Latest Updates

MACRO ADVISORY: Best Eurasia books published in 1H26

Macro-Advisory Limited has issued its annual mid-year compilation of the best business, political and general interest books published in 1H26, covering the twelve states in the Eurasia region plus Iran and Afghanistan.

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Russia puts Telegram founder Pavel Durov on international wanted list over terrorism allegations

Russia has charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with assisting terrorist activity and begun procedures to place him on an international wanted list, sharply escalating the Kremlin’s confrontation with Russia's most famous tech guru.

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Operation Wildberries: both sides are now targeting each other's civilian economy

A Ukrainian drone strike hit a Wildberries logistics warehouse in Ryazan overnight on July 28-29, forcing the company to evacuate the site and halt deliveries.

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Chasiv Yar's fall in Donbas fighting opens the road to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk

Chasiv Yar, one of the longest and most fought-over battles in the Donbas of the Ukraine war, has fallen to Russian forces, with the last Ukrainian holdouts withdrawing from the southwestern part of the city in the past week.

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COMMENT: Putin is hardening, not softening, despite Ukraine's battlefield gains

Ukraine's Western allies are preparing a final push to pressure Vladimir Putin before a winter expected to be gruelling for Kyiv, even as Ukraine's own long-range strikes campaign does real damage. But Putin is not budging.

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Venezuela's rift with Iran marks end of anti-Western foreign policy

Venezuela summoned Iran's ambassador on July 28 to deliver a formal protest over remarks by Tehran officials, in a rare public rupture between two countries that had been staunch anti-Western allies for more than two decades.

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Sanctions on Russia backfire, leaving Spain's firefighting helicopters grounded as wildfires rage

EU sanctions on Russia have backfired, leaving Spain's best Russian-built Kamov Ka-32 firefighting helicopters grounded as severe wildfires burn across southern Europe, reported Berliner Zeitung.

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Russia's fuel crisis eases further as refineries restart, but shortage remain

Russia's two-month fuel crisis is showing signs of easing, with Omsk becoming the first Russian region to lift all limits on petrol and diesel sales at filling stations, Governor Vitaly Khotsenko said on July 28.

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Turkey detains Uskudar mayor in latest raid targeting opposition municipalities

IMF strikes $1.9bn loan deal with Bolivia

Hormuz squeeze on ammonia draws foreign bidders to Odesa Port Plant

Turkey detains Uskudar mayor in latest raid targeting opposition municipalities

Detention frequency of CHP local government leaders currently running at around one per week.

IMF strikes $1.9bn loan deal with Bolivia

The International Monetary Fund and Bolivia reached a staff-level agreement on July 29 for a 36-month, $1.9bn loan programme designed to help the South American nation restore macroeconomic stability and rebuild depleted foreign reserves.

Hormuz squeeze on ammonia draws foreign bidders to Odesa Port Plant

Hormuz squeeze on ammonia draws foreign bidders to Odesa Port Plant Four companies from the US, Asia and the Middle East are studying data on Ukraine's war-damaged fertiliser plant as the Strait of Hormuz blockade tightens global ammonia supply.

News

Saudi Arabia tenders Dragon Ball Z theme park outside Riyadh

Qiddiya has tendered back-of-house works for the world's first Dragon Ball theme park in Saudi Arabia, with bids due on September 13, but has set no opening date, marking it as a late-decade addition to the Riyadh giga-project.

Iran, US trade strikes across Iraq, Jordan as war truce collapses

Iran's IRGC fired missiles at US forces and a base in Jordan on July 29, ending a days-long lull in the US-Iran war, as the US and Saudi Arabia hit Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed.

Turkey, Iraq sign five agreements across key sectors as al-Zaidi visits Ankara

Turkey and Iraq signed five agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoU) covering energy, transport, education, youth and industrial property during Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's official visit to Ankara.

Saudi Arabia, US strike Iraqi militia sites after drone attacks on oil facilities

Saudi and US aircraft have struck Iran-aligned militia sites in eastern Iraq after drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. It is the first strike inside Iraq Riyadh has publicly claimed, and the Popular Mobilisation Forces says eight of its members we

Senate passes Graham's “hellish sanctions” package during Zelenskiy's trip to Washington in coup for Bankova

The US Senate passed the “hellish sanctions” package advanced by the late Senator Lindsey Graham on July 29 with an overwhelming majority of 86 to 12 in favour, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in attendance.

Saudi Arabia tenders Dragon Ball Z theme park outside Riyadh

56 minutes ago

Iran, US trade strikes across Iraq, Jordan as war truce collapses

6 hours ago

Turkey, Iraq sign five agreements across key sectors as al-Zaidi visits Ankara

7 hours ago

Saudi Arabia, US strike Iraqi militia sites after drone attacks on oil facilities

9 hours ago

Senate passes Graham's “hellish sanctions” package during Zelenskiy's trip to Washington in coup for Bankova

11 hours ago

More News

Tech

Starlink officially launches in Iraq

Iraq has officially launched Starlink satellite internet services, marking a significant step in expanding the country's digital connectivity and broadband infrastructure.

