On 1 September 2026 Bishkek hosted seventeen heads of state and government at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the twenty-sixth in its history, convened on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the organisation's founding. The host, Kyrgyzstan, which had just ended its year-long chairmanship, had a few weeks earlier been elected a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2027 and 2028, while in the same election Germany lost the seat reserved for the Western group.

A few days before the first summit of the Carpathian Integration Initiative, scheduled for September 2026 in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Warsaw still does not know whom it will send. Volodymyr Zelensky has invited representatives of seven states of the region to the summit, Poland among them, he is steering the project personally, some leaders have already confirmed their attendance and more than five hundred business representatives are expected on site, and yet Poland's decision on the level of its representation still has not been taken.

Iran emerges from the war with Israel and the US strengthened, regardless of the costs it has incurred. Unless a permanent collapse in negotiations occurs, it can recover its losses very quickly, and given its potential, it has a chance of becoming one of the world's largest economies within a few years. Crucial in this context is not the nuclear issue, but the high-stakes game over the Strait of Hormuz.