​The Munich Security Conference is taking place from 13 to 15 February. European leaders, together with major geopolitical actors such as China and Iran, have gathered to express and exchange their positions on the war in Ukraine, a conflict that has persisted for four years since Russia launched its “Special Military Operation” on 22 February 2022. With more than two million casualties on both sides combined, the scale of devastation underscores the urgency of the moment. European leaders incre

Long before it became a theatre of geopolitical calculation, the Arctic was a stabilizer of life on Earth. Its vast ice sheets reflect solar radiation back into space, moderating global temperatures. Its cold waters help regulate thermohaline circulation, influencing weather systems across continents. Its permafrost has locked away immense quantities of carbon accumulated over millennia.

On February 5, 2026, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia is set to expire, potentially ending the last remaining legally binding framework limiting the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. If no interim arrangement or successor is reached, the U.S. and Russian strategic forces would operate for the first time since the early 1970s without agreed constraints. The expiration comes amid ongoing conflict in Ukraine, strategic competition in the A