Slovak InoBat seeks Nasdaq listing through SPAC merger

CEO Marian Boček says Nasdaq listing would allow InoBat to expand manufacturing capacity and pursue transatlantic growth.

Russia is not even a contender in the global AI race

Russia and its tech sector are largely absent from the global conversation about artificial intelligence, despite a historical track record of technological breakthroughs and a highly qualified workforce.

Syria's Labby raises $10mn from Gulf investors in first foreign tech deal

Syrian super app Labby has raised $10mn from UAE and Saudi investors, in what officials call the first direct foreign investment in a Syrian technology startup. The ride-hailing and delivery platform was announced at a signing ceremony in Damascus.

Serbia gets first unicorn as Ominimo hits $1.6bn valuation

Serbian insurtech startup Ominimo raised a Series B funding round that valued it at $1.6bn, making it the country's first startup to achieve unicorn status.

Starlink officially launches in Iraq

7 hours ago

Slovak InoBat seeks Nasdaq listing through SPAC merger

14 hours ago

Russia is not even a contender in the global AI race

1 day ago

Syria's Labby raises $10mn from Gulf investors in first foreign tech deal

2 days ago

Serbia gets first unicorn as Ominimo hits $1.6bn valuation

2 days ago

More Tech

Opinion

EU needs 'Team Enlargement' coalition to drive next expansion push, think-tank says

The European Union needs a coalition of key member states to overcome political divisions and prepare the bloc for its next enlargement wave, according to an ECFR paper.

COMMENT: Russia nears a political crossroads as elites tire of the war

Russia’s war on Ukraine is entering a new phase in which the odds of escalation are rising even without any single dramatic turning point, says Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

COMMENT: Ukraine's three-tier state

Is Volodymyr Zelenskiy more focused on his own political survival than on winning the war? That is the question The Spectator's Owen Matthews asked after the Ukrainian president's reshuffled his government.

Ukraine's Caspian Sea strikes merge the Iran and Ukraine wars

“Zelensky bombed the Iranian vessel on the Caspian for the same reason his people paid Loomer to come to Kyiv and interview him: a PR campaign to try to win over Trump.”

COMMENT: Central Asia's talk of decolonisation outruns the reality

Public discourse increasingly casts Central Asia as shedding Russian influence – through decolonisation, a pivot to China, or a push for greater sovereignty – but the reality on the ground is far messier.

EU needs 'Team Enlargement' coalition to drive next expansion push, think-tank says

1 day ago

COMMENT: Russia nears a political crossroads as elites tire of the war

1 day ago

COMMENT: Ukraine's three-tier state

2 days ago

Ukraine's Caspian Sea strikes merge the Iran and Ukraine wars

2 days ago

COMMENT: Central Asia's talk of decolonisation outruns the reality

2 days ago

More Opinion

Data

Uzbekistan's average monthly wage climbs 18% in 1H

The increase extended a multi-year upward trend, with figure now nearly double what it was at the end of 1H22.

Turkmen elites still “robbing” poor with official exchange rate trailing black market sixfold, say critics

Wage billed as worth $1,000 actually worth only $150 to ordinary citizen.

Slovenia's retail sales rise 2.1% y/y in June despite monthly dip

Annual increase supported by growth across all major retail segments.

Analysts split on how far Russia's key rate still has to fall

Russia's central bank cut its key rate for the tenth consecutive time on July 24, by 25 basis points to 14%, while raising its inflation forecast for 2026 to 6-7%. That's a contradiction and no one is clear where rates will go from here.

Iran's monthly inflation halves to 3.6% as annual rate hits 83.9%

Iran's monthly inflation halved to 3.6% in the month to July 22, but the consumer price index stood 83.9% above its year-earlier level. Housing and utilities led the monthly rise. Tobacco was the only category to fall.

Uzbekistan's average monthly wage climbs 18% in 1H

5 hours ago

Turkmen elites still “robbing” poor with official exchange rate trailing black market sixfold, say critics

6 hours ago

Slovenia's retail sales rise 2.1% y/y in June despite monthly dip

1 day ago

Analysts split on how far Russia's key rate still has to fall

1 day ago

Iran's monthly inflation halves to 3.6% as annual rate hits 83.9%

1 day ago

More Data

Features

Fujimori inherits Peru's security crisis and offers the same old answers

Keiko Fujimori was sworn in promising discipline and seven objectives. Her speech never mentioned the 50 dead from 2022-23 protests, said nothing on mining, and recycled a military security model that has failed under three presidents since 2023.

