Long reads

Drones over airports, GPS jamming, damaged undersea cables and Russian warships escorting the "shadow fleet". With Sweden and Finland joining, the Baltic has become an allied sea, but also a space in which a single wrong move could trigger a war no one wants.

Six months after an offensive that killed the defence minister, Mali's junta still holds Bamako, and the army has returned to Kidal with Russian help. But the capital lives on escorted convoys, and the Sahel has become the world's deadliest terrorism hotspot.

Eight months after the war began, Iran no longer has the navy or the radars it once had, yet it still keeps the Strait of Hormuz practically closed. Not because it controls it, but because no one else can guarantee that it is safe.