Vladimir Putin will not be traveling to South Africa in August for a summit of BRICS leaders, it was confirmed this week. The change of plan reflects fears in Moscow that the Russian dictator may face arrest for war crimes if he attends the annual event in Johannesburg. In early 2023, the International Criminal Court
The Ukrainian tech industry has been the standout sector of the country’s hard-hit economy during the past year-and-a-half of Russia’s full-scale invasion. It has not only survived but has adapted and grown. Looking ahead, Ukrainian tech businesses will likely continue to play a pivotal role in the country’s defense strategy along with its economic revival.
Sweden is poised to become the thirty-second member of the NATO Alliance and Russia does not appear to be at all concerned by the prospect. The breakthrough moment for the Swedes came ahead of last week’s NATO summit in Vilnius, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to end months of opposition and back the
Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was based on a series of disastrous miscalculations. The most significant of these was his belief that Ukrainians are really Russians. Putin has long insisted Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” who have been artificially separated by the fall of the USSR. For Putin, this
VILNIUS—Drafting NATO Summit communiqués is usually less the stuff of high drama and more mind-numbing bureaucracy. But that wasn’t the case this week. The NATO Summit in Lithuania will be remembered both for the public fireworks over Ukraine’s aspirations for Alliance membership and outcomes that included a breakthrough on Swedish membership, the most detailed and robust defense
The Wagner mutiny in late June was a brief affair, but it is casting a long shadow over Putin’s Russia. In less than forty-eight hours, Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his troops succeeded in shattering the carefully constructed myth of Putin the strongman, while exposing the weakness at the heart of his regime. Although the
The annual NATO summit in Vilnius this week failed to produce the kind of breakthrough toward membership of the alliance that many Ukrainians were hoping for. However, it did offer up ample evidence of continued strong international support for Ukraine in the fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion. Despite widespread recognition that Ukraine’s future must be
As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Russia’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains. With more than seven years of experience monitoring the situation in Ukraine—as well as Russia’s use of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the United States, NATO,
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has left it with few friends, but Azerbaijan is an important exception. In fact, Moscow and Baku are effectively allies now. Just two days before the February 2022 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a wide-ranging political-military agreement, following which Aliyev declared that the pact