It seems that Ukraine might have begun its long-awaited offensive against Russian forces in the southern and eastern parts of the country. The offensive is obviously crucial, even though it will not end the war regardless of the outcome. Information is coming at a fast and furious pace; what do we know, and what can
In the wake of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) that was shot down by Russian-controlled forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine, I wrote in my blog entry of 30/7/2014 that, “Now six days ago, (25th July 2014) Alexander J. Motyl (left) posed the following question: ” Is Putin evil? His
It’s set off a cascade of problems. Early Tuesday, large sections of the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant in southern Ukraine gave way. Since 1956, the dam has pinched the Dnipro River, creating a massive reservoir upstream as far as Zaporizhzhia and, downstream, a succession of towns and villages along the river terminating
One of the greatest mysteries of the Russo-Ukrainian War is China’s actual policy. While China moves cautiously, it appears to be gradually distancing itself from Vladimir Putin. A little-noticed fact is that Chinese President Xi Jinping is cultivating Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in quite a blatant fashion. Just two weeks before Putin launched the
For the past few months, international anticipation has been building over Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive. But great expectations can be dangerous. Even after the spectacular military successes of 2022, the Ukrainian military will face major obstacles as it seeks to overcome a large Russian force that still occupies just under 20% of the country and is
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
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 my blog entry (Monday, 24 April 2023) I wrote that, “South African authorities will have to grapple with whether to enforce an International Criminal Court warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin if he follows through on plans to attend the BRICS Summit — which also includes Brazil, India and China — this August in
The head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, Vsevolod Kniaziev, was detained in mid-May on corruption charges based on an alleged $2.7 million bribe. The charges were brought by Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption bodies, the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). This landmark case reflects the considerable progress made in Ukraine’s struggle
