If you want to feel really gloomy, think back to the beginning of the 1990s. The West had won the Cold War. The Gorbachev era seemed to suggest that Russia was embarking on a path of stability and democracy. There were indications that the Chinese leadership was interested in cautious moves towards international legality. Other […]
While peace proposals are circulating to end this ruinous conflict, any deal that results in a lasting peace will need to ensure Ukraine is economically and militarily strong enough to resist future Russian aggression. That requires money – lots of it – to rebuild shattered infrastructure and maintain a technologically advanced military. The obvious source […]
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin: the unpredictable versus the inscrutable. It all comes down to those two characters, to the horror of high minds in both Europe and America. International lawyers will hate the thought that the Russian arch war criminal may hang on to his ill-gotten gains. It always seemed improbable that Putin would […]
As the new year begins and Orthodox Christians in Ukraine celebrate Christmas, the country’s parliament stands poised to pass a law that would outright ban the operation of their church. Amid the fog of war, the Ukrainian government is reducing democracy to mere performance art to distract from the disestablishment of this church merely based […]
The war in Ukraine has thrown Europe’s security situation into stark relief. Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion has seen the spectre of conventional war, which many thought banished with the fall of the Soviet Union, return to haunt the continent. But whilst the hot war against the rickety Russian regime has naturally […]
Cuba is sending significant numbers of soldiers to Russia to fight in its war against Ukraine. Information on Cuba’s intervention has emerged from multiple sources, most notably Ukrainian ‘hacktivists’ who handed intelligence obtained from the official responsible for contract military personnel in the Russian city of Tula, Major Anton Valentinovich Perevozchikov, to InformNapalm. This provides full […]
As Kyiv’s counteroffensive to liberate Russian-occupied territories slowly advances in Ukraine’s east, the drone war continues to escalate. Beyond the symbolic value of high-profile strikes against targets in Moscow, deep in the Russian heartland, and Novorossiysk, a key Russian port and export hub on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, this also has important […]
In all the coverage of Russia’s nefarious activities in Ukraine and beyond, one aspect of its foreign policy has gone largely under the radar – the role of its Latin American allies. It is no co-incidence that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently visited Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua for urgent discussions, as did State Security […]
The world is facing severe food shortages. Conflicts, climate change and the lingering effects of Covid-19 are having a pronounced impact on both local and global food systems and all those who depend on them. Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine has significantly increased these challenges and vulnerabilities. Ukraine, with its famously fertile soil, is one […]
The war in Ukraine has now lasted 122 times longer than Vladimir Putin anticipated when he launched an all-out assault on the country just over a year ago. What was meant to be a three-day blitzkrieg has turned into a grinding, attritional conflict where the front lines resemble the trenches of World War 1, albeit […]
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, most of the fighting has been on land. However, there has also been a less visible – but nonetheless crucial – maritime dimension to the war across the full spectrum of tactical, strategic, economic and diplomatic considerations. After land troops crossed the Ukraine border on February 24 […]
‘Range anxiety‘ is a phrase most often associated with electric vehicles having to regularly charge their batteries. But it is also central to an understanding of the protracted nature of the limited war being fought between Russia and Ukraine. Range in this case means something different, of course. It is the limited distance at which […]
President Zelensky’s visit to the UK today is a sign of the esteem with which Brexit Britain is held by the Ukrainian people. A year ago, when Putin expected a swift victory and apologists for his regime looked the other way, Britain stepped forward. Then PM Boris Johnson and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace both understood […]
Britain is once again proving its value as an ally to Ukraine. Throughout our fight against Russia and its military, the UK has been at the forefront of international support: pushing for greater sanctions on Russia, arguing for greater economic and military support, and then providing armaments. So it’s great to see Rishi Sunak following […]
There is a quote often attributed to the leader of the Russian Revolution Vladimir Ilyich Lenin which goes. ‘There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.’ Following that logic, 2022 feels as though it lasted a century – as the UK contended with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, political instability at […]
Across Europe, a rather under-reported trend has been gathering pace: parliament after parliament have been declaring the Russian Federation a ‘terrorist state’. It started in August when the Latvian Parliament passed a resolution, swiftly followed by Estonia in October and, by the start of this month the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had joined […]
The Russian military – under instruction from Vladimir Putin – is rewriting the rules of siege warfare for the 21st century. The classic definition of a siege is: ‘The process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the […]
While in Westminster eyes are fixed on the new government, financial instability, and a migrant crisis in Kent, the world is not exactly standing still. In Ukraine, as Ukrainians close in on Kherson, Iranian-manufactured drones deployed by Russia are wreaking havoc on the civilian population. In the EU, the relationship between France and Germany has […]
Speculation regarding how secure Vladimir Putin’s position is surfaces every few years, but has intensified since the invasion of Ukraine, particularly in light of Russia’s military failures in recent months. Many of these speculative debates discuss either who will take the leadership position or what sort of regime – and led by who – will […]
Volodymyr Zelensky became a a global icon almost overnight following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year. The force of his leadership and defiance in the face of overwhelming Russian force offered hope in his country’s darkest hour. For our guest this week, Zelensky’s heroic defiance came as no great surprise. Iuliia […]
Many Ukrainians are facing the prospect of a winter of power outages after about 30% of the country’s power stations were knocked out in just over a week. The deputy head of the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, has warned that the country needs to be prepared for ‘a hard winter’. It has been reported that […]
In the summer, I wrote that Vladimir Putin would inevitably violate Russia and Ukraine’s grain agreement. Unfortunately, he immediately proved me right, launching missile attacks on Odesa literally hours after signing the agreement. Behaviour this brazen might look strange to the civilised world, but it’s quite normal for the dictator in the Kremlin. Although our […]
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