Recent Posts

Syria: Ruling over Aleppo’s Ruins

Aleppo was devastated by bombing and shelling during the Syrian war. It remains unsafe, with residents subject to shakedowns by the regime’s security forces and various militias. Damascus and its outside backers should curb this predation as a crucial first step toward the city’s recovery. What’s new? Almost six years after …

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Ukraine asks G7 to step up arms supply, pressure on Russia

Ukraine’s foreign minister said Friday that his country is willing to engage in diplomatic talks with Russia to unblock grain supplies and to achieve a political solution to the war in Ukraine but won’t accept ultimatums from Moscow. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the Ukrainian government had received “no positive …

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Russia takes losses in failed river crossing, officials say

Russian forces suffered heavy losses in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a pontoon bridge they were using to try to cross a river in the east, Ukrainian and British officials said in another sign of Moscow’s struggle to salvage a war gone awry. Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, opened the first war …

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Ukraine War’s Geographic Reality: Russia Has Seized Much of the East

Russia’s nearly three-month-old invasion of neighboring Ukraine has been punctuated by flawed planning, poor intelligence, barbarity and wanton destruction. But obscured in the daily fighting is the geographic reality that Russia has made gains on the ground. The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that its forces in eastern Ukraine had …

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Corruption in the Russian Armed Forces

Corruption is endemic in Russia and is pervasive within its defence industrial sector and armed forces. Evidence from Ukraine suggests that it is costing Russian lives. Corruption in the Russian armed forces, and society in general, has been a long-acknowledged truism. The Russian public sector has consistently ranked near the …

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Macron’s Pragmatism Ensures Line To Putin Remains Open

French President Emmanuel Macron last week had his first conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin since March 29. This reestablishment of dialogue came three days after Macron had a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The phone call with Putin lasted for a reported two hours and 10 minutes. Macron …

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Biden’s Disinformation Board Would Make Even Orwell Shiver

It sounded pernicious enough on the face of it. But even though it represents, at least in principle, arguably the most explicit and chilling threat to the First Amendment that we may have witnessed, the establishment of a de facto ministry of truth — officially titled the Disinformation Board — …

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Mounting Georgian-Ukrainian Tensions Harm Both Sides – Analysis

The Russian war of subjugation against Ukraine has complicated Georgian-Ukrainian relations, officially described as a “strategic partnership,” in unexpected ways. While the two threatened Russian neighbors seemingly share the same regional security outlook, ongoing tensions between them have been exacerbated by Kyiv’s discontent over the scope and nature of the …

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