In a recent interview with CNN News, President Biden warned of consequences for Saudi Arabia after the kingdom sided with Russian president Vladimir Putin in reducing OPEC+ oil production.

On Wednesday, September 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization of the Russian reserve forces to join the war in Ukraine. This, in turn, spurred a mass exodus from Russia of fighting age men and their families to neighboring countries.

An increase in oil exports in September 2022 from Venezuela to China, Cuba, and Europe, among others, is expected to boost revenues for this Bolivarian country. This, however, does not improve Venezuela’s current social and economic situation. The 2020 sanctions imposed on this country by Western and Latin American countries have limited Venezuelan oil exports to global oil trade markets. The public receives food rations from the state, and the consumer market is still constrained due to the enforced sanctions.

The case concerns the admission of citizens of the Russian Federation to the Schengen area. Should Russians be allowed to travel to European Union countries? Some countries are in favor of Russians being able to use the privilege of tourist visas and visit EU countries, while the rest are against this topic.

Bulgaria’s new interim Minister of Energy Rosen Hristov announced on the 22nd of August 2022 that the country will negotiate with Gazprom to restart the import of natural gas. The announcement comes after the government of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov fell at the end of June, and a new interim government has been appointed until the general election in October 2022. The announcement also follows the halting of gas deliveries to Bulgaria from the Russian Federation in April 2022 after the country refused to pay for the import in rubles. The move is seen as a reversal of the policies of the previous government, which sought to diversify gas deliveries by negotiating deals with Azerbaijan and the United States.

On July 13, the Commission published new guidelines for the transit of Russian goods through Lithuania, allowing the transit of goods like steel and iron by train to Kaliningrad. The Commission’s point of view doesn’t seem to be randomly chosen, given the existing legal provisions. On a political level, however, the disagreement over the issue may have weakened Western unity against Russia.

US-based Westinghouse and Bechtel have completed a front-end engineering and design (Feed) study for the construction of nuclear power plants in Poland, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported.

On Monday, the FBI released a poster about the death of the Al-Qaeda leader, a 71-year-old Egyptian doctor. Ayman Al-Zawahiri was killed by a drone attack in Afghanistan, where he was in his hideout. At the time of the drone attack, he was on a balcony and it was then that two missiles were fired at him, which led to his death. The attack was organized by the CIA, Al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden worked closely together on the September 11 attack.

On Monday, August 1, a historic event took place in Polish-Australian relations. The Governor General of Australia came to Warsaw for the first time with an official delegation. During his visit, David Hurley met, among others, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, President Andrzej Duda and the Speakers of the Sejm and Senate.

Dependence on Russian gas is proving to be a headache for Eastern European countries. Slovakia is one of the most affected: the Slavic country imports approximately 87% of its natural gas and two-thirds of its oil from Russia, according to Euroactiv. For that reason, Slovakia has repeatedly rejected the new package of sanctions on Russia, because it includes an embargo on Russian oil.

Jozef Sikela, the Czech Minister of Industry and Trade has called for an extraordinary EU Council on Energy to be held on the 26th of July 2022. The goal of the summit is to discuss gas deliveries to the European Union, as well as possible solidarity mechanisms amongst member states to cope with the reduced gas supplies.

As the war in Ukraine goes on, the tensions between Russia and the West could enter a new phase of geopolitical rivalry on a global level. One region of great importance both for the West and Russia are the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and one area of contest are arms exports.