In Soviet mythology, the health of a country’s economy, national power, and influence in the world are directly linked to the performance of its oil and gas industries. The famous Russian gas project, Nord Stream 2, threatens to disturb the European Union family, emphasizing the contrasting interests of various EU nations. The Castro 10 vessel […]
The 1973 Sinai War was likely the most precarious conflict in the Arab-Israeli Wars. Much of the battle was supplemented by American and Soviet Cold War technology that matured in the Vietnam War and was used to brutal effect over the deserts of Sinai. Weapons systems like the stationary SA-2 missile and SA-3 missile kept […]
Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism. By Charles Clover. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, Eurasianism, and the Construction of Community in Modern Russia. By Mark Bassin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016. Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship. Edited […]
Western comments on Russian domestic and foreign affairs have, during the last years, become more and more gloomy. Among other topics, this pessimistic discourse (to which I too have contributed) features Putin’s neo-imperial plans for the post-Soviet area, the many varieties of post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism, the fragility of the geopolitical grey zone between the Kremlin-dominated […]
A Russian four engine IL-20 naval reconnaissance aircraft was shot down seemingly by accident over Syria by Syrian air defense. While initial reports lack significant details, early information seem to point out that due to a possible Israeli missile attack, Syrian air defense was targeting incoming missiles or planes and locked on the IL-20 by […]
What are the origins of the armed conflict that has been raging in eastern Ukraine since 2014? Which role did Russia play in the emergence and escalation of the originally unarmed confrontation, in the Donets Basin (Donbas), after the victory of the Euromaidan revolution? When, how and to what degree exactly did Moscow get involved? […]
[Translated from Ukrainian, by VoxUkraine.] The Kremlin media’s well-known narrative of a supposedly almost unanimous support among Crimea’s population as well as of the allegedly profound historical justification for the annexation has many supporters not only in Russia, but also among numerous Western politicians, journalists, experts, and diplomats. Often, these commentators consider themselves – in […]
Since spring 2014, Ukraine suffers from a full-scale war in the Donets Basin (Donbas). For the solution of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation, Western and Ukrainian political analysts, opinion- and policy-makers, civic activists as well as diplomats need to jointly implement an agenda of re-imagination, prioritization, pacification and re-integration. The Donbas conflict should be understood anew, approached […]
The official investigation of the rather obvious case of the MH17 disaster by the Joint Investigation Team has been excruciatingly slow. Already, on 17 July 2014, the day of the shooting, it was clear that this missile could have had only come from a regular Russian army unit. Who else would have had the opportunity […]
Everything is ready for US President Donald Trump to land on Tuesday in Brussels where he will later participate in the NATO summit. A meeting where the tensions instigated by the White House among the rest of the 28 countries will serve as a reference for the face-to-face meeting scheduled for next Monday in Helsinki […]
Anti-Access/Area-Denial capabilities (A2/AD)—the ability to prevent an adversary from entering an area of land, sea, or air—have become a major component of military force postures for powers around the globe, but Russia is the most committed to advancing their development. Russian A2/AD capabilities are shaping NATO’s neighborhood and the Alliance needs a comprehensive strategy to […]
Not long ago the international community was celebrating the end of the Sochi Olympics in Russia. This was before Russia’s involvement in the Middle East, before the conflict in Crimea as well as before the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight over a contested part of the Ukraine. The beginning of Russia’s added military involvement started […]
The end of the Second World War in Europe defined Soviet citizens and the Russian people in the 20th Century as those that saved the world from fascism. Despite the negative press during the Cold War in the West on Russia’s contribution to the end of Nazism, it is likely the case that every Russian […]
Syria has been the subject of international attention this week due to the recent strike by US, UK and French forces on chemical facilities operated by Syrian President Assad’s forces. Russia, Syria’s ally on the UN Security Council, has put out several statements condemning actions by Western forces, including hinting at an upgrade of Syria’s […]
In December 2016, the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Constitutional Court ruled in the “Ljubic” decision that elements of the country’s electoral legislation undermines the rights of the country’s Constituent People’s – the Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats – to elect their own representatives, as enshrined in the Dayton Accords. What makes this decision so important? The court […]