Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began just over one year ago, growing numbers of international commentators and policymakers have reached the conclusion that the invasion is an act of old-fashioned imperialism. Until recently, such characterizations of Putin’s Russia had been restricted to the fringes of the international debate, but they are now firmly established
The Kremlin has sentenced Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in jail for speaking the truth about the invasion of Ukraine. This is not the first long prison sentence handed out by the Kremlin authorities to opponents of the war, but it is by far the harshest act of retribution so far. The
Ukraine could become the next European energy powerhouse, with enough natural gas reserves to replace Russian exports to Europe as well as enormous potential in hydrogen and renewable energy. However, development of the country’s energy sector has been impeded by Russian invasions in 2014 and 2022. Oleksiy Chernyshov, who serves as CEO of Ukraine’s state-owned
With Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations less than one month away, the Kremlin has taken the highly unusual step of canceling a number of military parades in regional capitals. Scheduled parades to mark the World War II Soviet victory over Nazi Germany have been called off in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts, which both border Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent high-profile visit to Poland underlined the deepening cooperation between these two neighboring countries and the increasingly prominent role their partnership is playing in European politics. At a time when the likes of Germany and France are struggling to find the right response to resurgent Russian imperialism, Poland has emerged as
The April 7 decision by Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy to reauthorize the export of electricity represents a symbolic victory on the energy front in the war with Russia. Ukraine banned electricity exports in October 2022 following the initial rounds of a Russian airstrike campaign that targeted the country’s civilian energy infrastructure in a bid to
Ukraine’s state-owned energy sector operator Ukrenergo announced in early April that it was resuming commercial electricity exports to neighboring European countries for the first time since October 2022. The news has been widely touted as an example of Ukraine’s remarkable wartime resilience, and is also being seen as further evidence that Moscow’s six-month bombing campaign
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed his Belarusian counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka to Moscow in early April for two days of talks. In their public remarks, both men avoided the topic of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, Russia’s plans to place nukes in Belarus loomed large over this latest meeting between the two dictators. Days earlier, Putin had made
It is no secret that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan. Nevertheless, with the conflict now in its second year, Vladimir Putin still hopes to break Ukrainian resistance in a long war of attrition. This may be easier said than done. While Russia enjoys significant demographic, industrial, and economic advantages
Finland has just become the thirty-first member of NATO and the silence from across the border in Russia is deafening. For more than a year, the Kremlin has been using the distant prospect of Ukrainian NATO membership to justify the largest European conflict since World War II. In stark contrast, Moscow has offered virtually no
