Worldcrunch
Since the war began, an estimated 2,500 children have been transferred from Ukraine to Russia, where local authorities are training potential foster parents on how to raise these “children from the combat zone” and “work with their national identity.”
After Super Tuesday, Americans (and the world) are now virtually assured of another Biden-Trump showdown in November. It’s a chilling reminder to Europe that their fate is tied too closely to the whims of U.S. politics.
With men leaving for the front, Ukrainian women have stepped in to fill the void, notably in the coal industry. A reportage from the mines of the Dnipropetrovsk region to see how women are faring in this male-dominated field.
Three days after Emmanuel Macron’s statement on deploying troops to Ukraine, Putin warned that such a move could provoke nuclear war. It’s a serious threat that has regularly resurfaced over the past two years. So far, we’re all still here.
The French president’s suggestion that Western troops could be sent to Ukraine, took Western allies by surprise. Yet Macron wanted to send a double message at a key moment — to ally and adversary alike.
After a short “honeymoon period” that followed the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukrainian-Polish relations have once again entered a state of permanent crisis. Strong words against Russia at the UN by Polish Foreign Minister were appreciated, but long-term relations between Kyiv and Warsaw are bound to be more complicated.
French President Emmanuel Macron crossed a line, at least rhetorically, in saying that the West doesn’t exclude sending troops to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia. Yet it may be time for the Western alliance to acknowledge that they’ve actually entered direct conflict with Moscow long before.
Reports abound of forced mobilization taking place in the Chechen Republic, where the regime of Ramzam Kadyrov, in an effort to gain Vladimir Putin’s favor, is using pressure and blackmail to force its men to join the Russian war effort.
In not condemning Russia and openly siding with Israel, India’s foreign policy establishment is merely jettisoning the thin layer of politically-expedient, feel-good idealistic post-colonialism that veils an iron-fisted pragmatism.
There are many analogies between 1916 and 2024, two years into World War I and the War in Ukraine respectively. It offers a clear way to try to understand what may happen next in Ukraine — and the world.
Space may be the true battleground of the future, which explains Washington’s growing concerns over Russia’s alleged plans for deploying anti-satellite weapons. Yet what if not even this can push Trump and his Republican allies to support Kyiv?
With Putin’s war in Ukraine, people may need reminding that Belarusian leader and Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko is a dictator in Europe’s midst, write German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in an article for Die Welt.
It’s what we call lighting a counter-fire. At a time when U.S. support for Ukraine is under threat, Europe is coming together. But can it fill the void that may be left by Washington?
Longtime Putin critic Alexei Navalny has died in prison at the age of 47, sparking outrage inside and outside of Russia. While widely esteemed for his courage challenging the Kremlin, the Russian politician’s views on Ukraine were more ambiguous. Here’s a commentary by a Ukrainian writer after a documentary last year about his struggle won an Academy Award.
With Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas put on Russia’s Most Wanted list, Tallinn is drawing up clear plans on how it intends to secure its border with Russia — an idea it shares with Latvia and Lithuania. But the three small countries don’t have the territorial or strategic depth to absorb an attack the way Ukraine did, which is why they ultimately rely on NATO.
A video is fueling speculation about Ukrainian military activities in Africa that appears to show the capture of Wagner mercenaries in Sudan. Kyiv is cooperating with the army in the African nation in the fight against the RSF militia supported by Wagner — in a sort of proxy war far from home.
Look back over the past two decades, and you’ll see Vladimir Putin has always been the man revealed by the Ukraine invasion, an evil and sinister dictator. The Russian leader just manages to mask it well.
As Moscow launches the heaviest bombardment of Ukraine in months, evidence suggests that it’s now regularly deploying Grom hybrid missile that can evade some high-tech Western air defense systems.
With U.S. elections slated for November, support to Ukraine is becoming a divisive electoral issue. Wednesday’s vote in the U.S. Senate over Ukraine aid will be telling, but it won’t end there.
