All politics is local, all consequences are not. In April, the Serb majority population in the north of Kosovo boycotted municipal elections, which were held after their representatives left the official Kosovo government institutions following a dispute between Kosovo and Serbia, in part about car license plates. With Kosovo Serbian candidates and voters boycotting, Kosovo
On May 2, Khader Adnan, a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader in the West Bank, died as a result of an eighty-seven-day hunger strike while being detained in an Israeli prison. In response, a hundred rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. After waiting a week, on May 9, the Israel
In Season 1, Episode 3 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi speaks with the philosopher Professor Tony Coady about the key characteristics of mercenaries, including the motivation for private gain. They discuss the Geneva Conventions definition of mercenaries, the grey area of military contractors in support roles, and whether it’s possible to
JUST IN They’re staying the course. A majority of Turkish voters backed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Sunday’s runoff election, earning him another five-year term as president and extending his twenty-year hold on power. Yet the vote for continuity comes amid major changes in and around Turkey, which is still recovering from a devastating earthquake,
Here we go again. On March 23, Iran-backed Iraqi militias launched a drone attack that killed an American contractor and wounded another, as well as twenty-four US military personnel. The attack feels very much like a repeat of the one in December 2019, which also killed a US contractor and led to an escalatory cycle,
Ukrainians woke up on Monday morning to the unexpected news of an unfolding military operation across the border in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast. The incursion was reportedly the work of two Ukraine-based Russian opposition militias, the Free Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, who claimed the attack marked the start of a campaign to “liberate
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,
This article is part of the Transatlantic Security Initiative’s Stronger with Allies series, which charts the course forward for the Alliance in conjunction with the 2023 NATO Summit. Last year, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched a brutal war in the heart of Europe. Russia’s unrelenting aggression has been repelled by brave Ukrainians—with assistance from
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has launched a series of outspoken attacks on the country’s military leadership in recent weeks that point to mounting internal divisions within Putin’s invading army as it prepares to face a potentially decisive Ukrainian counteroffensive. In one of his most recent rants, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin mocked Russian