Taliban's homegrown drone programme outpaces Pakistan's defences

The Afghan Taliban's growing investment in drone technology is a direct response to their lack of a conventional air force, and Pakistan's defence establishment.

Istanbul, Dubai fintechs feel heat as US sanctions fire turned on Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani

Sentenced to death in Iran 10 years ago, business magnate and financier has made a comeback at the head of his Dot One conglomerate.

Ukraine's scam call centres earn $1bn a month, study finds

Ukraine's scam call-centre industry generates as much as $1bn a month, according to a new report by the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), which estimates that around 60,000 Ukrainians work in the trade.

Ukraine's credit boom broadens as war reshapes lending

Ukrainian banks are in the middle of their longest lending expansion in 15 years, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), with state-owned PrivatBank leading a corporate-credit surge, businesses of every size turning to bank financing.

Fujimori inherits Peru's security crisis and offers the same old answers

7 hours ago

Taliban's homegrown drone programme outpaces Pakistan's defences

1 day ago

Istanbul, Dubai fintechs feel heat as US sanctions fire turned on Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani

1 day ago

Ukraine's scam call centres earn $1bn a month, study finds

1 day ago

Ukraine's credit boom broadens as war reshapes lending

1 day ago

More Features

Blogs

ISTANBUL BLOG: Turkey probes TV presenter who called Syria’s al-Sharaa a “terrorist with a tie”

Dubious rise to the top is questioned. Watchdog says remarks “incompatible with foreign policy vision”.

CENTRAL ASIA BLOG: Unjust bureaucratic hurdles are wrecking legit UK travel dreams

Tourist visas denied based on highly subjective assessments of financial means and intentions to use “return” section of plane ticket.

MOSCOW BLOG: The Nato-Russia clash mission creep

The stochastic war continues to escalate into a brutal tit-for-tat missile war with both sides continuously rolling out new and improved weapons that could eventually lead to a direct clash between Nato and Russia.

MOSCOW BLOG: Hitting the Wildberries warehouse is a lot more painful than it looks

The tit-for-tat missile war escalated at the weekend after Ukraine hit the largest distribution centre belonging to Wildberries, the “Amazon of Russia.” The Kremlin hit back the next day with a massive drone and missile barrage.

KYIV BLOG: What is Ukraine’s future: Afghanistan or Finland?

What is in store for Ukraine? There are two starkly different possibilities. It can become Finland — a country that lost a war, lost a tenth of its territory, swallowed neutrality, and then got rich. Or it can become Afghanistan.

ISTANBUL BLOG: Turkey probes TV presenter who called Syria’s al-Sharaa a “terrorist with a tie”

2 days ago

CENTRAL ASIA BLOG: Unjust bureaucratic hurdles are wrecking legit UK travel dreams

3 days ago

MOSCOW BLOG: The Nato-Russia clash mission creep

6 days ago

MOSCOW BLOG: Hitting the Wildberries warehouse is a lot more painful than it looks

9 days ago

KYIV BLOG: What is Ukraine’s future: Afghanistan or Finland?

12 days ago

More Blogs

bneGREEN

Wildfires ravage Southern Europe – Statista

Southern Europe’s wildfire season used to typically run from July to September, but now data shows that it is getting longer and more intense.

Kyrgyzstan hit by highest number of mudslides in decades amid glacier melt

Eight lose lives in this year’s carnage. Six die in car swept from road.

Electrifying Asia – where EVs are reshaping power demand and fuel use

The winners are likely to be countries capable of building integrated ecosystems spanning renewable generation, batteries, charging networks and EV manufacturing.

Hungary commissions Central Europe’s largest battery storage complex

Hungary is rapidly expanding grid-scale energy storage to support its fast-growing renewable energy sector.

Europe's summer heat has broken the Bell curve, as record El Niño builds

This summer’s extreme temperatures have broken the normal “Bell curve” distribution of temperature variations and pushed it sharply to the right into record breaking highs. This is not normal – literally.

Wildfires ravage Southern Europe – Statista

39 minutes ago

Kyrgyzstan hit by highest number of mudslides in decades amid glacier melt

8 hours ago

Electrifying Asia – where EVs are reshaping power demand and fuel use

1 day ago

Hungary commissions Central Europe’s largest battery storage complex

1 day ago

Europe's summer heat has broken the Bell curve, as record El Niño builds

1 day ago

More bneGREEN

Latest Updates

News

Qiddiya has tendered back-of-house works for the world's first Dragon Ball theme park in Saudi Arabia, with bids due on September 13, but has set no opening date, marking it as a late-decade addition to the Riyadh giga-project.

Iran's IRGC fired missiles at US forces and a base in Jordan on July 29, ending a days-long lull in the US-Iran war, as the US and Saudi Arabia hit Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed.

