Thomas Gomart is a French historian and director of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). In an interview with Le Monde, he analyzed the new global strategic situation and gave a first assessment of the disruption caused by the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

As elections approach Sunday, the far-right candidate is linked to the Russian president by a web of financial ties and a history of support that has hardly dimmed despite the war in Ukraine.

Our main story this week is the treason case against Ilya Sachkov, the 35-year-old CEO of the cybersecurity firm Group-IB. On Wednesday morning, September 29, hours after officials raided the company’s Moscow office, a local court jailed Sachkov for the next two months, pending trial.

The poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny with the Novichok nerve agent has dealt a blow to French President Emmanuel Macron's strategy of rapprochement with Russia, which troubled some EU allies, analysts say.

Evidence that the Russian opposition leader was attacked with a military-grade nerve agent has placed new pressures on the German chancellor.

3 questions to Mark GALEOTTI, Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague, Director of Mayak Intelligence consultancy.

Since December 2011 there is a real convergence between the perception of President Vladimir Putin and the perception of Russia, especially, in the Western media.

That leads to several comments. The first is the feeling that there is now a new, much more concentrated power in the Kremlin, and that to some extent leads to the question about the very difficult challenge for Russia to build balanced institutions. And there is the perception that, on this particular point, Russia has not made progress. And this is the main area of concern as seen from outside.

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