Ukrainian forces, on the defensive in eastern Ukraine, have mounted an audacious raid into Russia’s Kursk Province, capturing enemy soldiers and destroying equipment, surprising and discomforting the Kremlin. What strategic significance might it have? Some raids have no impact on the course of a war. In the summer of 1864, with Union forces besieging Richmond
GET UP TO SPEED The August surprise came from Ukraine. Beginning on Tuesday, as many as a thousand Ukrainian troops reportedly crossed the border into the Kursk region in Russia, capturing an estimated seventeen square miles of territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the move a “major provocation,” while the Ukrainian government has largely declined
From Russia, with interest. The Group of Seven (G7) leaders announced Thursday that they had agreed on a plan to send fifty billion dollars to Ukraine in the coming months by pulling forward interest income on Russian assets that had been immobilized in Western countries since February 2022 (a novel idea that Atlantic Council research
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin was defiant about the Russian economy. “Despite all the obstacles we are facing and the illegitimate sanctions imposed against us,” he declared, “Russia remains one of the key participants in global trade and is rapidly expanding the new logistics and geography
Interest in the interest is growing. Over the past three days, Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers met in Stresa, Italy, on the shore of Lake Maggiore, to discuss what to do with a major pile of money. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, G7 nations blocked around $300 billion in Russian assets
“There was always just enough virtue in this Republic to save it; sometimes none to spare.” —William Seward Finally, the blockage imposed by a minority of “America First” House members has been broken and, after a six-month delay, crucial US military aid may be on its way to Ukraine again. An alliance of what might
“We have a deal,” European Council President Charles Michel announced on Thursday. Then, to underscore the inclusivity of that first-person plural pronoun, he added that all twenty-seven European Union (EU) countries had agreed on a fifty-billion-euro aid package to Ukraine through 2027. The breakthrough follows weeks of resistance from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. It
JUST IN Sometimes politics doesn’t end at the water’s edge. Amid a difficult stage in Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion and congressional division over US policy toward Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting Washington this week to make his case for continued aid for his country. While US President Joe Biden said Tuesday he
“We are facing an inflection point in history.” On Thursday evening, US President Joe Biden spoke to Americans from the Oval Office—in only the second such address of his presidency—to tie together the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine as part of a larger struggle for democracy and freedom. Biden made the case that US leadership
TO: POTUSFROM: Ambassadors John Herbst, Steven Pifer, Alexander Vershbow, and 39 other national security leadersSUBJECT: A bold agenda for the Washington summit: How to advance vital US interests by helping Ukraine win and defining its path to NATO membership SHARE MEMO BY EMAIL DOWNLOAD PDF What does the US president need to know? Our new
