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The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has headed to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on his first official visit to the region as President Biden’s top diplomat. Announcing his departure from US soil overnight on 26-27 February, Secretary of State Blinken said that he was looking forward to “advancing our Central Asian partnerships”. After visiting the Kazakh and Uzbek capitals, he would then head to India for the coming G20 summit. The timing of the visit is notable, coming only days after the first anniversary of Russia’s disastrous full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which as one of its consequences has seen Central Asia reassert itself regionally and rapidly explore ties with other neighbouring power blocs including the EU, the Middle East, and China. On 28 February, Blinken had a joint meeting in Astana with the foreign ministers of all five Central Asian nations: Mukhtar Tileuberdi of Kazakhstan; Jeenbek Kulubaev of Kyrgyzstan; Rasit Meredov of Turkmenistan; Sirojiddin Muhriddin of Tajikistan; and Bakhtiyor Saidov of Uzbekistan. He also met with each FM in person in Astana, with the exception of the latter, whom he met later in Tashkent.

A passenger train and a freight train have collided near the city of Larissa in northern Greece on the evening of Tuesday (28 February), killing at least 36 people and injuring at least 66, six of whom are in intensive care. It is not yet known what caused the crash, and rescuers were working through the night to try and free survivors. The passenger train has been said to have been carrying some 350 people when it collided with the freight train. Speaking on state television, Costas Agorastos, the regional governor of the Thessaly region, said the impact was “very powerful”. “The front section of the train was smashed," he said. "We’re getting cranes to come in and special lifting equipment to clear the debris and lift the rail cars. There’s debris flung all around the crash site.” Speaking to Reuters news agency, passenger Stergios Minenis said: "We heard a big bang...It was a nightmarish ten seconds. We were turning over in the carriage until we fell on our sides and until the commotion stopped. Then there was panic. Cables, fire. The fire was immediate. As we were turning over we were being burned. Fire was right and left. For ten, fifteen seconds it was chaos.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine one year ago the prevalent feeling among the Arab Gulf states was that they did not want to get involved.  Some thought the best policy was to ignore it, others that they should at the very least dodge it, and some even saw in it some opportunity to extend relations with Russia and China.  There were a number of reasons for this. The region was frustrated with how the west dealt with it. It expected a more equal relationship that never properly materialised. There was fatigue at western attempts – some clearly ill-judged – at interfering in the Arab region, and conversely, disappointment at western failure to stand up to Iran. The unsightly US departure from Afghanistan, and talk of American strategic re-positioning, convinced some that the American moment in the Gulf had passed.

The Ukrainian military repelled 60 Russian attacks in five areas over the past 24 hours in northeastern and eastern Ukraine, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported in its morning update on Tuesday (28 February). Ukraine repelled the attacks near Kupyansk in eastern Kharkiv Oblast as well as Lyman, Bakhmut, Adviika, and Shakhtarsk in Donetsk Oblast, where Russia is concentrating its main offensive efforts, according to the General Staff. Russian troops reportedly carried out eight missile attacks, 32 air strikes, and launched more than 85 attacks using multiple launch rocket systems  between 27 and 28 February, the statement said. Meanwhile, in his daily address on the evening of 27 February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the situation in the Bakhmut direction is "getting more and more difficult". He added that Russia "is constantly destroying everything that can be used to protect our positions, to gain a foothold and ensure defense". The commander of Ukraine's ground forces, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has said the situation around Bakhmut is "extremely tense". Russia has been trying to take the medium-sized industrial town with a pre-war population of roughly 70,000 for over six months, and has long been a location where the front line has been the most active. 

There is intense diplomatic activity in the South Caucasus ahead of a likely resumption in direct negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in an effort to normalise relations between them after decades of war. commonspace.eu political editor said in a comment that synchronising the various elements that are part of the Armenia-Azerbaijan settlement process is always difficult, and the international context also continues to complicate matters. But there is a new sense of expectation in the air that the next days and weeks can bring about the long expected breakthrough.