Recent Posts

Russia’s Missing Peacemakers

Why the Country’s Elites Are Struggling to Break With Putin Even in a war that has gone poorly for Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry’s November 9 announcement of a full retreat from the city of Kherson marked a special kind of disaster. Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city seized …

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Turkey Briefing

At 15:17 p.m. Sunday, a CCTV camera picked up a woman in black hijab and tight camouflage pants walking at Taksim Square. A few minutes later, another camera caught her shopping in a store on Istiklal Street. After sitting on a bench for about 45 minutes, at 16:11 she took …

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The Russian-Turkish Bond to Harm the West

Turkey’s skies remain open to Russian airlines and its doors remain open to hundreds of thousands of Russians and their money. Turkey’s exports to Russia are surging. Russian cash helped to plug the growing hole in Turkey’s foreign currency reserves — and at a time when Erdogan needs foreign money …

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This is Where Bankrupt FTX’s Money Went

The executives running the bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, may have broken speed records for how fast they could spend other people’s money. They just weren’t any good at managing it on behalf of their investors or safeguarding it for their crypto exchange customers.

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Putin’s Fear of Retreat

How the Cuban Missile Crisis Haunts the Kremlin Sixty years ago, the White House and the Kremlin peacefully resolved the most dangerous nuclear crisis of the modern era. Neither superpower had wanted the dispute over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba to end in war, but both sides threatened …

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Russia’s Road to Economic Ruin

The Long-Term Costs of the Ukraine War Will Be Staggering After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the Russian economy seemed destined for a nosedive. International sanctions threatened to strangle the economy, leading to a plunge in the value of the ruble and Russian financial markets. Everyday Russians appeared poised …

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