Tim Ogden

The recent retroactive registration of Christina Pushaw — Florida governor Ron DeSantis's press secretary — as a foreign agent has led to an ignorant backlash. A quick glance at any article on the story leaves readers thinking this is Cold War stuff, a "foreign agent" reaching all the way into the halls of Floridian power. The comments suggest that readers have lapped this up. “Trump + DeSantis = Russian money,” says one. “Trumpian Republicans have a fond affinity for Russians,” writes another, finishing with “such fools.” Clearly, they knew this sort of thing was going on all along: "The Kremlin have done it again!" they think, shaking their fists at the memory of the Russian interference which they've convinced themselves won Trump his election back in 2016.

Tbilisi, Georgia After one week of fighting, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already caused far-reaching geopolitical consequences, most of which point to gross miscalculation from the Kremlin. Following an arguably hesitant start, the Western world has united to provide Ukraine with lethal and non-lethal aid, as well as economic and humanitarian support. In addition, despite Putin ostensibly launching his war to prevent Ukraine from becoming a NATO member and curtail the alliance's easterly expansion, Kyiv's relations with the West have ironically become closer. Both Sweden and Finland appear to be closer than ever to considering joining NATO.

Armed soldiers guard the barbed-wire compound. Helicopters buzz around the parameter, drifting above families on tandem bicycles. Groups of giggling bridal parties flirt with camouflaged guards. They watch on, careful to spot the light-fingered. This is Mezhyhirya, the former playground of exiled Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. The estate has been open to the public since the former communist fled to Russia in 2014 after a pro-western revolution. Adverts peddle the autocrat's theme park as a pleasant family day out: a museum, wedding venue, water park and zoo. It's as though a group of terrified architects asked Yanukovych, 'What style would you like? Classical? Alpine? Baroque?' and the reply had simply been, 'Yes' Top of the bill is the main house, a bizarre building.

Assuming that reports are accurate, the world has just witnessed the most serious escalation between the UK and Russia since the poisoning of Sergei Skripal three years ago. Russian bombs and gunfire were reportedly discharged near HMS Defender, currently patrolling the Black Sea. The Kremlin has justified the supposed aggression by stating that the ship had strayed into Russian waters. The UK, meanwhile, has denied that any such incident took place.  https://twitter.com/DefenceHQPress/status/1407670812262518785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Russia's justification, if indeed it did what it claims it did, is based on a false premise. The coastline in question does not, in fact, belong to Russia — Defender was positioned off the Crimean peninsula.

The diversion of a Ryanair flight bound for Lithuania from Athens and the arrest of passenger Roman Protasevich – an influential Belarusian blogger critical of the country’s dictatorial regime – is the latest tyrannical action to lead to expressions of grave concern and tempered outrage from the West. However, the fact that the passenger aircraft was forced to land by a Belarusian fighter jet on the pretence that the plane was carrying explosives is, arguably, a step up on the ladder of severity. Police brutality and the unlawful detention of opposition activists are quick to cause Western condemnation, but those still solely concern domestic matters – the interception of a European plane in transmit between two EU member states is unprecedented.

With occasional artillery duels and sporadic exchanges of small arms fire, Ukraine's long-running civil war was never quite extinguished. However, the embers of the last five years, which have seen dozens killed in skirmishes each month, could now reignite as eastern Ukraine risks becoming an open battleground once again. Around 25,000 Russian troops have been positioned on Ukraine's disputed borders, movements which were followed by artillery bombardments and firefights that have already resulted in casualties for both sides. Further escalation between Kiev and Moscow is now frighteningly possible. In previous cases, most notably Georgia in 2008, a sudden build-up of Russian forces signals the beginning of a carefully planned assault.

There is an assumption that those fighting tyranny must instead want Western-style democracy, that the arc of history bends towards liberal representative government, allied inevitably to Washington and Brussels. Many former Soviet Union countries saw their politburos overthrown by young middle-class people espousing the desire for this kind of politics — from the Rose Revolution in Georgia to the Orange Revolution and Euromaiden protests in Ukraine (whether or not they eventually received that form of government is a different matter). But there is no logical imperative that connects dissatisfaction towards an autocrat with the kind of government and geopolitical order that will replace him, whether in Eastern Europe or elsewhere.

