It is in both countries’ interests to cooperate, since each can provide the other with something in short supply: Russia needs artillery shells for its war, while North Korea needs humanitarian aid.The extensive media coverage of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s recent visit to Pyongyang contained two main messages: that …

Imagining history as a civilizational competition is convenient for the current Russian leadership because it means they can perceive themselves as part of a young civilization and, as such, they don’t need to calculate risks, invest in the economy, or conduct a reasonable foreign policy. Youth is forgiven everything, and …

Elsewhere, Poland continues to talk tough over preventing Ukrainian grain from flooding its market; radicalised Czech pensioners rise up, again; Slovak paediatricians to no longer take on shifts in children’s emergency rooms from next week. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban did not make the international headlines with this year’s speech in …