how gender equality debates can be strategically framed within geopolitical and ideological struggles. As discussed in the ITSS Verona article Civil Resistance in the Digital Age: Gender Narratives and Information Integrity, different political contexts show how equality discourses are manipulated for political purposes.

In Turkey, for instance, state institutions have been observed invoking equality discourse while simultaneously reinforcing women’s traditional roles within society. In parts of Eastern Europe, particularly Russia and Poland, political narratives centred on “family values” promote motherhood as a national duty while marginalising LGBTQ+ activism. In these cases, women’s rights are often invoked selectively, gaining support only when they align with patriarchal and anti-Western narratives.

This selective use of gender equality illustrates how human rights language can be appropriated and reinterpreted in ways that may weaken its intended emancipatory goals.

The Significance of the United States

Recent developments in the United States further illustrate the global relevance of these dynamics. Political debates around gender and sexuality have become increasingly polarised, with some actors framing gender equality initiatives as ideological threats rather than democratic commitments.

The 2022 decision of the United States Supreme Court in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned federal protections for abortion rights, represents a significant turning point. For decades, access to reproductive healthcare had been widely considered an essential element of women’s autonomy and equality.

The rollback of these protections demonstrates how quickly established rights can be challenged and reconfigured within changing political environments.

Given the global influence of political debates in the United States, these developments have repercussions far beyond national borders. Narratives emerging in the United States political arena often circulate internationally, reinforcing existing backlash movements and shaping policy discussions elsewhere.

Defending Gender Equality as a Human Rights Imperative

These developments point to a fundamental shift in the politics of gender equality. For many years, international institutions focused primarily on promoting women’s empowerment and expanding rights protections. Today, the challenge increasingly includes responding to organised political opposition to gender equality initiatives.

This shift has direct implications for the future of SDG 5. Achieving gender equality by 2030 requires not only policies designed to reduce discrimination and empower women, but also strategies capable of addressing the narratives and political forces that seek to delegitimise equality itself.

From a human rights perspective, defending gender equality means reaffirming that equality is not an ideological preference but a core democratic principle. Without gender equality, the broader system of human rights protection cannot function effectively.

With less than five years remaining before the 2030 deadline, the urgency of this challenge is clear. If the international community is serious about achieving SDG 5, it must recognise that many scholars argue that gender equality norms are currently experiencing one of the most significant global backlashes in decades.

The success of the Sustainable Development Agenda may therefore depend not only on promoting new policies, but also on defending the fundamental human rights principles on which gender equality is built.

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