Eurasia

This Special Report seeks to outline what Russia is trying to achieve in Ukraine, and how it is operationalising that intent through the synchronised application of state power. The spectre of war looms over Europe. As Russian troops mass around Ukraine’s borders there is a palpable sense of crisis. In …

As Vladimir Putin moves his troops into eastern Ukraine, the signs are that worse is yet to come. World governments have condemned the move of Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognise the ‘independence’ of two Moscow-backed self-proclaimed enclaves in Ukraine. Yet the challenge of responding adequately to Russia’s defiance of …

While Western intelligence assessments were largely proven correct they are not a substitute for strategy itself. In a pre-dawn television statement, President Vladimir Putin announced a ‘special military operation’, beginning the long-anticipated invasion of Ukraine. This escalation comes at the end of months of conventional military build-up on Ukraine’s border, …

The main immediate goal for the Ukrainian resistance will be to survive. If it can do so, and keep inflicting damage on the occupiers, then Vladimir Putin’s gamble will be on course to fail. A new Iron Curtain across the heart of Europe now seems inevitable. Where that curtain is …

The Kremlin’s pre-invasion research suggested Ukraine was fertile ground for subversion, but the shock of war may transform Ukrainians’ willingness to resist in unpredictable ways. While the Russian military is capable of defeating the Ukrainian armed forces, the prospect of occupying a hostile country constitutes a major gamble for Moscow. …

On February 24, 2022, anti-liberal philosopher Alexander Dugin, in an article titled “It’s All About Ukraine’s Liberation,” stated that Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine is not only to restore the “territorial integrity” of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR),[1] but is about the “liberation” of …

In mid-March 2017, roughly five years ago, Iraq was in a very different place. It was before the popular protests that began in October 2019, before the liberation of Mosul and many other Iraqi cities from ISIS control, and before Massoud Barzani announced his referendum to separate the Kurdistan region. …

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have an impact beyond Europe. Follow along for the latest updates affecting the Mideast region. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could develop into the largest state-on-state conflict Europe has seen since World War II. But the war’s effects will not be limited to the continent.

In early August, I watched the frenzied U.S. exit from Afghanistan from my hotel room in Accra, Ghana. I was not the only one in West Africa transfixed by the events in Kabul. Though Ghana is some 7,000 miles from Afghanistan, the chaotic scenes from the Kabul airport played on …

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, held a phone call with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday after Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began airstrikes on numerous Ukrainian cities. The call is part of a delicate geopolitical balancing act on China’s part. Beijing has been careful not to explicitly endorse …