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. …