It’s Moll Dova
By Adam Wren @G0ADM
Like many of the former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Union, the Kremlin has tried to keep its former republic of Moldova within its geopolitical orbit.
Russian troops have remained in the breakaway region of Transnistria despite a 1999 agreement to withdraw by 2002, leaving Moscow with de facto military control of the region. In January 2025, Gazprom stopped pumping natural gas through the region, citing alleged debts, cutting off heating and hot water for Transnistria’s roughly 300,000 residents and forcing the main power plant to switch to coal. The Wilson Center notes that the cutoff plunged the region into rolling black‑outs, once again Russia was using its energy supplies as a political weapon.
Moldova, which relied almost entirely on Russian gas before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has since shifted to non‑Russian supplies and a deeper integration with the EU economy and supply chains.
Aside from the hard economic pressure, Russia’s influence campaign in the region is the textbook Kremlin playbook, a network of political proxies and propaganda. The oligarch Ilan Shor (a fugitive living in Moscow) financed protests and offered payments to demonstrators, while the former Kremlin aligned president Igor Dodon urged supporters to annul election results.
Russian‑backed disinformation also exploited religion: a DFRLab investigation uncovered a network of 67 social‑media channels tied to the Moldovan Orthodox Church that gradually shifted from religious messaging to anti‑EU propaganda. These channels, (some managed directly from Russia) promoted Kremlin-friendly candidates and were part of Shor’s media ecosystem. TikTok removed over 100,000 fake accounts and blocked 250,000 spam accounts ahead of the 2025 parliamentary election.
Despite all of these efforts, Moldovans delivered a decisive pro‑European verdict in the parliamentary elections this week. The Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) secured an absolute majority and campaigned on signing an EU accession treaty by 2028. European leaders praised the result; the EU’s foreign policy chief described the vote as a strong mandate for accession so long as their reform framework is followed.
For Russia, the election was a remarkable strategic defeat. During my MA degree in geopolitics in just 2018, the Russian control of energy and influence networks in this part of eastern Europe were considered absolute.
That Moldova has broken away signals significant Russian weakening and is likely in no small part due to its actions in Ukraine. But the Transnistria question remains: Russia is unlikely to remove its military presence, and if Moldova does achieve EU assent by 2028, the union might find itself with Russian boots on European soil.
Headroom, Trade And A Guarantee
By Camilo @AscendedYield
The three threads this week run together. The OBR is preparing to lower the economy’s speed limit, a decision that could have significant implications for the UK’s economic growth. The goods side of the balance of payments slipped again, indicating an imbalance in the UK’s trade. And Whitehall has written a substantial guarantee to keep a core manufacturer solvent, a move that underscores the government’s commitment to maintaining stability in the supply chain. These developments indicate less headroom, a wider external gap, and a state backstop to prevent stress from migrating through supply chains.
Begin with the fiscal arithmetic. The OBR’s pre-measures forecast for 26 November is expected to reduce the trend productivity assumption by around 0.2 percentage points. That adjustment alone reduces projected fiscal space by roughly £18–20bn over five years. Add weaker receipts and higher debt-interest, and the shortfall rises towards £30bn, set against just £9.9bn of published headroom. The implication is consolidation by composition rather than giveaways: base-broadening and relief trims ahead of measures that lift the price level or employers’ on-costs.
Now the external side. In Q2, the goods deficit widened to £56.6bn, primarily offset by a services surplus of £53.8bn. The current‑account deficit widened to 3.2% of GDP on this underlying measure (3.8% including precious metals). This isn’t a classic import boom: exports were the weak leg, with energy playing a more minor role than in 2022. The structure remains what it has been for years: a goods shortfall financed by services and investment income, with noticeable sensitivity if services soften or primary income slips again into autumn.
The momentum since quarter‑end does not yet show signs of relief. In the three months to July, the goods gap widened by £3.0bn to £61.9bn (EU −£35.5bn; non‑EU −£26.4bn). July’s monthly goods deficit printed −£21.2bn on the same ex‑precious‑metals basis. These are value terms, seasonally adjusted, and the right series for macro inference. The challenges persist, and it’s crucial to maintain resilience and adaptability in the face of these ongoing economic shifts.
Then industry. After the cyberattack, ministers signed off a government guarantee of up to £1.5bnfor JLR via UKEF’s Export Development Guarantee, a contingent liability, not a grant, issued under a ministerial direction. Coverage is up to 80% of the facility’s value. The narrow aim is sensible: keep working capital flowing so a Tier-1 squeeze doesn’t become a Tier-2/3 credit event in the Midlands while systems normalise.
The wider story is less flattering. JLR reportedly carried no standalone cyber-insurance at the time, an active choice to self-insure a material operational risk in a just-in-time supply chain. When it goes wrong and the state steps in, private risk management failure is socialised. The moral-hazard point isn’t abstract: if firms learn that catastrophic operational risk can be underwritten after the fact, the price signal from the insurance market is blunted and the public ends up warehousing tail risk. If the guarantee proceeds, it should be pricey, conditional, and temporary.
Apple Of My Eye
By Adam Wren @G0ADM
Our government is (again) pressuring Apple to weaken iCloud encryption. In early September the Home Office issued a secret technical capability notice that would require Apple to give investigators access to end‑to‑end‑encrypted iCloud backups belonging to UK residents. The notice was filed under the insidious Investigatory Powers Act, otherwise known as the “snooper’s charter” that lets ministers compel technology firms to intercept communication, with officials using the worn excuse of terrorism and child sexual abuse.
Apple had already withdrawn its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service from the UK in February rather than comply; ADP uses end‑to‑end encryption so that only the account holder can decrypt their data. The company says it has never built a backdoor and never will, and it is challenging the original order at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. In the meantime, UK customers cannot enable ADP, while global users can.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in August that after months of talks, London had agreed to drop its mandate to access American data. U.S. officials had warned the request could violate the CLOUD Act and might be exploited by cybercriminals.
Privacy advocates argue that the UK‑only order is just as dangerous as the global one, and Apple is unlikely to comply. Caroline Wilson Palow of Privacy International warns that any compromise of end‑to‑end encryption creates a universal vulnerability because malicious actors could reverse‑engineer the access point.
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