Turkey and Iraq signed five agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoU) covering energy, transport, education, youth and industrial property during Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's official visit to Ankara.

Saudi and US aircraft have struck Iran-aligned militia sites in eastern Iraq after drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. It is the first strike inside Iraq Riyadh has publicly claimed, and the Popular Mobilisation Forces says eight of its members we

The US Senate passed the “hellish sanctions” package advanced by the late Senator Lindsey Graham on July 29 with an overwhelming majority of 86 to 12 in favour, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in attendance.

Tech

Iraq has officially launched Starlink satellite internet services, marking a significant step in expanding the country's digital connectivity and broadband infrastructure.

CEO Marian Boček says Nasdaq listing would allow InoBat to expand manufacturing capacity and pursue transatlantic growth.

Russia and its tech sector are largely absent from the global conversation about artificial intelligence, despite a historical track record of technological breakthroughs and a highly qualified workforce.

Syrian super app Labby has raised $10mn from UAE and Saudi investors, in what officials call the first direct foreign investment in a Syrian technology startup. The ride-hailing and delivery platform was announced at a signing ceremony in Damascus.

Serbian insurtech startup Ominimo raised a Series B funding round that valued it at $1.6bn, making it the country's first startup to achieve unicorn status.

Opinion

The European Union needs a coalition of key member states to overcome political divisions and prepare the bloc for its next enlargement wave, according to an ECFR paper.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is entering a new phase in which the odds of escalation are rising even without any single dramatic turning point, says Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

Is Volodymyr Zelenskiy more focused on his own political survival than on winning the war? That is the question The Spectator's Owen Matthews asked after the Ukrainian president's reshuffled his government.

“Zelensky bombed the Iranian vessel on the Caspian for the same reason his people paid Loomer to come to Kyiv and interview him: a PR campaign to try to win over Trump.”

Public discourse increasingly casts Central Asia as shedding Russian influence – through decolonisation, a pivot to China, or a push for greater sovereignty – but the reality on the ground is far messier.

Data

The increase extended a multi-year upward trend, with figure now nearly double what it was at the end of 1H22.

Wage billed as worth $1,000 actually worth only $150 to ordinary citizen.

Annual increase supported by growth across all major retail segments.

Russia's central bank cut its key rate for the tenth consecutive time on July 24, by 25 basis points to 14%, while raising its inflation forecast for 2026 to 6-7%. That's a contradiction and no one is clear where rates will go from here.

Iran's monthly inflation halved to 3.6% in the month to July 22, but the consumer price index stood 83.9% above its year-earlier level. Housing and utilities led the monthly rise. Tobacco was the only category to fall.

Features

Keiko Fujimori was sworn in promising discipline and seven objectives. Her speech never mentioned the 50 dead from 2022-23 protests, said nothing on mining, and recycled a military security model that has failed under three presidents since 2023.

The Afghan Taliban's growing investment in drone technology is a direct response to their lack of a conventional air force, and Pakistan's defence establishment.

Sentenced to death in Iran 10 years ago, business magnate and financier has made a comeback at the head of his Dot One conglomerate.

Ukraine's scam call-centre industry generates as much as $1bn a month, according to a new report by the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), which estimates that around 60,000 Ukrainians work in the trade.

Ukrainian banks are in the middle of their longest lending expansion in 15 years, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), with state-owned PrivatBank leading a corporate-credit surge, businesses of every size turning to bank financing.

Blogs

Dubious rise to the top is questioned. Watchdog says remarks “incompatible with foreign policy vision”.

Tourist visas denied based on highly subjective assessments of financial means and intentions to use “return” section of plane ticket.

The stochastic war continues to escalate into a brutal tit-for-tat missile war with both sides continuously rolling out new and improved weapons that could eventually lead to a direct clash between Nato and Russia.

The tit-for-tat missile war escalated at the weekend after Ukraine hit the largest distribution centre belonging to Wildberries, the “Amazon of Russia.” The Kremlin hit back the next day with a massive drone and missile barrage.

What is in store for Ukraine? There are two starkly different possibilities. It can become Finland — a country that lost a war, lost a tenth of its territory, swallowed neutrality, and then got rich. Or it can become Afghanistan.

bneGREEN

Southern Europe’s wildfire season used to typically run from July to September, but now data shows that it is getting longer and more intense.

Eight lose lives in this year’s carnage. Six die in car swept from road.

The winners are likely to be countries capable of building integrated ecosystems spanning renewable generation, batteries, charging networks and EV manufacturing.

Hungary is rapidly expanding grid-scale energy storage to support its fast-growing renewable energy sector.

This summer’s extreme temperatures have broken the normal “Bell curve” distribution of temperature variations and pushed it sharply to the right into record breaking highs. This is not normal – literally.

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Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte warned that the West needs to prepare of the possibility that Chinese President Xi Jinping will ....

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