Eurasia

US Not Backing Down on Biden’s Xi Dictator Comment

The White House is not backing down on comments made by President Joe Biden likening Chinese President Xi Jinping to a dictator. “It should come as no surprise that the president speaks candidly about China and the differences that we have — we are certainly not alone in that,” a …

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Ukraine Expects To Secure Pledges Totaling $7 Billion At Reconstruction Conference

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said he expects to secure almost $7 billion in aid for reconstruction, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv needs concrete commitments for projects that will help post-war development and further modernization. Shmyhal told the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London on June 21 that the war …

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Competition of the main players in the geopolitics of Central Asia

The continuation of the war in Ukraine has caused important changes in the geopolitics of the peripheral regions and the axis of Eurasia, which is one of the most visible and noisy by a little distance in Central Asia, a region that plays an important role in the historical and …

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Turkey Drone Strikes Kill 16 In Syria: Monitor

Turkey has escalated drone attacks on Kurdish-held regions of north and northeast Syria this week, killing 16 people including one civilian in a single day, a war monitor said Thursday. The strikes mostly targeted Kurdish-held Tal Rifaat and Manbij in the country’s north near the Turkish border, areas Ankara has …

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Detroit-area man gets 14 years in prison for fighting for Islamic State

A Detroit-area man who was captured on a Syrian battlefield in 2018 fighting for Islamic State was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison. Ibraheem Izzy Musaibli of Dearborn was convicted in January of providing support to a designated terrorist organization. “For his betrayal of our nation and his fellow …

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Syrian Kurds Launch New Attempt to Prosecute Captured IS Foreign Fighters

U.S. allies in northeastern Syria are intent on prosecuting hundreds of Islamic State foreign fighters for war crimes despite a lack of support from the international community. The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced Thursday it would begin judicial proceedings for about 2,000 IS foreign fighters …

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Russia-Iran Ties Are Transactional — And Warming Fast

Iran-Russia relations have entered a new era of mutual cooperation. Thanks to the war in Ukraine, Moscow and Tehran’s interests — whether military, economic or geopolitical — have aligned to an extent not seen for many decades. The contrast with the period before the Russian invasion of Ukraine is striking. …

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Russian Private Military Companies Thriving Due to War with Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has brought the Wagner Group, Russia’s largest private military company, or PMC, out of the shadows. Before the February 2022 invasion, it operated mostly covertly in Ukraine, Africa and Syria. Its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, even denied the group’s existence and his role until last fall. Today, …

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Georgia Becomes Marriage Hub for Russian Emigres Amid Uncertainty of War

Alexei Yermolaev hardly expected that he’d be proposing to his girlfriend Anna Volshuva in the dead of night, surrounded by packed bags. It was a few days after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Yermolaev had just bought a one-way ticket to Tbilisi in …

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Ideology, Money or Freedom? Why Fighters from the Global South Join Russia’s Army in Ukraine

The family of Tanzanian-born Nemes Raymond Taremo first heard rumors that their beloved relative had been killed on the frontlines in faraway Ukraine in December last year. They received their last message from Taremo, 37, two months earlier — on Oct. 17 — shortly after he joined Russia’s Wagner mercenary …

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