Ukraine tries to hold off Russian gains on a stalemated front in the east amid manpower and artillery shortages. A defiant Ukraine continues to strike at energy infrastructure inside Russia despite U.S. objections. And a waiting game continues as a vital $60 billion in U.S. defense assistance to address Ukraine’s vital needs finally appears to be moving in the House of Representatives. Continue reading
Russia suffers its deadliest terrorist attack in two decades after ignoring a warning from U.S. intelligence – a warning that Vladimir Putin dismissed at the time as “blackmail.” Continue reading
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where institutions are weak and the rule of law nonexistent, all politics are essentially court politics. Continue reading
How will the Russian opposition’s battle against Vladimir Putin look without Aleksei Navalny? Continue reading
Two years ago, Vladimir Putin launched a war of aggression and a war of choice against Ukraine — and he expected it to be a cakewalk. It wasn’t. Rather than a quick shock-and-awe assault that would spark regime change in Kyiv, Ukraine instead fought Russia to a draw – driving its forces away from the capital and fighting them to a standstill in the Donbas. Continue reading
Vladimir Putin has apparently eliminated another opponent.
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, the opposition leader and anti-corruption activist who has battled the Putin regime for more than a decade, has suddenly and suspiciously died in a prison inside the Arctic Circle, after appearing healthy and jovial one day prior. Not since the November 2015 assassination of Boris Nemtsov has such a prominent opposition leader been killed. Continue reading
The president has sacked his top general. After months of behind-the-scenes tension and after days of intense speculation and rumors, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired General Valery Zaluzhny as chief of the country’s armed forces. Continue reading
What will Russia look like in 10 years, or 20? How much longer will Vladimir Putin’s two-decade-plus rule last? Who — and what — will come after him? Will Russia continue its expansionist and anti-Western course? Or will it seek rapprochement? Will Russia remain intact, or will it disintegrate like the Soviet Union before it? And how should the United States and its allies prepare for all of these contingencies? Continue reading
Nearly three decades ago, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan agreed to give up the nuclear arsenals they had inherited from the Soviet Union, turning them over to Russia. Continue reading
In addition to the front lines in the Donbas, the battle for Ukraine’s future is being fought out in Western capitals. Continue reading
