Worldcrunch
Desperate to supply depleting forces in Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry has taken up the dubious recruiting method of offering prisoners freedom in exchange for going off to war. The same technique was begun but then halted in February by the Wagner Group mercenaries. It’s Putin’s latest attempt to avoid a nationwide mobilization.
Suffering heavy losses, the Russian army is undertaking an intensive recruitment drive. We take a look at the heavy-handed adverts and offers that encourage men to go to war.
This week’s high-profile court cases, from the 25-year sentence of opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza to the prosecution of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovic, look like a shift to totalitarianism. But they may also be a sign of a nation set to implode.
Vladimir Kara-Murza was handed the heaviest prison sentence since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin is making an example of the rare few who dare to speak out against him, evoking the reign of Joseph Stalin.
A confrontation between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches has been brewing for centuries. But a video showing a Ukrainian war veteran being beaten up in church shows that the standoff has become all-out war.
A visit to the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia, which borders Hungary and is home to about 150,000 Hungarian-Ukrainians, where the pro-Russian stance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is wreaking havoc.
Last spring, after Moscow’s troops occupied Mariupol, minors with no parents were forced from the southern city to go to Russia. One 17-year-old recently tried to escape, and return home to be with his sister. He didn’t make it — and Russia proudly shared the story.
Russia’s president only has himself to blame for historically neutral Finland acquiring NATO status.
Few believe the Russian government claims that it can recruit 400,000 new troops as volunteers, even with cash bonuses. But the alternative, a nationwide draft, may be too high a risk for Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump’s indictment is an unprecedented opportunity for him to rally his supporters — almost a godsend. But it could also be good news for U.S. President Joe Biden. What it means for the nation is another story. A view from a French political scientist.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán appears to be courting Vladimir Putin, and turning his back on the EU. There is a clear strategy behind his rhetoric — but it is not any personal affinity for Russia.
Citizens of the now destroyed Ukrainian city of Maryinka are left struggling to remember what their town used to look like.
Independent Russian media Vazhnyye Istorii has obtained a major data leak from the top Kremlin information agency that reveals the scale and extent of anti-war protests across the Russian Federation.
After the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow for a three-day visit. How far will he be willing to go to support Putin, a fugitive from international justice?
If Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hadn’t gone so badly, the Kremlin had two possible plans for governing the country under the Russian flag.
This is the other side of the Kremlin’s “special operation” in Ukraine. The human cost of the Russian side remains unclear. The reportage takes place in the capital of one of the poorest regions of Russia, in the heart of the Caucasus, where a growing number of soldiers are buried.
Russia is losing in Ukraine not just because of Putin’s madness and the heroism of Ukrainians, but also because Russia’s army is built for rapid invasion and occupation, not for the type of grinding war it is now fighting in Ukraine.
From Croatia to Spain, Portugal, Germany and France, revamped LNG gas routes are providing an agile European energy response to the cutting off of Russian gas since the war in Ukraine began.
Putin has stated in the past that Ukraine and Belarus should be a part of the Russian Federation. But his plans in Belarus have been postponed by war on the other neighbor, and the shrinking room for maneuver of Minsk’s strongman Alexander Lukashenko
A look back on some of the most striking magazine covers published this past year across the globe, marking the milestones in a bloody conflict that is entering its second year.
On the eve of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, Volodymyr Zelensky was not a particularly popular figure in Ukraine. In the year since, he has achieved virtually universal support at home, and hero status abroad. What will the onetime anti-corruption crusader do with this political capital?
One year since Russia’s invasion, the global stakes of the war in Ukraine have come more fully into focus. It’s a battle over fundamental questions of sovereignty and democracy, but also the very meaning of power.
In the inevitable race for symbolic victories on the eve of the Ukraine invasion’s first anniversary, Joe Biden scored a major victory with his surprise visit to Kyiv. Meanwhile, one year on, Vladimir Putin has yet to visit his own country’s troops on the front line.
The Munich Security Conference of 2023 takes place this weekend. The 2007 edition was a turning point for the world, where Vladimir Putin made his intentions clear — and today it all looks destined to arrive at the invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow’s offensive appears to be underway, but it will be rolled out in phases in the coming days and weeks. There are no surprise this time, but the stakes are just as high.
Many of the convicts that the Wagner Group mercenary outfit enlisted to fight in Ukraine are dead or missing, which has created a major recruitment problem for the paramilitary group headed by Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin.
It’s hard to admit, but every day, the chance of a Ukrainian victory moves further away. Kyiv is running out of troops and equipment. The enemy is better prepared and has significant reinforcements at its disposal. It’s no surprise, then, that the talk among Western diplomats is of a truce.
The open debate on weapon deliveries to Ukraine is highly unusual, but Kyiv has figured out how to use the public moral suasion — and patience — to repeatedly shift the question in its favor. But will it work now for fighter jets?
Russia’s 2021 census showed a record drop in the number of Ukrainians living in Russia. But the cleansing of everything Ukrainian, including language and culture, started long before Putin’s invasion.
Consider the inverse of “collateral damage.” Envision Russia’s defeat and the triumph of a democratic coalition offers reflection on the most weighty sense of costs and benefits.
Germany and the U.S. overcame months of reluctance in the past 24 hours to commit to sending heavy combat tanks to Ukraine. Russia responded with official bluster, but others in Moscow fear that the tanks delivery could be a gamechanger on the battlefield.
Russia is increasingly concerned about security from the sky: air defense systems have been installed on rooftops in Moscow’s government quarter. Systems have also appeared in several other places in Russia, including near Vladimir Putin’s lakeside home in Valdai. What is the Kremlin really worried about?
A retired German general spells out in clear language what the choice is for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and what the long-term consequences of half-hearted support for Kyiv as it battles for survival against the Russian invasion.
It remains unclear whether Belarus’ strongman Alexander Lukashenko will join Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet as popular support for the war remains low, many in the country are actively fighting back by sabotaging the rail network.
Poland has a border with Russia and Belarus, so it is not just watching how the Ukraine war develops. Warsaw is rethinking its entire defense strategy.
As Vladimir Putin’s end increasingly seems near (political or physical), the battle to replace the Kremlin strongman heats up. Here are the main characters in this very Russian blood sport.
Back in the 1990s, the Russian elite were busy maneuvering behind the scenes. But today, Moscow’s liberals know better than to contradict the strongman in the Kremlin.
The choice of General Valery Gerasimov to replace General Sergey Surovikin is a political defeat for Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov — and a sign that Putin may be getting skittish on the home front.
Russia has a complicated history with Islam, often built on Moscow’s repression of the religious minority. Now, Muslims in Ukraine are ever more committed to a project for a multi-religious society that Kyiv espouses. Ukrainian Mufti Said Ismagilov has taken up arms for that cause, and to defend his nation.
The EU and NATO have vowed to expand cooperation, which may mean a major long-term shift in European defense strategy. Still, the French know that the reality on the ground means that European defense effectively still means NATO.