Peter Apps

NATO’s first major exercise this year, "STEADFAST DART", has seen its Allied Response Force (ARF) deploy 10,000 troops with accompanying aircraft, warships and well over 1,500 vehicles into southern Europe, not far from the borders of Ukraine.

On Christmas Day, authorities in Estonia and Finland noted the sudden interruption of the Estlink 2 undersea electricity cable linking their two nations - just as ship tracking data showed the Cook Islands-registered "Eagle S" passing outbound from Russia’s Baltic coast en route to Egypt.

As Russian helicopter gunships and patrol boats closed on Ukrainian unmanned “sea baby” maritime-attack drones on Dec. 6 to destroy them before they reached their targets, they received an unpleasant surprise: The robot boats were shooting back, seemingly with machine guns being automatically aimed and fired.

Within two weeks of Donald Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was touring Australia and Asia with a simple message: the U.S. was not leaving, America’s regional allies were doubling down on relationships with both Washington and between each other – and the presidential transition would be a bad time for China to attack Taiwan.

As America's allies digested the news and scale of Donald Trump's election victory last week, four U.S. B-52 strategic bombers landed at Britain's RAF Fairford having flown the Atlantic and conducted joint training missions over Scandinavia with Finnish and Swedish jets.

Since August, Ukrainian civilians have been evacuating the eastern city of Pokrovsk, taking everything of value from hospital beds to library books as Russian forces have pushed ever closer to the strategic rail junction and settlement.

Russia’s aims, officials and analysts say, likely include undermining European trust in governments, deterring further European military support for Ukraine.

As campaigning for Moldova’s presidential election and referendum on European Union relations entered its final month in late September, violent splashes of red and yellow paint appeared across government buildings in the capital Chisinau.

As the largest vessel in the Philippines Coast Guard returned to port last week after five months blockaded by Chinese patrol vessels and fishing craft at the disputed Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea, ambulances waited on the quayside to receive several crew members, two carried off by stretcher.

At the end of January in the Thai capital Bangkok, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese foreign policy supremo Wang Yi held two six-hour negotiating sessions - described by Thailand’s Foreign Ministry as an effort “to try and iron out their differences”.