Vladimir Putin is not campaigning for the March 17 presidential election, but his message is on display at the vast “Rossia” exhibition in Moscow, which aims “to show Russians their modern Russia, a country they can be proud of.”
January 29 – February 4, 2024
Putin has threatened Ukraine with a long war in the hope that Western support will wane and that his troops will eventually outnumber Ukraine’s. But his army has had a few difficult months and arms production can’t keep up. Meanwhile, Western support for Kyiv is holding steady.
The leaders of key EU countries have been on the phone with Vladimir Putin since the war in Ukraine began. Weighing the costs, benefits…and morals…of leaving the door open to a man who brutally invaded a sovereign nation — and taking Munich 1938 as a starting point.
Nearly two years on, the Ukraine war is confirming to be one of those decisive moments where history calls on us to respond. The Spanish Civil War was one too, and despite its obvious differences, there are lessons about the failure a century ago that should make us redouble our support for Kyiv.
Donald Trump’s comeback at the White House could cause major disruptions for the war in Ukraine, the Middle East and more generally, global security. Europe has to acknowledge this reality, and see in it an opportunity to reaffirm its own place in the world.
The West is a spent force, say China, Russia and their global clique, yet it retains plenty of decisive cards including a choice to back Ukraine to the hilt. The year may yet reveal the world’s rising, and ranking, powers.
It’s early January and already, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s presence can be felt on every current geopolitical situation. With his return in the White House becoming less and less unlikely, leaders are already factoring in what a second Trump era would mean for the world.
After two months of war, experts in Ukraine are starting to consider what plan could work to restore the local infrastructure and economy, looking at the experience of Germany, Japan and Italy — countries that went down in history for their economic miracles after being destroyed by war.
In Ukraine and Gaza alike, international laws on the proper conduct of war, largely established by the post-War Geneva Convention, are being trampled on by all parties, to varying degrees. Civilians are paying the ultimate price for this.
The French-American writer recalls a trip last Christmas to her father’s native Louisiana, and an invitation for some firing-range fun in the backyard.
From the Mufti of Ukraine to the Facebook aunts and uncles of Brazil to Chinese influencers in Africa… and more!
Now that the Ukrainian counter-offensive has ground to a halt, pressure is growing for Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow. But increasingly, despite his claims to the contrary, it looks like Putin is simply not interested in negotiating, whatever he may claim. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case: he’s betting his future on a long war.
The future of Ukraine may be at stake as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plays hardball with his European counterparts. But the stakes go beyond aid to the war effort, it’s the very status of Europe that is on the line.
The American superpower (and its European allies) are not seeing the results they’d hoped for Ukraine’s war against Russia, while the Middle East spirals out of control. Chinese leaders may see Washington as too vulnerable to challenge it in the South China Sea.
Defying an ICC arrest warrant, Russian President Vladimir Putin is on a one-day foray to UAE and Saudi Arabia to display his role in shaping the geopolitical and energy landscape — and to make the world forget about the Ukraine war just a little bit more.
Kyiv’s troops are facing bitter cold and snow on the frontline, but the coming season also poses longer term political questions for Ukraine’s allies. It may be now or never.
The escalation of war in the Middle East and the stagnation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive have left many leaders in the West, who once supported Ukraine unequivocally, to look toward ceasefire talks with Russia. For Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Piotr Andrusieczko argues that Ukraine simply cannot afford this.
The invasion of Russia has forced Ukraine to confront a domestic enemy: corruption and economic control by an insular and unethical elite.
As long as there are criminal regimes with technological, military, and financial capabilities, defeating them militarily is the only route to lasting peace.
The Italian cyclist, Omar Di Felice, is setting out across Antarctica in the ultimate test of athletic endurance and mental fortitude. In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, Di Felice shares how he keeps himself going during the endless hours of total solitude as well as the activism that fuels his extreme adventures.