Month: April 2022

Russian Mercenaries in Great-Power Competition: Strategic Supermen or Weak Link?

Along with China, Iran, and North Korea, Russia is one of a handful of strategic competitors posing a substantial threat to U.S. strategic interests.

Russia has now interfered to some extent in at least three democratic elections in the United States. Russian hackers are probably responsible for the recent SolarWinds attack on U.S. government agency networks. Russia has been aggressively undermining U.S. interests in proxy wars in Syria, Libya, and across the African continent, and it is backing the Taliban against the United States in Afghanistan.

The Return of Conquest?

Why the Future of Global Order Hinges on Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long declared that Ukraine has never existed as an independent country. The former Soviet republic is “not even a state,” he said as early as 2008. In a speech on February 21 of this year, he elaborated, arguing that “modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia.” Days later, he ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine. As Russian tanks streamed across the Ukrainian border, Putin seemed to be acting on a sinister, long-held goal: to erase Ukraine from the map of the world.

Could the Siloviki Challenge Putin?

What It Would Take for a Coup by Kremlin Insiders

Among the many questions surrounding Russia’s disastrous war in Ukraine, one of the most notable concerns the growing tensions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his own security services and military. The war started with Putin holding a televised security council meeting in which he humiliated Sergei Naryshkin, the chief of the foreign intelligence service, for insufficient enthusiasm about the invasion. Two weeks later, with Russian forces facing high casualties and unexpected resistance, Putin placed two generals of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) under house arrest and began an investigation into bad intelligence and the misuse of funds designated for cultivating pro-Kremlin groups in Ukraine. He also forced a deputy commander of the National Guard to resign, apparently because of a criminal investigation. In early April, one of the FSB generals who had been placed under house arrest was transferred to Lefortovo prison.

The Cold War Never Ended

Ukraine, the China Challenge, and the Revival of the West

Does anyone have a right to be surprised? A gangster regime in the Kremlin has declared that its security is threatened by a much smaller neighbor—which, the regime claims, is not a truly sovereign country but just a plaything of far more powerful Western states. To make itself more secure, the Kremlin insists, it needs to bite off some of its neighbor’s territory. Negotiations between the two sides break down; Moscow invades.

Turkey Not to Sanction Russia to Maintain its Policy of Balance

Turkish minister Cavusoglu also raised the question of whether the sanctions against Russia will be lifted in the event that the Kremlin withdraws its soldiers from Ukraine.

On Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Turkey will not join the sanctions of the European Union against Russia and will only apply the sanctions determined by the United Nations.

Macron Refuses to Describe Ukrainian Events as ‘Genocide’

On Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky regretted that French President Emmanuel Macron had not used the term “genocide” to describe the consequences of the Russian military operation.

“Macron’s refusal is very hurtful,” the Ukrainian President said, alleging that calling things by their name is necessary to oppose “evil.”

How Extremism Operates Online

Recent demonstrations and violent attacks have highlighted the need for an improved understanding of the role of internet-based technologies in aiding and amplifying the spread of extremist ideologies. Since the early days of the internet, radical groups and movements across the ideological spectrum have demonstrated their intent and ability to harness virtual platforms to perform critical functions.

Who is the general leading Russia’s new war strategy in Ukraine?

Dubbed the ‘butcher’ of Aleppo and Grozny, Aleksandr Dvornikov, was honoured with a Hero of Russia medal in 2016.

“He’s been called ‘butcher’ since the days of the Second Chechen War, then in Aleppo in Syria,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, the former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, said of Aleksandr Dvornikov.

Russia’s new world order is bad news for Africa

Rather than following the lead of despots like Putin and Xi, Africa should chart its own path.

On March 30, just a day after a Russian missile hit an administrative building in the port city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, killing at least 12 people, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the case for the establishment of new world order. In a videotaped message to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Lavrov claimed the world is “living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations”. He added, “We, together with you, and with our sympathisers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order”.