China’s President Xi Jinping has made a rare trip to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-Un. We explore the geopolitical background and detail what this means as regards both countries – and Russia.
Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran have agreed on digitalising their road freight transport connectivity, in moves that make cross-border transits more efficient and are likely to lead to driverless drone trucks being utilised for trilateral road freight journeys in the near future.
Despite and probably due to the war in southern Iran, its Caspian Sea connectivity through the INSTC network has boomed with increases of 68% in volumes during the first four months of 2026. A new Caspian sea vessel has been deployed while both Russian and Iranian exports along the route have significantly expanded.
Russia is shortly to agree reciprocal visa-free travel with nationals of Indonesia, Malaysia and Kuwait in a major boost to the tourism sectors to all these countries and Russian nationals.
Our analysis of Putin’s speech at SPIEF including specific sections on the current global and Russian economic conditions, BRICS, Eurasian infrastructure development, sanctions, Russian development and the meaning of sovereignty. It is essential reading for all European and Eurasian development analysts.
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Russia’s Rosatom has stated that the NPP it is building in China will be operational later this year and next. While many in the West view Russia simply as a ‘gas station’, Rosatom is currently involved in over 80% of new NPP builds worldwide and is a world leader in helping developing countries transition to cleaner energy.
Russia and Tanzania are negotiating the construction of a small nuclear power plant in the country. Tanzania has some of the world’s largest uranium reserves, meaning it has a local supply of fuel, which Russia is also helping to extract and process into a usable energy resource.
The Uzbek President has stressed energy cooperation with Russia as a key part of Uzbekistan’s national development, with the first stages of the countries first nuclear power plant being laid down at Jizzakh. Rosatom is building the plant and providing a credit facility. The NPP will provide about 15% of Uzbekistan’s electricity needs.
Tajikistan has the potential to increase its agricultural exports to Russia by another 10% in value, as the two countries Economic Development Ministers. Tajikistan is a source Central Asia’s best quality fruits.
Russia’s Sberbank has plans to open ten branches throughout India to service Russian and Indian clients looking to conduct business in their respective countries. Bilateral trade hit nearly US$70 billion in 2025 and the financial architecture to facilitate and increase this is now being put into place. Most of this trade is in rupees and rubles and avoids SWIFT.
One of India’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Hetero Labs, is investing in a pharma manufacturing plant at the Technopolis Special Economic Zone near Moscow. The company manufacture drugs to deal with treatments of hepatitis, cancer, and tuberculosis.
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