Ever since its disastrous military defeat at the hands of Azerbaijan last year, Armenia has suffered from a wave of political unrest, with rallies and protests continuing sporadically. The principal demand of the protestors has been the resignation of the incumbent Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, whose agreement to a ceasefire favourable to Azerbaijan following his country’s defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh was viewed as a national betrayal. However, the most serious declaration of opposition to the Prime Minister came on Thursday, when the general staff of the armed forces, Onik Gasparyan, joined in the calls for Pashinyan to resign.

It is the first display of political instability in the Caucasus in 2021. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia on Thursday announced his unexpected resignation. Although his successor has yet to be confirmed, his replacement will be the country's sixth Prime Minister in eight years. All, including Gakharia, have been members of the same party, Georgian Dream, that has held parliamentary control since 2012. The founder of the party, the formerly reclusive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, was the first Georgian Dream Prime Minister. He only held the post for a year, claiming he had achieved his political objectives after twelve months. This was treated with a degree of scepticism that was later proved justified.

The countries that formerly composed the Soviet Union states are predominantly divided into three camps: those still strongly affiliated with Russia; those who have already ascended to EU and Nato membership; and the unfortunate remainder that strive to join the West, but which continue to struggle with domestic setbacks and a lack of resolve from Washington and Brussels. Since the fall of the USSR, countries like Georgia and Ukraine have seen the USA as the embodiment of democracy, with its liberty and freedoms standing as the antithesis of Communist darkness, which dominated both countries for a century.

Even the staunchest Remainer would admit the EU is not currently the happiest ship, sailing in the waters of world politics. Viktor Orban’s self-proclaimed ‘illiberal democracy’ is growing increasingly incompatible with EU values, Poland has expressed distaste for 'the Brussels elites, blinded by political correctness', and on two occasions Greece has locked horns with the EU's upper echelons over the debt crisis. But while the EU has been a daily headline topic for years, the state of Nato has been largely neglected — despite the fact that one of its own members, Turkey, threatens to fatally undermine the alliance.

For the second time since fighting began on 27 September, a humanitarian ceasefire was agreed between the warring countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia — and, for the second time, it was quickly broken. Momentum is now firmly in Azerbaijan's favour, with Azeri forces capturing a number of towns and settlements in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. These could subsequently be used to launch an assault on the capital, Stepanakert, which has already come under multiple bouts of artillery fire. Armenia has retaliated with long-range bombardments of its own against Azerbaijan's second city of Ganja, an act that has caused outrage in Baku as the city is comfortably outside the disputed territory.

History repeats itself — but sometimes in reverse. Only a pessimist would have predicted a global pandemic followed by a growing regional conflict. And yet the ongoing fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan — and its accompanying web of political ambition, ethnic tensions and territorial disputes — leads to uncomfortable comparisons with the start of the first world war. That conflict began after Austria threatened Serbia, resulting in Russia's pledge to protect its fellow Slavs against outside aggression. Germany assured the world, and Russia, that it would not tolerate hostility towards Austria. France informed Germany that it would come to Russia's defence if it came under attack.

The outbreak of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the weekend is the latest episode in a saga stretching back to the waning years of the USSR. Although recognised as being part of Azerbaijan, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent zone populated by ethnic Armenians. Its independence came as a result of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse; while this ended in the mid-1990s in a victory for the Armenian-backed separatists, sporadic fighting has plagued the area ever since. This has most often taken the form of localised artillery duels, but this July witnessed the heaviest exchanges since the war itself, with shelling resulting in dozens of casualties.

At first glance, Alexei Navalny seems like exactly the sort of man the West would want to sit in the Kremlin. He’s anti-corruption, anti-oligarchy, anti-ballot rigging and – most importantly – anti-Putin. Many in the West believe his election would result in a seismic shift in Russian foreign policy – and perhaps even lead to historically unprecedented positive relations with Moscow. The Western media have certainly reinforced this idea, as they’ve reported on Navalny’s attempts to break Putin's stranglehold on Russia and the many moves to silence him with a series of arrests, assaults, and poisonings – the most recent of which led to his hospitalisation last week.