Worldcrunch
While delivering the welcome address at the Moscow Conference on International Security on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin accused Washington of “dragging out” the conflict in Ukraine. The Russian president also mentioned the visit by Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan earlier this month, calling it a “thoroughly planned provocation”. The conference, which […]
Russian troops have so far been unable to mount a decisive offensive in the east, as Ukraine records small but meaningful successes near the southern city of Kherson. This is not how Vladimir Putin had it planned.
Ukraine has long had an issue with oligarchs standing in the way of progress, and they have almost always been linked to the Kremlin. Now in the context of the war with Russia, President Zelensky has no choice but to tackle this problem.
Denial and indifference drive the way ordinary Australians face the mistreatment of refugees.
Nuclear talks between Iran and the West are stalled, as Russia signs deal with Tehran for drones. But does the increasingly isolated Iranian regime risk becoming another Russian vassal like Syria or Belarus?
For 200 years, the Black Forest spa town of Baden-Baden has been the destination of choice for Russian tourists, with oligarchs shopping in the luxury boutiques and buying up swathes of property. Now Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed all that and the town’s once-bustling streets are empty.
Western leaders have given mixed messages on ending war in Ukraine. They fear the fallout of a power change in Moscow, and when it comes to Putin, it may be a case of “better the devil you know.”
Of the some 9,000 journalists believed to have arrived in Ukraine to report on the war, many were under-prepared. A course in France is now training them on how to face the harsh realities of conflict and teaching them essential survival techniques.
Our Ukrainian journalist has another job to help pay the bills: at a luxury hotel in the South of France. It brings the stark contrast of her life right now, and the risks facing her native country, into desperately sharp relief.
Staying in a theocracy whose rulers subjugate women was not an option, but trying to get to destinations in Europe and beyond comes with unthinkable perils of its own.
An annual report has revealed Russians’ anxieties. This year, contracting COVID has been replaced by food shortages, inflation, and internet blackouts.
Ukrainian newspaper Livy Bereg asked Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief adviser on the Donbas, Serhiy Haidai, why he did not hold Ukraine’s position in the Luhansk region.
Ukrainian journalist Anna Akage looks back on the glory days of post-Soviet, high-quality journalism, which captured her ima and how quickly it was bound to be replaced by a “new truth” permeating Russian society.
The fate of Mykolaiv and surrounding areas of southern Ukraine are crucial in the next stage of the war. A reporter visits local villages … and the troops on the front line.
In a rare in-depth interview, Ukraine’s top diplomat didn’t hold back as he discussed NATO, EU candidacy, and the future of the war with Russia. He also reserves a special “thank you” for Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
Vladimir Putin has been upfront about his desire to rebuild Russia’s influence in the region. Former Soviet states are watching developments in Ukraine closely, with many trying to ensure futures free of interference by Moscow.
The nation’s second-largest city, Kharkiv was quiet for weeks after Ukrainian forces took control. But now it is again under attack as Russia pushes to capture the city that’s considered the “gateway” to Ukraine. Die Welt reports from the frontline.
U.S. President Joe Biden has been evasive when asked if he plans to follow European leaders by visiting Kyiv. However, such a move could have far-reaching consequences for Ukraine and the rest of the world.
The Russian Foreign Minister, among the country’s most recognizable figures, embodies both the corruption and confusion of the Putin regime. Not everything is what it seems — and that’s the point.
French President Emmanuel Macron is making a point of keeping an open dialogue with Putin, hoping to avoid a world war at all costs. But he needs to get his historical comparisons (and world wars) in order.
We know them from the movies: the heroes who save the world from disaster in the nick of time. In real life, you sometimes look for them in vain. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows that the West needs new heroes.
Ukrainians assess their friends, enemies and frenemies…
Kyiv wants the West to hit at the heart of the Russian economy, especially its energy exports, as the best weapon Ukraine and its allies may have. But with the EU preparing its 7th package of sanctions, it must strike a delicate balance as the global economy is on the brink of a major crisis.
For years, Vladimir Putin’s regime has been pushing its agenda into schools. With the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the pressure on the education system has intensified on a massive scale. Here’s a peek inside the means of control over students’ minds.
In the last 100 days, street art murals supporting Ukrainian resistance have appeared everywhere from Kyiv to Syria. Here’s a look at the most moving and powerful murals.
Those calling for Kyiv to negotiate away part of its territory, understand neither history nor the current reality of Ukrainian democracy.
Polish-born French writer Marek Halter, who fled the Nazis to the USSR, has known Vladimir Putin for 30 years. Halter sent the Russian president a long letter on May 18, and later shared a copy of it with Les Echos. In the letter, he lays out the path for Putin to renounce the war without undermining Russia’s standing.
Russian jails were already struggling thanks to long investigations and an arrest bias. But the conflict in Ukraine has made a bad situation worse in detention centers around the country, with so-called Ukrainian “spies and traitors” locked up without trial.
Putin has not forgotten about the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, which wants to decide in July whether to join Russia. People here still remember when the Russian army invaded while the West looked on. And there is growing worry that this could soon happen again.
Russia continues to shrink its ambitions in Donbas, as Ukraine doubles down on its strategy of guerilla attacks, interrupting supply and communication contacts and ultimately undermines the morale of the enemy.
No doubt, strategic errors and corruption at the highest ranks in the Kremlin are partly to blame for the Russian military’s stunning difficulties in Ukraine. But the roots run deeper, where the ordinary recruits come from, how they are exploited, how they react.
A Ukrainian court has convicted the first Russia soldier of war crimes. Meanwhile, Moscow offers no news on the Ukrainian soldiers surrendered in Mariupol. The very meaning of this war may be contained in the different treatment of POWs.
After the fall of Mariupol, Vladimir Putin appears to have his eye on another iconic southern coastal city, with a strong identity and strategic location.
Russian forces have been pushed out of the area around Kharkiv. Villages that were occupied for two months are free once more — but utterly destroyed. And thousands of people have disappeared without a trace.
The war in Ukraine is not just being fought on the ground. The battle for dominance increasingly happens on the digital field, where a worldwide network of cyber-soldiers conduct attacks to disrupt Russia’s war effort, from the outside and inside too.
Though different than concentration camps constructed by Nazis, the “filtration” facilities nevertheless are a return to another brutal history, reopened under Putin, and ramped up since the invasion of Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed a new European Political Community, with support from Germany’s Olaf Scholz, that would include Ukraine in a second-tier union. No, this is not about European “core values” — it’s just the latest attempt by the EU’s two biggest players to be sure not to upset Vladimir Putin.
Baby boomers who grew up under the threat of nuclear armageddon warn against a nuclear escalation of the war in Ukraine. But the younger generations are not cowed by Putin’s blackmail. And that’s a very good thing.
Vladimir Putin has put his nuclear forces on alert — a shock for many, but even more so for those just across the Polish border from Kaliningrad where Russian nuclear missiles are stationed, and aimed at European capitals from Warsaw to Berlin.
The war rages on, but some in Ukraine are already looking to how society can be rebuilt. Two Ukrainian architects share their vision for what a future Ukrainian urbanism — and society — might look like.