Life in an unrecognised state

How do you do business with the rest of the world when nobody officially accepts that your nation state even exists? Rob Young looks at the struggles facing unrecognised breakaway states such as Abkhazia, Transnistria and Nagorno Karabakh.

Thomas de Waal of think tank Carnegie Europe explains how many of them have turned to smuggling and even Bitcoin mining as a way of making ends meet. Meanwhile the BBC's Ivana Davidovic reports from Nicosia in Cyprus where the city's main thoroughfare is still physically divided between the prosperous Greek south and the unrecognised Turkish north.

Plus how can these nations compete international football? Sascha Duerkop has the answer. He is general secretary of Conifa, the international football league for teams that Fifa refuses to recognise.

(Picture: Children wave the North Cypriot flag; Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)