The Russian budget has been in deficit since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the draft budget for 2025 also envisages a deficit of 1.1 trillion rubles (0.5% of GDP). For now, the hole is being covered by current borrowing, and the National Welfare Fund (NWF) account …

Ukrainian Drones Strike Chechnya On October 29 Ukrainian combat drones attacked the Russian Special Forces University in the Russian Republic of Chechnya. The university, founded in 2013 and named after Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a private center for modern warfare training. The institution has close ties with current and …

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq finally held its long-overdue parliamentary elections on October 20, two years past the original due date. Final results announced by the Iraqi electoral commission on October 30 showed that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) won 39 and 23 …