Ukrainian officials have condemned a new decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in early 2024 simplifying the process of conferring Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children abducted from wartime Ukraine. Issued on January 4, 2024, the citizenship decree is officially designed to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to foreign nationals and stateless persons.
When Vladimir Putin first embarked on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he sought to disguise the attack as an act of self-defense while claiming Russia had no interest in occupying Ukrainian territory. “We do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone,” he declared. With the invasion now fast approaching the two-year mark, the Russian dictator
It is doubtful Vladimir Putin actually believes much of the anti-Ukrainian propaganda coming from the Kremlin’s echo chamber. After all, few educated people would. Still, he and his colleagues have little choice but to vigorously counter Ukraine’s compelling national narrative of a country emerging from centuries of imperial subjugation and reclaiming its place among the
Despite some indications of war weariness, most Russians continue to support their country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a comprehensive new report published this week. Based on polling and focus groups conducted by Russia’s only internationally recognized pollster, the Levada Center, and the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, the report found that the majority of Russians
As the year draws to a close, there is a growing sense of Ukraine fatigue in Western capitals amid pessimistic forecasts, talk of a battlefield stalemate, and recriminations over the perceived failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. This grim mood is raising serious questions about the future of military aid to Ukraine and the prospects for continued
For the past twenty-one months, Vladimir Putin has consistently blamed NATO for provoking the invasion of Ukraine. According to the Kremlin dictator, years of NATO expansion posed an escalating security threat to Russia that eventually left the country with no choice but to defend itself. This NATO narrative has proven far more persuasive among international
As Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches the two-year mark with no end in sight, Ukrainian resolve remains unshakable. One entirely typical recent poll found that 84 percent of Ukrainians reject the idea of ceding any territory to Russia in exchange for peace. What is driving this remarkable resistance? Ukrainian national pride is understandably booming thanks to
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has included what many see as a systematic campaign to destroy Ukraine’s cultural heritage. In response to these efforts, a dedicated unit of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces has been formed to carry out the specific task of investigating the targeting of cultural heritage sites across Ukraine. Led by lawyer Vitaliy
When the bombs first began falling on Kyiv in February 2022, I thought the Russian people would immediately recognize the senselessness of it all and rise up to stop the war. After all, for more than seventy years since the end of World War II, Russians had joined their fellow Europeans in proclaiming “never again.”
