Category: United States and Canada

Russian War Report: Russian conspiracy alleges false flag at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

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,

The view from Vilnius: NATO needs speed and scale to ensure deterrence 

Preparations are underway here in Vilnius for the upcoming NATO leaders’ summit, but there is difficult and important diplomatic work ahead. If there is one thing the summit needs to accomplish, it’s to confidently demonstrate the scale and the speed of the Alliance’s ability to defend freedom.  The run-up to the July 11-12 summit in Lithuania

Russian War Report: Kremlin denies that it targeted civilians in a missile attack on a pizza restaurant

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,

Prospects for US-Turkish convergence on Syria

Syria has been a point of deep contention in US-Turkish relations for the past decade, despite the fact that the two NATO allies have cooperated on diplomatic pressure campaigns against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, humanitarian relief, and refugee assistance. History offers relatively few examples of two countries committed to the same outcome of a war but

Should NATO extend Stoltenberg’s term as leader?

As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, there is a lot for them to discuss. Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has just begun, and key decisions will face allies at the NATO Summit in Vilnius less than a month away. One of those decisions may be

Dispatch from Kyiv: Ukraine deserves NATO membership and even more robust weapons

The air raid siren sounded at 3:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, several hours after the Atlantic Council’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his well-fortified offices, sounding the arrival of ten Russian Iskander ballistic missiles in Kyiv airspace. Each of them—more than twenty feet long and weighing in at more than four tons—served as a further reminder that

What the world should expect from Erdogan now

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,

A conversation with Hassan Abbas on his new book “The Return of the Taliban”

After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban quickly seized control of Afghanistan. Since then, the group has slowly engaged with the international community in search of support while steadily eroding human rights and political freedoms at home. How will the Taliban navigate their return to power, especially following their proclaimed appointment of

Greater clarity is needed in US policy toward Ukraine

Fifteen months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has yet to resolve a central tension in its thinking about this war of aggression in the heart of Europe. Is the US aim to shape the future toward a rules-based order in which the sovereign independence of states is affirmed and accountability for

Russia’s last red line: Will the West help Ukraine liberate Crimea?

Ukraine is expected to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive in the coming weeks following months of preparations. While only a handful of Ukrainian commanders are familiar with the country’s battle plans, most observers believe the offensive will attempt to strike south toward the Azov Sea in order to sever the land bridge across occupied southern Ukraine