Putin is more likely to promote people in their forties than older generations who have been in power for too long and can envisage life without him. But Russia doesn’t have enough young administrators ready to replace those in their sixties. The Russian elite is both fearful and hopeful about …

On April 18 the US and UK imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran. On April 17 European Union leaders had talked aggressively about ramping up sanctions on Iran. This has happened in the wake of Iran’s April 13 attack on Israeli targets, which in turn was in response …

The Iranian-Israeli ‘shadow war’ ended on 13 April with Iran firing 170 drones and 150 cruise and ballistic missiles at Israel from Iranian soil. This was the Islamic Republic’s retaliation for Israel’s razing of an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus 12 days earlier. Tehran’s bold, unprecedented, and risky move, which …