Politics

In the lead up to the Ukrainian military’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, even Western headlines were dominated by reports of Ukraine’s gradual demise. Ukraine is admittedly suffering arms and ammunition shortages, as well as facing an unsolvable manpower crisis. Russia has been destroying Ukrainian military power faster than Ukraine and its Western sponsors can reconstitute it.

Summing up the French failures in Africa, and particularly in Mali, the US The National Interest concluded that «the era of French diplomatic dominance on the continent, which lasted for more than 100 years, has come to an end, and Paris’ claims of being one of the leading geopolitical players and a privileged partner of African countries have been seriously undermined».

During the summer of 2024, Japan sharply intensified its foreign policy in its most important aspects, particularly on China and Pacific states. In our opinion, this intensification and some improvements in Japanese relations with China are primarily related to balancing its military and political activities with Western countries. On the one hand, Japan is building up its own defence potential and strengthening various multilateral formats in the field of security; on the other hand, it is trying to reduce tension in relations with China.