Along with China, Iran, and North Korea, Russia is one of a handful of strategic competitors posing a substantial threat to U.S. strategic interests. Russia has now interfered to some extent in at least three democratic elections in the United States. Russian hackers are probably responsible for the recent SolarWinds …

Vladimir Putin is flexing his muscles and testing Western resolve. The security situation continues to deteriorate in eastern Ukraine. Ceasefire violations spiked on Friday, with a high number of explosions. Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed. In a worrying development, Russian troops have been moved to the border with Ukraine and …

The Schleswig-Holstein Question was a notoriously problematic territorial dispute in the nineteenth century. It involved two groups of people, each with ethnic associations with neighbours (Denmark and Germany), living in adjacent pieces of land – Schleswig (Danish) and Holstein (German). For complex historical reasons, The Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein were treated …

UKRAINE Reports of a Russian military build-up along the eastern border of Ukraine and in Crimea heightened fears of escalation in the face of persistent ceasefire violations in the Donbas region and a stalled peace process. Crisis Group expert Katharine Quinn-Judge says fighting in Donbas has often surged following periods …

In the context of Washington’s investment in terrorism and prolonging the war of aggression waged against Syria, the US occupation forces transferred a new batch of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists from their base in the city of Shaddadi to the eastern countryside of Deir-ez-Zor. Local sources said that 50 ISIS …

A new arms shipment of rockets has been delivered to pro-Iran militias in Syria, said sources in the region west of the Euphrates River. The shipment consisted of short and medium-range rockets. It arrived in the Deir-ez-Zor countryside from an illegal border crossing with Iraq on Monday morning. Three military …

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that the Turkish intelligence had instructed the leaders of the so-called “National Army” mercenaries to prepare for the possibility of sending them to Ukraine in the event of an escalation of tension between Russia and Ukraine. According to sources from within the mercenaries …

Dialogue between Kurdish parties in Syria has returned to square one after US-backed talks failed to achieve any form of political consensus among the rivals of the largest ethnic minority in the war-torn country. The UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Khawla Matar, for his part, has called on rival …

The residents of villages lying along a critical Syrian border were once forced to flee their homes due to terror wreaked by the Islamic State (ISIS), but for those that made the decision to return, they now face a new enemy: the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army. For years, Kurdish, Arab, …

Media sources in Damascus reported that the security situation in the Sayedah Zainab area is still witnessing great tension between the Iranian militias on the one hand, and the Fourth Division of government forces on the other hand, after a conflict that broke out between them in late March. The …