I was in Ottawa this week to interview Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, for the first episode of The Economist Insider, our new video offering. We have just launched the Insider hub, where you can browse all upcoming episodes. For the first show, on October 9th, I’ll be joined by three colleagues for a debate about the winners and losers of Donald Trump’s trade war. We’ll discuss the highlights from my conversation with Mr Carney—and you’ll be able to watch the full interview with the Canadian leader immediately afterwards. 

Meanwhile, my colleagues in London have put together an alarming cover story this week about Russia’s grey-zone intimidation of Europe. Vladimir Putin is deliberately testing the West in an attempt to corrode support for Ukraine and destabilise the foundations of NATO. Whether it is drones and fighter jets traversing NATO airspace, undersea-cable sabotage or mysterious explosions and assassinations, Russia is waging a cheap, deniable and calibrated campaign to unsettle Europe that is carefully short of outright conflict.

Our analysis includes a briefing that gets into the detail of Russia’s murky tactics. We’ve also taken a close look at the global “dark fleet” of ships, which conceal their identities so they can smuggle Russian oil or engage in espionage and sabotage. Our Telegram columnist, meanwhile, writes that in this new age of brinkmanship the West needs to relearn the cold-war arts of escalation management.