Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom has lost access to the European market and is rife with inefficiencies. Still, it isn’t going anywhere soon. The engine of Russia’s vast resources are fed into Vladimir Putin’s system for maintaining power.
Tag: russia
Even if Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky were willing to find a compromise on territory, their respective constitutions explicitly forbid signing off on such a deal.
According to a new report, the world’s primary recipient of Ukrainian grain is China, and the pace of exports has exceeded pre-war levels. But the Chinese leader’s long game goes much further.
Facing Russia, just across the Amur River, the Chinese border city of Heihe has complicated ties with its neighbor, revealing the scars of history and a shifting power dynamic between Moscow and Beijing.
Ukraine was the trickiest part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to China. And though Xi Jinping didn’t say much, Macron made his voice clear on the war and possible arms shipments to Russia — and the West is watching closely.
The issue of Taiwan has come up during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China. The unresolved question of the island’s independence shows Europe will find it hard to remain neutral as tensions between the U.S. and China reach a new peak.
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.
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.
It sounded made for April Fool’s: Russia is taking over the presidency of the UN Security Council, the highest governing body in the world. But this is all too real. It’s time to rethink how the council works, Pierre Haski writes.
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.
Even beyond the bloodshed of its war in Ukraine, lesser acts of aggression by the state are a clear expression of the intentions of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
From ballet to opera to classic literature, Russia has turned its culture into an instrument for its own expansion. The West must fight back, Ukraine’s culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko writes in an op-ed in German daily Die Welt. It’s time to stop supporting Russian artists and seek out Ukrainians instead.
Citizens of the now destroyed Ukrainian city of Maryinka are left struggling to remember what their town used to look like.
With a decisive deal with Putin out of the question, the only way to create a lasting peace is to recreate some fundamental dynamics of the Cold War.
To trace Moscow’s decision to transfer nuclear weapons to Belarus, we may need to look to Beijing — and the recent summit of Xi Jinping-Vladimir Putin
Of course Russia’s announcement of moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus should not be underestimated. But the reality is that, since the beginning of the invasion, Russia’s nuclear situation has not changed. We should instead look hard at where both Minsk and Beijing have wound up.
Thousands of foreign soldiers are fighting alongside Ukraine. German daily Die Welt met a Chechen battalion to find out why they are fighting.
Fueled by the Kremlin, anti-French sentiment in Africa has been spreading for years. Meanwhile, China is also increasing its influence on the continent as Africa’s focus shifts from west to east.
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.
China has adopted a stance of pro-Putin neutrality since the start of Russia’s invasion. But this is not an alliance of equals. China has the upper-hand and sees the opportunity to present itself as an alternative world leader.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow was a much-needed favor Vladimir Putin. But make no mistake, Beijing is there to serve Beijing — and holds virtually all the cards.
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?
Protesters in Georgia blocked the adoption of a Russian-inspired “foreign agents” law, leading to threats from the Kremlin. Writing for La Stampa, Georgia-born political scientist Nona Mikhelidze explains why the events put Moscow on edge.
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.
Former canine athletes forced by war to become rescuers, a squad of dogs searches for survivors in ruined homes destroyed by rockets, and for unmarked graves in liberated Ukrainian territory.
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.
A 39-year-old fighter codenamed “Alaska,” a member of the Ukrainian Battalion 243, has decided to share his story in the battles of Bakhmut and other key frontline positions in eastern Ukraine over the past six months.
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.
Recent protests in Moldova confirm that the ex-Soviet country is in the Kremlin’s sights. If Putin manages to politically destabilize the ex-Soviet country, he could win an important ally in the war against Ukraine. The tactics are strikingly familiar to what the Kremlin pulled off in Donbas nine years ago.
While the IOC decides whether to let Moscow’s athletes compete in the 2024 Summer Games, Russian film directors will again be fighting for the right to show their films.
To some, tensions between the U.S. and China look like a remake of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. Yet the West’s nemesis this time is more sophisticated and tied to us commercially in ways Moscow never was. There are, however, also new kinds of danger.
The regime in Belarus bet on a rapid Russian victory in Ukraine. But after a year of war, the armed forces of Belarus still haven’t been ordered to attack. Why? Ukrainian publication Livy Bereg looks at Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s cunning game — and how much longer it can go on.
A year after Russia’s invasion of her homeland, Ukrainian writer Anna Akage looks back at recent history, but, above all, forward to a future where her nation must not only win the war, but not lose the victory.
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.
Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine has been the site of some of the fiercest and bloodiest battles since Russia’s invasion. As the human toll mounts, Ukraine must decide between symbolism and strategy in a fight against waves of untrained Russian civilian troops.
French President Emmanuel Macron turned heads by saying that his objective was to defeat Russia, without “crushing” it. This diverges with the objectives of Ukraine and other allies. It’s a question that will ultimately be answered on the battlefield.