Letter From the Editors

With the rapid flow of events heading into this year, many of us feel disoriented. Dis-oriented even in the literal sense – it’s hard to remember which way is East. Before compasses became readily available, people found their bearings in relation to great rivers. When a river in the Northern Hemisphere flows toward the Sun, and you face downstream (i.e., south), the left bank is east, and the right bank is west.

And so, looking downstream, as the Russian Army continues its slow push to control the left bank of the Lower Dnepr, Ukraine has refused to renew its transit agreement with Gazprom, cutting off gas flows from the East. “Gas was shut off at most of the industrial enterprises in Transnistria on Dec. 29,” slightly anticipating the crisis by starting the New Year holiday early, Kirill Buketov writes.

The problem didn’t stop at the Dnestr, of course. “Most of the energy in Moldova (about 80%) comes from the Moldovan State Regional Power Station, which is controlled by Transnistria,” Buketov continues. The breakaway region naturally redirected the station’s electricity toward domestic use, and as a result, “The year 2025 was celebrated on the right bank of the Dnestr [i.e., Moldova] by turning off the holiday lights and stopping the escalators in shopping centers.”

Within two weeks, the outline of a solution came into view, with pricier gas from both European spot markets and with Russia filling the breach (via Turkstream). It seems the laws of markets, like those of hydraulics, ensure a continued downstream flow – no matter how circuitous – around any impediment.

Likewise, Russian analysts often describe state diplomacy as a “course” (the cognate kurs) in the sense of a travel plan, but it might be more apt in the organic, riparian sense – deepening only gradually and shifting in its channel as gradients adjust – either due to erosion or a landslide.

Armenia under Prime Minister Pashinyan, for example, shifted only subtly before a sudden jut to the West after CSTO allies stood aside during the Karabakh crisis. Now Yerevan and Washington are signing a “charter on strategic partnership” that will “have a decisive role in strengthening cooperation between the US and Armenia,” analyst Tigran Meloyan tells Izvestia. Moscow is keeping a calm tone, however, perhaps sensing Yerevan will meander back its way. For one reason, Meloyan explains “Armenia’s position is also complicated by the lingering tension between the West and Georgia, where the latter is the only point of entry for shipments of NATO military aid.” For another, the latest Armenian Gallup poll says “almost 58% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the current prime minister’s work.”

Another “strategic partnership” is under way as Iranian President Pezeshkian prepares to sign a treaty to that affect in Moscow, and his Ambassador Kazem Jalali addressed Izvestia’s readers in a way that sounds, well, like Putin: “The rise of major armed conflicts, trade wars, crimes. . . and food issues have brought an end to the era of American-style globalization.” Incoming president Trump cannot restore it, Jalali says, since his “America First” simply means “unilateralism and world domination are at the top of the agenda.”

Trump, meanwhile, did little to dispel such impressions when, in the run-up to his inauguration, he began a push to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. The first of those prospects is most viable, Georgy Vogt writes: “For example, each of the 56,000 residents could be offered $1 million. This would be peanuts for the US. . . . Copenhagen will be notified after the sale goes through.”

Scholar Aleksei Fenenko, however, warns that the potential sale risks reopening disputes over Arctic islands between the US and Russia dating back to Seward’s Folly. As it turns out, the closer you get to the North Pole, the harder it is to tell East from West, and the navies may have to fight until they get their Berings.