Explainer

An energy ceasefire is a limited deal to stop attacks on each other's energy infrastructure — power plants, grids, refineries and fuel depots — while the wider war continues. This explainer sets out how the Ukraine-Russia version announced by Donald Trump is supposed to work, why the two sides define it differently, and why previous announcements unravelled.

A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that Kyiv will keep attacking Russia's oil refineries — 'We will burn [Russian] refineries' — despite Donald Trump's deal with Vladimir Putin to release Russian diesel onto world markets. The vow deepens a rift that has Trump suggesting Ukraine needs 'a new leader' and Kyiv warning the diesel deal is an 'investment in a war that must be ended.'

Sudan's civil war, which erupted in Khartoum in April 2023, pits the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary. Three and a half years on, the war has displaced 14 million people, split the country east to west, and turned the Kordofan region into its central battleground — while the army chief vows to retake 'every inch' of territory.

The Bab al-Mandeb — the narrow 'Gate of Tears' between Yemen and the Horn of Africa — links the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal. With Houthi forces seizing control of its shores and Gulf states counterattacking, here is why this strait matters to the world economy.

The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important energy chokepoint — roughly a fifth of global petroleum liquids moved through it before the 2026 conflict, per EIA data. This explainer covers where it is, why it matters, what happens when it is disrupted, and how the current Iran conflict has reshaped flows.

Fighting has returned to Ethiopia's Tigray region in 2026 after the 2022 Pretoria peace deal broke down: a seven-group rebel alliance attacked on September 23, Ethiopian forces retook the capital Mekelle on October 4, and Addis Ababa has severed ties with Eritrea. Analysts warn the conflict could spread across the Horn of Africa.

A year after the Gaza ceasefire took effect in October 2025, the agreement holds in name but not in substance: more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since it began, per Gaza health officials cited by Reuters, and the core issues it deferred — Hamas's disarmament and a full Israeli withdrawal — remain unresolved.

South Sudan conflict explained: the world's youngest country is sliding back toward civil war as President Salva Kiir prepares December 22 elections — the first since independence — while his rival Riek Machar sits under house arrest on trial for treason. A guide to the Kiir–Machar rivalry, the collapsed 2018 peace deal, and where the crisis stands.

More than 120 armed groups operate in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The M23 rebellion — 30,000 to 40,000 fighters strong, widely reported to be backed by Rwanda — is the most powerful of them. Peace deals signed in late 2025 have not stopped the fighting. Here is the conflict, explained.

Pakistan's military said this weekend it killed more than 71 militants in operations across Balochistan — the latest chapter in a 20-year separatist insurgency that escalated sharply this year. Here is who is fighting, what they want, and why it is getting worse.

The Fano insurgency began in April 2023 when a militia that fought beside Ethiopia's army turned its guns on the government. Now Fano has allied with its old enemy the TPLF, and the Amhara conflict is pushing the country toward renewed civil war. Here is what is happening and why.

Gaza reconstruction will need $71.5 billion, the UN says — but almost a year after the ceasefire, Israel occupies 60% of the strip, Hamas has not disarmed, and not a single reconstruction project has begun. Here is what the plans say, and what is blocking them.

Wartime sanctions on Russia hinge on a $44.10 oil price cap, a shadow fleet of aging tankers, and a cat-and-mouse game of evasion. How the sanctions machine works — and why enforcement keeps lagging behind.

Iran's nuclear program is now the world's most closely watched blind spot: the IAEA says it has been 'completely blind' for over a year, 440 kg of 60%-enriched uranium is unaccounted for, and the Security Council has the file for the first time in 20 years.

The Kashmir flashpoint put two nuclear-armed rivals through four days of missile, drone and fighter-jet combat in May 2025 — the worst fighting since 1999. Here is why Kashmir keeps pulling India and Pakistan back to the brink.

The Lebanon ceasefire has collapsed and been renegotiated twice: a 2024 truce that never held, and a June 2026 framework tying Israeli withdrawal to Hezbollah's disarmament. With UN peacekeepers leaving by year's end, here is what holds the border together.

Fifteen years after Gaddafi's fall, Libya remains split between rival governments in Tripoli and the east — and its oil wealth keeps the war frozen rather than finished. Here is how the Libya frozen conflict works.

Myanmar's civil war has killed more than 100,000 people since the 2021 coup — and a September 2026 airstrike on a Rakhine market that killed at least 33 shows how the junta's air campaign now punishes civilians far from any front line. Here is who is fighting, and why.

Nine multinational battlegroups, a new German brigade in Lithuania, a German-Dutch corps taking command in the Baltics — NATO's eastern flank has become the alliance's biggest reinforcement in a generation. Here is how the buildup works.

The nine-dash line is the U-shaped mark on Chinese maps claiming most of the South China Sea — a claim an international tribunal ruled has no legal basis in 2016. Here is where the line came from, what the law says, and why the dispute keeps escalating.

North Korea's missile program has moved from pariah-state posturing to a live combat laboratory: Pyongyang is testing AI-guided missiles at home while supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for Ukraine. Here is how the arsenal works — and what Moscow gets in return.

A new Saudi-led Red Sea naval coalition joined the fight in 2026 after Houthi attacks on oil tankers — the third multinational force trying to secure the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Here is how the Red Sea naval coalition works, and why warships alone have not reopened the waterway.

More than three years into Sudan's civil war, nearly 20 million people face acute hunger, 14 million are displaced, and aid funding is running dry. Here is the anatomy of the Sudan humanitarian crisis.

China's gray-zone pressure on Taiwan mixes live-fire drills, daily military incursions, cyberattacks and even sand dredgers to exhaust the island without starting a war. Here is how the coercion campaign works — and what it is meant to achieve.

Ceasefires are only words on paper until someone watches them hold. From UN peacekeepers to the OSCE's unarmed observers in Ukraine, this is how ceasefire monitoring actually works — and why it so often fails.

Nearly two years after Bashar al-Assad's fall, Syria's interim government controls most of the country — including Damascus and Aleppo — after a January 2026 deal integrated Kurdish forces. But the transition is disputed, violence continues, and the Islamic State remains active. Here is who holds what, and why it matters.

Yemen's war has killed an estimated 377,000 people, left 19.5 million needing aid — and in September 2026 it exploded back onto the world stage as the Houthis seized the Red Sea coast and threatened the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Here is how the forgotten front works.

Al-Qaeda's Sahel branch, JNIM, has killed hundreds of soldiers, strangled Mali's capital with a fuel blockade, and pushed three military juntas into a Russian-backed alliance. Here is how the Sahel conflict works — and why it matters.

Before analysts trust a video from a war zone, they check four things: where it was filmed, when it was filmed, whether the file is authentic, and whether it already existed online. Here are the methods.

Since November 2023, Houthi attacks on commercial shipping have turned the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a chokepoint carrying a tenth of seaborne oil — into one of the world's most dangerous waterways.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between its army and a powerful paramilitary force — producing the world's largest displacement crisis, famine conditions, and a country effectively split in two.

A no-fly zone is not a line on a map. It is a military operation: fighters on patrol, enemy air defences destroyed first, and a legal mandate behind it all. Here is how they work, where they have been tried, and why leaders hesitate.

A 130-kilometre-wide waterway, the world's most important chip factories, an informal median line that no longer holds, and a US policy of deliberate ambiguity — the Strait is where geography, economics, and great-power politics collide.