Putin Preparing to Mobilize 500,000 Russians as Public Opinion Plummets

Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to call up hundreds of thousands of new soldiers to fight in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, as the Kremlin tries to balance its high casualty count with public opinion turning away from the war.

Putin will mobilize between 300,000 and 500,000 people for Russia’s military at the start of October, Zelensky said in an interview with British broadcaster, Sky News.

Iran war has cost Iraq $45bn, government aide says

Iraq has lost tens of billions of dollars in revenue since the Iran war began in late February, after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz slashed oil exports, according to an aide to the country’s leader.

Several development projects in Opec’s second-largest oil exporter have stalled because of the cash crisis as crude sales account for the bulk of Iraq’s income, said Mudhar Saleh, a financial adviser to newly installed prime minister Ali Al-Zaidi.

Gulf investors bet billions on Uzbek energy transformation

For decades Gulf money has poured into luxury property markets, trophy assets and the world’s best-known financial centres.

But increasingly it is heading to a former Silk Road hub, where ageing gas infrastructure, a rapidly growing population and economic reforms offer the opportunity to invest in a new energy system.

Can Western Political Civilization Survive Its Caudine Forks Moment?

For over a century, the Western civil service model was hailed as the gold standard of modern governance. Today, especially in the US, we are witnessing loyalty replace merit and brazen corruption go unchecked. Drawing on China’s 2,000 years of bureaucratic history, Professor Fan Yongpeng argues that the system was a superficial transplant from the start and is now regressing to its feudal roots.

Dossier géostratégique : la guerre qui a déplacé la géographie du pouvoir

Le 28 février 2026, en douze heures, l’aviation américaine et israélienne a frappé l’Iran près de neuf cents fois et tué son Guide suprême. En représailles, Téhéran a fermé le détroit d’Ormuz. Ce que le monde a découvert dans les semaines qui ont suivi n’est pas seulement l’histoire d’une guerre régionale de plus : c’est la démonstration, à l’échelle d’un conflit réel, qu’au XXIe siècle la puissance ne se mesure plus au territoire que l’on tient, mais aux flux — pétrole, capitaux, données, assurances, confiance — que l’on parvient à faire circuler, ou à interrompre.